How to Watch 3D Blu-ray Movies on the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift (Without Having to Re-Encode)

Ever since I first got a VR Headset, I have wanted to watch my collection of 3D Blu-ray movies in a virtual IMAX theater.

Unfortunately, every single guide I found on how to do this would have required purchasing expensive software like DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper or Pavtube Video Converter (shudder), and also required the extremely time consuming process of ripping and re-encoding the Blu-ray movies into SBS (Side-by-Side) format. If you follow those guides, each movie can take hours to process and render, and the resulting video files will inevitably suffer from quality loss compared to the original Blu-rays.

Why can’t I just put the Blu-ray movie in the disk player and hit play?

Why can’t you just play the movie directly on your Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, without having to rip and re-encode it? Well, unfortunately, at the moment (most likely because of licensing concerns), an actual 3D Blu-ray player app doesn’t currently exist for VR… Or does it?

With the help of countless google searches and various scattered forum posts, I finally pieced together how to accomplish this goal.

The initial setup process is a little bit long-winded, but trust me, the payoff at the end is worth it.
The best part? All of these tools are FREE or open source!

Required Tools


1. Download and install K-Lite codec pack – Standard. Make sure that you get the Standard version of the pack, which includes Media Player Classic. This codec pack will let you play Blu-ray videos without having to buy an expensive program like PowerDVD or something. Side Note: Make sure that you skip the steps that ask if you want to install ad-ware near the end of the installation process!


2. Download the installer for the latest release version of LAVFilters. This will allow you split your 3D video streams apart on the fly (instead of having to re-encode everything).

When installing LAVFilters, make sure you select the option to download the additional “H.264 MVC 3D Decoder”


3. Download and install the latest release of madVR. This will allow your media player to display the fully uncompressed, split video streams side-by-side (or over-and-under).

To install madVR, you will need to extract the archive, copy the madvr folder somewhere on your computer (for example: C:\Program Files\madvr), and then run the “install.bat” file there in the madvr folder. To do this, you will need to right click on the file and select “Run as administrator”.


Configuring Media Player Classic

Once you have all of these pre-requisites installed, open up Media Player Classic and select “Options” under the “View” menu item.

From there, go to Playback > Output, and select “madVR” under the DirectShow Video dropdown. Make sure you click the “Apply” button to save!

Now, go to the “External Filters” section and click the “Add Filter” button. You will want to add five filters. Make sure that each one’s priority level is set to “Prefer”, so they over-ride the default internal filters:
1. LAV Audio Decoder
2. LAV Splitter
3. LAV Splitter Source
4. LAV Video Decoder
5. madVR

Hit the “OK” button to save everything, then go over to your madVR settings.


madVR Settings

If you installed madVR correctly, you should be able to get to it by clicking your start button and simply typing “madvr” to find it.

Find your default display under the “Devices” section and click the arrow next to it to expand the menu. Go down and click on “Properties”. From there, you should be able to set your desired 3D format to “top-and-bottom”.

Under the “general settings” section, I also tweaked a couple of things. In particular, I enabled windowed overlay, as well as the checkbox for using Direct3D 11 for presentation.
Side Note: According to some reports I have received, you may or may not be able to select the Direct3D 11 option (depending on your video card). If you have everything else set up according to this guide, but Media Player Classic keeps crashing on you, try leaving that option un-checked.

Under the “stereo 3d” section, I checked the box to “enable stereo 3d playback”, and also the checkbox and radio button to enable “when playing 3d content”.

Under “smooth motion”, I checked the box to “enable smooth motion frame rate conversion – only if there would be motion judder without it…”

Hit the “OK” button to save everything, then go over to your LAV Video settings.


LAV Video Configuration

If you have LAVFilters installed correctly, you should be able to get to this by hitting your start menu and searching for “LAV Video”.

I got a HUGE boost in performance by switching the Hardware Acceleration > Hardware Decoder drop-down option from “None” over to “DXVA2 (copy-back)”, so I would recommend trying out that out option first. If you notice your movies playing jerkily, try switching this option to some of the other modes available and see if that helps.

