I installed a shiny new 3D projector — DLP, which so far are the best kind for 3D performance. I popped into the player a demo Blu-ray 3D disc I always start with, and it only displays in 2D.
So I fiddle with the projector’s settings. Still 2D. I switch the receiver and player off, and then back on, with a view to them re-inialising their HDMI settings so that they can correctly detect that they are attached to a 3D system. Still 2D. I unplug and replug-in the external 3D sync transmitter. Still 2D.
I switch everything off, then plug the 3D Blu-ray player directly into the projector and switch it all back on. 2D. So far, all has been via HDMI 1.
I go through the projector’s menu system very carefully, item by item, to see if there is some kind of 3D enable/disable function. No. I consult the projector’s manual to see if I’ve missed something. Apparently no.
I try a different Blu-ray 3D player, plugged into HDMI 2. Eureka! 3D!
Time to plug the first Blu-ray player into HDMI 2, since HDMI 1 apparently doesn’t support 3D, although I can’t imagine why. As I switch the player on a thought occurs to me. I take action as a result.
Yes, we have 3D! I switch off the player, replug it into the home theatre receiver, and the receiver to the projector back into the original input, restoring the very first setup I had. I switch on the player, and yes we have 3D!
What action did I take to resolve the problem?
Answer over the fold.
The action I took was to press the ‘Stop’ key for the Blu-ray player twice.
Simple, huh?
But why?
The disc I was using is very basic. It has no BD-Java code. Most Blu-ray players will restart such discs from the point at which they last stopped. Which is what was happening with this disc.
And normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. But it now seems likely that the last time I played the disc I was using my own 2D projector. The Blu-ray player must have remembered its play state from the last time it had played the disc, and that would have included its 3D state. I don’t think it was due to it possibly playing a different Blu-ray playlist, because according to my analysis of the disc, it only seems to have the one playlist.
Anyway, hitting the stop key once stops play. Hitting it a second time cancels the resume play mode, so that the disc is treated as a fresh one. The disc is re-read, identified as having 3D content, the player queries the system afresh and confirms that it handles 3D, and on we got to proper 3D playback.
Simple, huh? Except for the hour of fiddling around before I fell upon the answer.