YouTube Now Converting All 1080 Pixel Video Uploads To 3D

Posted on Apr 6 2012 - 6:02am by Editorial Staff

Last year YouTube kicked off a beta feature that let creators convert YouTube videos into 3D with a click, and since then users have converted hundreds of thousands of your videos to 3D. The company is expanding the beta by adding automatic 3D conversion for short-form videos uploaded in 1080p. Meaning, you can select 3D viewing in the Quality settings (click on the gear icon) on the YouTube player, then pop on your 3D glasses and see YouTube in another dimension.

Here is what YouTube says:

To give you more dimension on 3D, here’s some background how the conversion technology works at YouTube. Since last September we’ve been constantly improving the underlying technology, which now uses several techniques:

  • We use a combination of video characteristics such as color, spatial layout and motion to estimate a depth map for each frame of a monoscopic video sequence
  • We use machine learning from the growing number of true 3D videos on YouTube to learn video depth characteristics and apply them in depth estimation
  • The generated depth map and the original monoscopic frame create a stereo 3D left-right pair, that a stereo display system needs to display a video as 3D
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