Hit the “OK” button to save everything, then go back over to Media Player Classic.


Watching your 3D Blu-ray

Insert a 3D Blu-ray disk into your drive (or mount a backup image of one of your 3D Blu-ray disks using a free tool such as DVDFab Virtual Drive). Side Note: If you encounter any problems with opening your Blu-ray disks directly (such as a “can’t render file” error), you might need to install a free tool like DVDFab Passkey Lite. Alternately, you can try using DVDFab HD Decrypter (another free tool) to decrypt the disk and back it up directly to your hard drive.

(Warning: I do not condone any type of copyright infringement or piracy. This tutorial assumes that you own the Blu-ray movies you are attempting to view, and that you are authorized to do so.)

Go to your “File” menu and select “Open DVD/BD”:

Browse to your Blu-ray drive and hit the “Select Folder” button:

If you got this far, give yourself a big ol’ pat on the back. Congratulations! You should now be able to see your 3D Blu-ray movie in split (top-and-bottom) mode, with NO RE-ENCODING!

Note: If your movie has black bars on the top and bottom of it (wasted space which could be used for showing more detail in split mode), I recommend right clicking on the video area and selecting “Scale to 16:9 TV” under the “Pan and Scan” section of the menu. You might also want to experiment with the other various zoom, video frame, and pan and scan options. Basically, you want to fill up as much as your screen as possible, while keeping the aspect ratio correct.


Viewing Your 3D Movie in Virtual Reality

Now, you will need to install either Bigscreen or Virtual Desktop in your Steam library.

Both of these apps will let you see your desktop inside your VR Headset, and both of these apps will split either SBS (side-by-side) or Over-and-Under/Top-and-Bottom video feeds out to your headset in 3D mode.

I tried both of these apps, and I prefer Bigscreen. At the moment, it is in beta (so it is free), and it gives you a lot more fine-tuned control of the screen projection, such as setting the curvature.

Bigscreen

Put on your VR Headset, open Bigscreen, and go over to the “Environment” option area. Select “The Void”. You can play around with other environments later, but for now, this one will give you the most bang for your buck.

Now go over to the “Customize Your Screen” option area. Drag the sliders around until you have everything set up according to your personal tastes. I like dialing the screen size up to max, then adjusting the distance until I can see the whole screen. This really gives it a giant screen, IMAX theater feel!

Next, click and hold the “Move Screen” button, then move your head around to to position it in a relaxed spot in front of you.

You will want to select the first option (primary screen in front), and the “OU” (Over/Under) 3D mode. To get these two options to work together, you will also need to check the checkbox to “Allow 3D Modes in any Display Option”.

Use ALT+TAB to switch back to Media Player Classic, press ALT+ENTER on your keyboard to enable fullscreen mode, and press your space bar to pause/play.

You now have your own personal IMAX theater for watching 3D Blu-ray movies!

138 comments

  • Doesn’t work as says won’t render file in media player.

    Also DVD fab hd decrypter is only trail ware and done nothing to help. Or do you mean I have to rip the blu ray? If so, article is pointless

  • Is the image at the top a screen cap?
    If I cross my eyes, it doesn’t seem to be 3d 🙁

    • that requires it to be set up for cross eyed viewing, otherwise they are not flipped left and right.

      • Well if you want you can angle right side left then left angle it for more visual clarity. Squint in the right side and angle left with the left side angled far left over the right side. Hope that helps!

  • where can I find a list of 3D Blu-Ray titles?

  • works realy good. Thank you man, this was a great work from you 🙂

  • Thank you very much for the detailed Guide.

    I can confirm, when following this guide, it works perfectly !!!

    I had to use DVDFab Passkey lite, but now i can watch all my 3d Blurays.

    One question maybe: When starting DVDFab passkey lite, do i need to activate or register it in any way ?
    Or will it run as lite as long as i don’t upgrade ?

    But apart from that: a 1000 THANKS !!!!

  • Hey Tom!

