3D WOES

I cannot get my system to play 3D. Please help! This is super frustrating.

But my 2D viewing is absolutely phenomenal.

What hardware are you using and how do you have it connected?

oppo 93
panasonic PT-AE7000
990/7700

Gonk, the only connections I changed; with the system you helped me virtually build, was adding the 93 and the 7000. 2D viewing is a wonderful thing but everything seems to lose synchronization when 3D is attempted.

Are you using a High Speed HDMI cable to hook the Oppo to the AE7000? Standard Speed HDMI probably won't support 3D data rates.

I think I'm using the old standard 1.2.

How is it all connected? Does the HDMI connection from the BDP-93 go directly to the projector? If so, the issue may be related to cable length and the additional data that is involved in a 3D video signal.

Yes the connection is directly to the projector from the 93 but do you think the issue could be that I'm using the standard HDMI 1.2 and not the High Speed HDMI 1.4 that supports 1080p, 3D and Deep Color?

The ratings on cables are a bit dubious. That being said, 3D over HDMI does require more bandwidth, and that may be enough (particularly over the long length required for a front projector) for your existing cable to become a problem.

I consider Blue Jeans cable to be a reliable source of information and high quality cables. According to them the HDMI Version 1.0 cable is fully compliant with HDMI 1.4 but may not be high speed cable. There is some difference in the cable as far as speed but over short runs it may work as long as it is not defective and you don't require Ethernet. To Gonks point, a long run over HDMI does present problems. Can you test the projector with a short HDMI cable to verify it is the long run giving you problems? When I construct my HT room I plan on eliminating the long run issues because I see 4K coming down the road.

See this link to BJC:

http://bluejeanscable.com/articles/hdmi-1-4-cable.htm?hdmiinfo

Unfortunately testing a short run would be nearly impossible because of how my HT is configured. My HMDI run from the (ceiling mounted) projector back to my equipment rack is nearly 25ft. After doing some research it appears I will need to rerun a high speed HDMI (1.4) to get full HD and 3D. Thoughts

You could always grab a short cable and move the player to directly under the projector, see if the two components can work properly in that arrangement. If they can, it confirms that the cable is the problem. As Xenon points out, the problem isn't the "version" of the cable so much as the "speed" (bandwidth, sort of). If the cable is the problem, I would also recommend talking to Blue Jeans about a new cable - they are very honest about the best, most economical solutions for problematic HDMI cabling runs.

I would remove my BDP and use a six foot HDMI cable just to check out the 3D to make sure it isn't something else. My equipment is relatively easy to take out of the rack.

Cool. Thanks guys. I'll give those options a try and keep you posted.

Ok so I ran a 35ft Ultra High Speed 13.8Gbps HMDI cable from my projector to the DVI 1 connection of the 990 and was successful in getting the projector to output 1080p however I still noticed some "jitter" and no 3D. So I believe its because I probably also need to switch out the connection between the BDP-93 and the 990 to continue the circle of life to produce TrueHD 1080p and 3D. Would you agree?

Cool, sounds like your making progress...

My advice is to get the simplest configuration working first and then start adding components.

So I would first try connecting the projector directly to the bluray using your new HDMI cable. If this works then the problem is either the other cable OR the 990. It's possible that the 990 is the limiting factor and that whatever switching method Outlaw is using internally won't support the 3D data rates.

If the bluray-projector direct connect doesn't work then you've got a problem in either your bluray or projector setup.

Gonk, to answer your question about my connections:

1. The PT-AE7000 is HDMI out, into DVI-1 of the 990
2. Direct TV is HDMI out, into DVI-2 of the 990
3. OPPO BDP-93 is HDMI out, into DVI-3 of the 990

Still having the same issue of no 3D. Headed to Radio Shack or Best Buy right now to pick a DVI to HDMI adapter for the BDP-93 and Direct TV

The 990 has three DVI connections. The top one is DVI OUT and should be connected to the HDMI IN on your projector. The other two, below that, are DVI-1 and 2 IN and should go to your BDP and your DTV receiver. There is no DVI-3 so check your connections if you can. The 990 should not be connected to the HDMI OUT on your projector, so check that also. Good luck although I think it is probably connected right and the labels are just mixed up in the post.

