3D Oops

I wrote about this on the filk_uk mail-list, but it amused me sufficiently to write about it here, too, as not everybody here is there, and vice versa.

On Sunday, I went to a house filk hosted by and . While there I shot some video, to get some practice with my Bloggie 3D.

On getting home, I had something to eat, and decided to quickly check out the footage, by plugging the camera into the back of my TV.

After switching the TV to 3D mode, I was most disappointed, as skipping through the footage it looked like everything I shot was badly blurred. This was not the case with stuff I had filmed at other times, where the picture had appeared quite sharp. I wondered if perhaps I had smeared a lens, or whether I had over-estimated the light levels in the room, although I couldn’t see why that should affect the focus (as I believe this camera is fixed focus)

I was just about to abandon it, and go to bed, when I realised my mistake. For the past few days, I have been playing with my laptop, also 3D, but with a glasses free screen. My TV, on the other hand requires passive polarised glasses. Without them, both eyes were seeing both right and left pictures. No wonder it was blurred!

Anyway, with specs on, the footage looks pretty good, and it sounds decent too, which was something else I wanted to check. For some reason, I had assumed the Bloggie 3D recorded in mono, but there are, in fact two microphones inside, and it records in stereo. The microphones have about the same spacing as the lens, so separation won’t be that great, but the sound quality is good. Unlike my Kodak camera, there is no facility for external mikes, but you can’t have everything; and there is something to be said for keeping it simple.