    Saw article 🙂
    Followed instructions. 🙂
    Had to install DVDFab passkey light like user adtbm said. 🙂
    I can play my 3D Blu-rays on my PC BUT…

    ONLY PLAYS IN 2D!!! 🙁 🙁 🙁

    Tried multiple disks, rebooted, went through settings again as shown (even copied settings from the screenshots you provided). Still wont play in sbs or top-bottom. Plays great as 2D though, lol..

    Really appreciate the tutorial but I definitely need help!!

    Thanks

    • Life Pro Tip:
      If you want the settings to actually save, click “Apply” before switching tabs.

      IT WORKS NOW!!! Thanks for being a supporter of VR.

      My problem was the step below. When i did it properly windows permissions popped up when i tried to play a video asking if MADVR was ok to run…

      [From there, go to Playback > Output, and select “madVR” under the DirectShow Video dropdown.]

      • I’m glad to hear you got it figured out and that it is working for you! I have taken your feedback about the “Apply” button and updated the guide so that step is mentioned. Thanks! 🙂

  • oops, posted in wrong part. derp

  • Ok, so I followed all instructions, had to also download the Passkey Lite and it does work – opens in media player, and it plays wonderfully in normal 2D mode. I saw the comment above, where someone had not applied a setting with the same issue, double checked, that step is done. Went back to the beginning and followed all the settings steps to check again, and everything selected. How do I make it play in 3D mode not 2D?

    http://puu.sh/uDW20/29b4f85d90.jpg

    • Stefan Camporese

      Did you ever figure it out? I’m having the same problem myself. I’m getting really angry at this point. ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

      • Andreas Neumann

        Didn’t work for me too and I fiddled around with the settings for hours.
        Then I changed in MP options Playback > Output the Video Renderer to VMR 9, restartet MP changed the Video Renderer back to madVR and it worked.
        Hope this helps others too.

  • Your instructions are damn near perfect, so thank you! But I’m curious. I have the actual 3D effect working perfectly. But in the rift, there is a major image stutter. Almost like you’re only seeing every 2nd or 3rd frame. Very jerky. The effect is not reciprocated on my PC screen. The PC screen looks fine. Any advice on getting ride of it? My PC is an absolute powerhouse with a core i7 processor, a ridiculous NVidia video card, and 16gb DDR3 ram, so the computer isn’t the problem. I play 2D blurays just fine in Kodi with no stutter.

    • Thanks for the kind words! The guide took me quite a few hours to put together, so I’m glad that people are being helped by it!

      The only thing I can think of that might help your image stutter problem would be to experiment with different Hardware Decoder options under the LAV Video Configuration settings. Maybe try each one and compare to see if one works better on your system or not?

  • It works and I get 3D but when I put the Vive headset on I see 2 screens. One is the same as on the PC the movie split into over and under. The other screen which is controlled by the Bigscreen settings is in 3D. Is the idea to move the Bigscreen so that it is covering the split screen or is there a setting I missed so that the Bigscreen is the only one seen? Also after I move the Bigscreen over the top of the split screen it appears to be tilted with the top towards me and the bottom away. Any way to adjust that?

    Thanks for these instructions I have been looking for this for a while.

    • You will want to select display option that uses the front screen while hiding the back screen. For this to work, you have to enable the option that says, “Allow 3d modes in any display option”.

  • Why not Side-by-side? The loss of resolution would appear to be less compared to OU. Did you try it?
    Now that PDVD17 came out without support for 3D Bluray in VR, I am glad this works. Thank you for the effort.

    • I was under the impression that the over-under method was doing a better job of retaining the resolution since I have a 4K display, and could easily display two 1920×1080 videos streams in full resolution in over/under, filling up my entire screen.

      That might not be the case, though.

      It’s quite easy to change the display mode to side-by-side in your MadVR 3D display properties. You can always try that method and see if it looks better!

  • Rod,
    you may be missing setting the right Display Option (first one, per the instructions above). See here:
    http://bigscreenvr.com/help/gettingstarted/sbs3d/

  • I was missing the UHD display aspect. In that case, it should not matter. Actually, it should not matter even with a FHD display, given that the effective resolution of the virtual screen is less than 720p, even if it fills up the available FOV.

