Now You Can Watch 3D Videos On YouTube

YouTube’s new venture was well accepted by the global community of video creators, which provided one click option to convert an HD video to 3D. Today, YouTube has moved the video creator program from Beta to all YouTube users which means, now you can convert your YouTube videos to 3D and let viewers watch any of your videos in 3D mode. They will need those 3D glasses, which sadly, many of us don’t own yet.

If you ask me, I don’t find 3D videos that fascinating. The very first problem is the lack of proper 3D content on the web. Barring Avatar and a couple of other movies available in 3D, there is nothing earth-shaking about the 3D magic. Sometimes, I feel the 3D specs are too heavy on my face and it would be better, if I enjoy the movie through clean eyes. But maybe, that’s just me.

How to know if a YouTube video is available as 3D?

To know if a YouTube video is available in 3D mode or not, look for a tiny 3D icon in the right corner of the YouTube video player (positioned just left to the video quality drop down). Click the 3D option button and you would see the following options:

• Turn off 3D: This will toggle the video from 2D to 3D mode and from 3D to 2D mode.
• You can choose to watch the video in full colour by clicking the “Full Colour” button”.
• The optimized mode will load a more optimized version of the video but it is not recommended for slow connections.
• The grey scale button converts the YouTube video to grey scale, looks very cool if you want a Black and White effect. The quality in the grey scale mode will be reduced for most videos.

What if you are watching a YouTube video in 3D mode and don’t have 3D glasses or specs? You will see a drastically poor video quality because the 3D mode is worthwhile only if you have 3D glasses, otherwise it is just a waste of time.

Here is an example where I have turned the 3D mode on and looking through clean eyes (not 3D specs):

From first looks, it seems that the video is of bad quality or blurry. But the fact is that it is not at all blurry as you will get the best quality only when you watch the video through 3D glasses. Of course, YouTube’s machine 3D conversion will not be very optimized but I would rate it as grayish.

Find And Watch 3D Videos On YouTube

YouTube has a dedicated 3D channel at YouTube.com/user/3D where you can watch the best 3D videos on YouTube and download the videos on your computer using video downloading tools. The videos in the official 3D channel are neatly organized into playlists, here are some useful links which will get you started:

• Latest 3D videos of best quality - YouTube playlist
• Best 3D videos – playlist.
• Film and animation – 3D playlist.
• Cartoon films – 3D playlist
• 3D Games - playlist
• Nature and travel – 3D YouTube playlist
• How to videos and tutorials in 3D – YouTube playlist

Alternatively, just do a search for yt3d:enable=true followed by your keyword phrase and you can find 3D YouTube videos related to a particular topic. For example, if I want to find and watch 3D videos on YouTube related to sports, I would type the following in the YouTube search box:
yt3d:enable=true sports

Notice that there is a 3D icon placed just right to a video thumbnail, which confirms that the given video has been converted to its 3D mode by the uploader. Further, click the tiny 3D icon and you can filter 3D videos on YouTube and find videos related to a specific keyword or topic.
Since YouTube has just upgraded the video creator program from Beta to public use, the amount of video content is still meager. Hopefully, we will see more 3D video content in YouTube in coming months.