You are correct. I don't know what the heck I was talking about earlier. Had too many things going on. Will let you know how the new connections work.

Ok changed all the cables and still no 3D. It seems the 990 doesn't want to want to process the 3D information. All 2D viewing and music listening is fine. Not sure if this matters but I've had the 990 for 6yrs now and I never did the firmware update because I never saw a real need to. Does this matter or is someone just going to tell me the 990 will not work in 3D?

Firmware updates to the 990 won't alter how the DVI switching works. I don't know if the DVI switching is compatible with 3D or not, but a simple test would be to bypass the 990 and see if going from the BDP-93 to the projector works.

I would think that since the original HDMI video spec was lower speed than current and the spec was developed from the original DVI video spec, it might not have the capacity for 3D. Someone from Outlaw should be able to tell you for certain. The 990 doesn't process the video signal at all.

This is straight from Blue Jeans Cable and it does not appear that DVI will support the higher bandwidths required of the later versions of HDMI and the newer codecs.

The HDMI standard and its older cousin, DVI, are very closely related to one another. Both use the same methods of video encoding, and send video information down the same sort of cable structure. The HDMI spec requires that HDMI devices be backward-compatible with the DVI standard, which in theory (though, unfortunately, not always in practice) means that whenever you have a device with a DVI connection on it, an HDMI to DVI cable will give you a funtioning connection.

As with all standard-compatibility questions, there are a few caveats.

•First, HDMI is not compatible with DVI-A, the analog DVI format, so it is not possible to hook up, for example, a VGA monitor to an HDMI source by using a combination of VGA/DVI and DVI/HDMI adapters and cables.
•Second, the DVI standard does not support embedded audio, so whenever you're interconnecting DVI and HDMI equipment, you'll need to make sure that you've provided a separate path for the flow of the audio.
•Third, any "new" HDMI features--deep color, different colorspaces, et cetera--are unique to HDMI and will not be supported by a DVI connection (though the two devices should communicate just fine without them).
•Fourth, although DVI has a "dual-link" version which is used to support higher resolutions, HDMI has no dual-link version available (yes, there's one in the spec, but there are no real-world devices that use it); accordingly, ALL DVI to HDMI cables are single-link only, even if the DVI plug on the cable carries the dual-link pins.
•Fifth -- well, some DVI devices are just cranky and will not work properly when connected to some HDMI devices, largely because strict compliance with the DVI standard was not really carefully policed.

All of that should be true for DVI displays and DVI sources. One wrinkle to that is the fact that the Model 990's DVI functions are basically just switching. How Blue Jeans' description of the differences between DVI and later iterations of HDMI may relate to using a DVI switch between HDMI devices is less clear-cut. I do think that it's likely that the Model 990 and other DVI switching devices are going to choke on 3D signals, even if the only way to prove it is to try them and see since the standards governing these two have never been the most perfectly defined...

I think it likely that the switch on the 990 is designed to pass the original DVI bandwidth and maybe a little more since it has been capably doing so for many for a long time. However it should be simple to test the theory by removing the 990 from the pathway and just running high speed HDMI cable. If it allows 3D, game over. Bypass the DVI and use the analog through the 990. Will get much easier (we hope)when the 978 makes its appearance.

Ok I tried going directly from the projector to the BD. Not only did I lose picture quality (which is completely baffling using the higher bandwidth cable) but 3D still did not work. The BD and projector are brand new so what is the likelihood that neither is working correctly.

Gotta be an issue with the settings on either the BDP or the projector. Gonk is the go to guy for setting up the OPPO. Not sure abount the Panny but maybe I will look.