  • Stefan Camporese

    Can someone PLEASE help? I’ve tripled checked my settings… It still only outputs in 2D. Anyone willing to help me?

  • Stefan Camporese

    Please someone help me! I can’t get it to output in SBS or Overunder. It will only display in 2D. I’ve followed every step and triple checked if everything is applied. Someone please help for the love of GOD!

    • Hello Stefan,

      All I know is that these instructions work for me and for many other people who have followed the instructions.

      With that said, I initially had a hard time getting this working, and it was because I hadn’t set up the MadVR settings correctly for my monitor.

      See this screenshot:
      https://www.tchapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/madvr-display-properties.jpg

      Make sure that you have the 3D format drop-down menu set up for your computer monitor. If you have more than one computer monitor, then make sure that you set up the 3D format for each one.

      Also, make sure that your external filters are all set up, and that when you select each one it is set to “Prefer”. If you have any other external filters there besides these, then remove them:
      https://www.tchapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/mpc-external-filters.jpg

      And make sure that your DirectShow output is set to MadVR:
      https://www.tchapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/mpc-playback-output.jpg

      If it still doesn’t work after you triple check these settings, then I’m not really sure how to help?

      It’s possible that there’s some other setting somewhere that is screwed up, and without knowing what that setting is, the only way to fix it would be to start again from a blank slate. You could always try creating a whole new user account on your Windows and run through the whole installation guide again and see if it worked? Or try it with a different computer entirely?

  • Many thanks for these instructions, this is a real boon 🙂

    One slight tweak that simplifies them just a fraction, it doesn’t seem to be necessary to download MadVR separately any more, the version bundled in the latest K-Lite codec pack (as of 10 May ’17) appears to work just fine. Separate download of LAVFilters is still necessary as the version bundled with K-Lite codec pack doesn’t include the ‘H.264 MVC 3D Decoder’.

  • Justus Richard Stindt

    I finally did it! I just watched Frozen in 3D and it was a blast! I have about 10 crappy Blu Ray Rips from different programs which never managed to grab the 3D thing but with your tutorial it finally works! Thanks an awful lot, now i have to buy some more 3D Blu Rays!
    Awesome Guide!

  • First off thanks for the wonderfully written and thorough guide !
    I have had some issues like some other people in the comments getting this to work. (only would show me 2d)
    however i figured out that the issue for me was the fact that MPC has LAV filters included (internal) and i was setting MPC up to use those.
    The solution for me was ad the installed LAV filters manually by using “browse” and navigate to my install folder and add them this way.
    hope this might help some of you guys that are stuck in 2D.

    • I would like to try this method as I’m stuck in 2D, but I’m unsure what files I should be selecting. I don’t see anything named exactly the same as those filters and I’m unsure of the file format – are the filters .ax files? I’m hoping to get exact file extensions for reference.

  • Nice tutorial! Can’t wait to have a try. I have been used pavtube bytecopy for several weeks, So far I would consider it fair as a converter. 

  • Hello,
    Thanks a LOT for that information, now I can watch my Blu-Ray 3D collection on my Pimax 4K VR headset too ! I’m using AnyDVD HD anyway because I hate the annoying advertisements before the disc even starts, so no problem here.

    An additional trick for AMD graphic card users:
    You can make a vertical eyefinity group if you have two full HD monitors and stretch the MPC-HC player to both displays, so you will have full HD in both eyes on the VR headset, instead of having half of 1080p in each eye.
    I suppose it also works with nVidias version of multi monitor, but I can’t try that for now.

  • Got rid of panning stutter via MadVR in MPC, now is there any way for MadVR to have an effect in the Rift? The Rift is displayed in Devices (MadVR), but it’s greyed out. Sure, I can watch videos in Bigscreen, but without user-presets it’s too tedious to set multiple preferences each time. My preferred player is Whirligig.

  • This works Perfectly.

    But a tip for anyone who already has MPC installed.
    I would suggest uninstalling MPC first before following these steps.
    As i spent 2 hours with it not playing in top and bottom mode because of the version of my MPC to the LAV filters download needed.

  • Yeah, I’m getting the cannot render file message. Using a physical Blu Ray disc. Followed the instructions, and double checked everything. Not sure but this doesn’t seem to work.

  • OKay so it works except I can’t get rid of the stupid BigScreen window, it won’t hide, only X out which closes the program?!

  • Thanks so much for this!!!
    After installing the latest K-Lite codec pack I noticed the LAV filters were already there but I couldn’t get my movies to play in 3D.
    Should have done like you said and download them from the source you supplied because after adding these everything’s working great. So happy with this. No more wasting time ripping my own Blu-ray discs!
    I use the Big Cinema environment in the latest Big Screen app and it’s like sitting in the theater. Awesome!!!

  • This looks like a great article, thanks for taking the time to write-up and share.

    But I noticed one of the tools, the DVDFab, is downloaded from China, which makes my skin itch.

    You’ve obviously been using these for more than a few months. How comfortable are you that these tools are not hiding any malware?

    Just being cautious 🙂 and thanks again!

    Elohir

  • Mike Litzinger

    This guide is fantastic and comprehensive, but I’ve run into one final stumbling block… when I try to play the movie back, it’s a black screen in the Oculus, but it’s showing fine on my PC. It even popped up for a moment in 3D when I first loaded it but won’t come back now. Any suggestions?

    • Joshua J. Slone

      I just posted below with the issues I ran into, and this was one of them. Since MPC goes into an exclusive full-screen mode (at least once all these other things are installed and set up), I turned on Allow Injection in Virtual Desktop and then once going to full-screen in MPC it showed up in the headset.

  • Works great. I was able to get this working with Virtual Desktop but not bigscreen for some reason. It keeps showing the two separate over under video streams.

    I use MakeMKV to rip the 3D movie to my server. I can play the same MKV file on my home theater with HD audio intact or watch the 3D version on my PC and downmix the audio with LAV Audio to stereo for the oculus to play. One day I’ll try Oculus while running audio to home theater.

  • Followed the instructions to the letter, got it all set up as you suggested, then slammed my BR3D disk of Star Wars – TFA in the drive.. stuck my Vive over my head and my 7:1 headphones on…
    and was totally blown away!

    I’ve watched 3D movies on my TV, and at the cinema, but now I know where I am going to watch most often! Great walkthrough, and very much appreciated.
    Thank You

  • Great walkthrough. Followed it to the letter and worked first time.
    Star Wars – TFA didnt even look this good in the cinema.
    Much appreciated, Thank you!

  • Works great, thanks!

  • Worked a treat, cheers 🙂

    Only issue I had was with Media Player Classic crashing when launching a BluRay – un-checking the ‘Direct3D 11 for presentation’ again sorted it.

  • Benjamin Beetle

    When I open “MadVR” there is nothing listed under “Devices” – any ideas?

  • Joshua J. Slone

    Thanks for this guide! The last time I looked (several years back) I couldn’t find any free Blu-ray software at all, so I was pleased to see today that there were multiple options–but disappointed none seemed to support 3D. I decided to search a different way and see if anyone was playing 3D BD in VR, and your guide ended up solving both problems!

    For what it’s worth, I did run into a few issues, and after tinkering here is what I think took care of them.

    1) Media Player Classic seemed to be constantly switching between Playing and Paused states. It seemed to be a madVR issue, and I think what solved it was in General Settings checking on “delay playback start until render queue is full”.

    2) Media Player Classic crashing on opening any file–this didn’t seem to happen until sometime after I fixed the above, but back in General settings turning off Direct3D seemed to take care of it.

    3) All that done it was displaying the movie properly on screen. Started up Virtual Desktop, put on my headset and… the headset view of MPC was just a blank screen! Without D3D11 it’s not captured properly perhaps? Anyway, I turned on Virtual Desktop’s Allow Injection mode, and then when switching MPC to full screen it properly captured and displayed it in Virtual Desktop.

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  • This was working as of a week ago. However, the newest update has broken 3D playback as far as I can tell. The program keeps trying to throw me into the bigscreen when I just want to use the screen I setup. I may have to get VRdesktop to continue watching my 3d Blu-rays on the VR screen.

  • thank you for this tutorial 🙂

  • Roger Pingleton

    Truly superb work on this! Thanks so much! I was able to get everything to work up until the point of having the movie play on the screen using Big Screen. Unfortunately I am having the same issues Joshua Slone and Mike Litzinger were having. I would pony up the cash for Virtual Desktop, but since I am dependent on Passkey Lite, I wanted to know if that will still work past the trial date or if I will need to buy the full version which is quite expensive. Is anyone using Passkey Lite past the trial date? Many Thanks!

  • This worked a treat for me! Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was jaw dropping at moments. Thank you so much for the guide!

  • Thank you so much!

  • I tried everything here, but when I downloaded Passkey Lite, it said I had to purchase a higher version to work on the 3d Blu Ray :/

  • Natural history museum alive 3d looked really great thank you. I will be using this a lot. I love the OLED of the rift and total lack of crosstalk. Despite the loss sharpness I would say there is no way active shutter 3D can match this. I switched from my 1080p monitor to a nearby 4k TV using desktop settings and noticed an improved sharpness. It is not easy to see but I am sure it was quite an improvement. I could only handle MSAAx2 in 4K. However I do not like running a 4K tv and wearing the headset also so I have on order a headless ghost ( HDMI display emulator ). I will be experimenting with 3840*1080 resolution and enjoying saving kilowatt hours on the leccy bill. I did disable exclusive fullscreen in madVR general settings because I was getting crashes upon entering fullscreen after grey lettering popped up saying ‘exclusive’. Guess I will not be upgrading to powerdvd 17 then…

  • well i cant get media player to go into over under mode so the issues with bigscreen are moot for me right now. Tried reinstall of MPC with no luck. Is this working for anyone at this point? Just want to check before I tear it apart and try a couple more times.

  • Great tutorial; worked for me easily! Afterwards I did a lot of playing around to see if I could improve anything. I’m not sure K-Lite is necessary at all. You should get everything you need from Media Player Classic, LAV, and madVR.

    My sizable 3D Blu-ray collection lives on!

  • No matter what I try I keep getting the cannot render the file error message. I am at a loss.

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  • I use BigScreen to watch and it go black screen with MKV movie in full screen, Mp4 doesn’t have this issue, any suggestions ?

  • Sadly it doesn’t seem to work for me.

    I have a top/bottom split screen in MPC and the OU button in Bigscreen doesn’t seem to make it 3D.

  • Thanks for the guide, had to browse to the LAV filters and select them from the install directory (in program files) to get the movies to display in 3D.

    However it seems to be jerky when watching the movies. If I set it so I can see the SBS images showing at the same time, it looks nice a smooth (I have using BigPicture and have Nvidia 1070), but when the software shows them in 3D, it seems very jerky. Anyone come across this issue, sorted it?

  • If any of you have problems with MPC crashing when trying this, try reinstalling NVIDIA drivers, but choose Custom Setup and uncheck the two 3D vision drivers.

  • You Sir, are a genius! Got it to work, but I had to install the LAV Filters second. K-Lite made me uninstall the Lav Filters so I used the ones they included and it did not work. Needed to add the filters for the Lav Filters I installed after. At least I THINK That is how I got it working. I recalled you saying you played around with it for hours to get it working originally so I kept tinkering until success. : )

  • this took a while but its easy to get confused in mixed reality having to use controllers mouse and keyboard. You have to follow the instructions exactly. thank you

    my problem now is that my movie crashes after 5 minutes or so. I’ll keep messing around since the result is something else. I’ve been playing with wizard of oz 3d. my box seems a little underpowered as well

    core i5-8400
    16GB ram
    nvidia gtx-1060

  • It works! Fantastic! Thank you so much!

  • It took a day or two for me to get it working since the current version of K-Lite has LAV Filters and madVR installing by default (and no adware to opt out of). Like Nixx wrote though, I had to reinstall LAV Filters separately after K-Lite because the bundled ones don’t work right. The bundled madVR does work fine.

    It can get confusing installing Passkey Lite, since if you click the wrong place, it will make you install the whole DVDFab suite trial. You want the installer that says DVDFabPasskey#### which is around 13MB.

    Thanks for the guide!

  • I’ve got it ‘mostly working’. Looks like the BigScreen app as been updated so that part of the instructions are now incorrect.

    My issue:
    In Bigscreen, I select “The Void” adjust the screen, as recommended, to look like a big IMAX screen. When I play my Blu-ray disk in this new big IMAX screen, the image in MPC is still OU, and not 3D.

    However, if I click the OU button in the BigScreen options, the IMAX screen is still in 2D OU but a new small window appears in front of that that is in proper OU 3D. I can’t seem to find a setting to make the IMAX screen to kick into 3D OU.

    • Where are my manners…

      …these instructions are an absolute god send, however!
      I cannot express enough how grateful I am for them!

    • So I wanted too add… something rather vital… this works perfectly on my Vibe, it seems. The IMAX window does the OU. So my issue seems to be with my Windows MR set.

      Will keep playing.

  • Works great with Oculus Rift CV1, Windows 10.
    Thank you sooo much!

  • Has anyone else been able to get this to work as of late? DVDFab Passkey Lite no longer allows me to decrypt the 3D Blu-Rays and is trying to force me to purchase a license key 🙁

  • For anyone who did not find “madVR” in their start menu, go to the directory of madvr, launch “madHcCtrl.exe”, then in left side of your taskbar, double click the icon for that program you just launched.

    • Zeljko Nikolic

      what taskbar? i click it and nothing happens.

      • Zeljko Nikolic

        I know now.i have to start the player and pause a videofile and go to filters.I have done like you before but madvr isnt accessible like that for me anymore.Strange cuz i have done it like you tutorial and it worked..idk..well..it works.thats what matters

  • I did all the points like a recept, but i can Play the 3D BluRay only in 2D.
    Media Player won’t Play top-bottom

  • I would suggest using the SBS (Side By Side) 3D option in MadVR and Bigscreen instead of OU (Over Under) or Top and Bottom as its named in MadVR.
    OU causes a lot of flickering in the reflections in BigScreen (current version 0.34.0) and I find it too distracting.
    This happens whether or not the Real Time Reflection option is enabled or disabled.
    The flickering is much less apparent using the SBS option.
    DVDFab Passkey lite no longer works in the free version anymore, but you can acquire an older version of the full version online. 😉

  • Worked out after a bunch of head scratching. I thought passkey was only for iso images, but it’s required for mk3d filed also. I believe those files are mainly created with makemkv. I’m usimg MPC BE do the steps are a bit different.

  • Not works in Windows Mixed Reality headset, after install all codecs an programs when you initialize the Windows mixed Reality portal it says not found any headset and enter in a bucle.

  • Thanks, got it working! I suggest that in the instructions it would also say as a first step “If you have MPC already installed, uninstall it first (otherwise the top-and-bottom mode will not work)”. As I also spent 2 hours trying to figure that out. Thank you!

  • What kind of Blu-ray drive is recommended? Would it be best using USB 3 or is USB 2 sufficient?

  • Wow, it works.
    The steps are detailed and easy to follow.
    Thank you!

  • wont work for me when i get to the steam bigscreen part.

    my media player classic is showing the top/bottom 3d split fine in full screen.

    when i go to bigscreen i can hear the audio fine, but the screen that should show media player is just a static colour so does not appear to be rendering.

    any ideas?

  • Just in case any on is interested this does work with oculus quest. You have to use it with ALVR on order to connect the quest to PC but it works like a champ I hosted X-men Apocalypse 3d with 6-8 guests and with minimal Lag. The only annoying thing a the bigscreen splash screen would pop up if someone new entered it was just for a millisecond also I couldn’t find the oculus mic so not talking.

  • Unable to render files. It does not work!

  • By reading the comments, it seemed to work in 2017, but it didn’t work for me now in 2019. The whole process was pointless because nothing decrypted the blurays in the player. At the end of the day I just ended up ripping 3 Blurays with that DVDfab free trial mentioned at the end. The ripping process takes about 5hrs for each disc which is insaneeee. Surprised there’s not a real software solution to play 3D Blu-rays in VR yet.

  • Wow! Folks like Mr. Chapin, and all of the great comments from this neat little community that has sprung up around a bunch of folks wanting to make this work for others. So, they can experience something really cool is a nice way to start the day.

    But, only a few days to explain why you just bought 30 movies you already own in at least two other formats.. now I just need to figure out how to sync up two versions to watch at once.. Or, I’ll hear a bunch of. Ih, this is really cool! You should figure out how you can watch too! ??

    I’ll take a look again. Because, I’m dense and miss everything. But, if you have a referral link to purchase those films. It’s the least we could do to try to compensate for the work you’ve done.

    Thanks so much! So, neat!!

  • The guide is just awesome. Thank you very much.

    I only have a PSVR and although the PS4 works just fine for 3D BDs, I feel the picture quality on the PC is far better.

    I use TrinusPSVR with it and everything works fine except 2 things:

    1- I have to rip the full disc first because DVDFab Passkey never worked for me.
    2- There is weird movements to the screen in Bigscreen when my head moves even a little bit.

    On the PS4, the 3D BDs work in Cinematic Mode which doesn’t move at all unlike VR and I wonder if there is such mode on PC that works with 3D BDs too. The PC Cinematic mode for PSVR is 2D only.

    Do the people with Rift or Vive also have these weird movements of the movie screen? If not, maybe it is related to having different tracking technology or something for these PC VR Headsets.

  • thanks, also with oculus quest and virtual desktop it works very well

  • Hi, thanks for taking the trouble to post this! 3D movies are really effective in VR!
    Like others, my movies were displayed in 2D, but downloading and re-installing LAV filters worked for me. I didn’t do this when following the steps because I already use the K-Lite pack and the H.264 MVC 3D Decoder was already marked as installed.
    Hope this helps someone else with the same issue!

  • Got this working with a Samsung Odyssey +. One issue was it didn’t display correctly with “over under”, but switching it to SBS fixed it. The other issue was jerkiness in the headset, but smooth on the desktop. For some reason SteamVR had to be the focus and then it was smooth as butter in VR. Luckily I can drag the SteamVR window out of sight except for the menu bar.

    As far as the Odyssey+, the anti SDE kind of works against real 3D video footage. But it’s definitely watchable. 3D Blurays look a lot better in my Oculus Quest.

    Dell XPS 8700
    16gb Ram
    LG BP50NB40
    Bigscreen Beta
    nVidia 1660
    Samsung Odyssey+

  • Worked like a charm. I found that madvr is included in K-Lite codec pack ‘Mega’ so didn’t even need to download it. I already had Bigscreen beta on Steam and opened it in Steam mode. I followed all the instructions and bingo ! I have an Occulus Rift S and the quality is very good. I’d never have known how to do that on my own. Thanks Tom !

  • This worked for me too, very much appreciated.

    I did have trouble getting 3D to work, but persisted. For me the problem was (i think) selecting the built in LAV filters in the list. I went back in, chose browse and manually set the LAV to the x86 LAV decoders where I manually installed them. The LAV Splitter Source I just selected in the regular list as before (it was not in the dir I had installed to)

    Thankyou to the chap who posted this fix! And to the author, I’m thrilled to have this working!

  • For anyone like me who had followed all the instructions and was still seeing the screen displaying side by side or over/under…try going to “My Room” and “Monitors” in Big Screen VR itself and changing it to the appropriate setting! Works like a charm!

    Anyone have a clue which previous version of DVDFab Passkey doesn’t have the trial?

  • I have been able to play every 3D movie I tried so far except the one I am trying now. I figure it’s only a matter of figuring it out but it gets really frustrating. It might be as easy as rebooting the computer and/or the BD or Passkey. Sometimes I have to go to the quick open option in Media Player and find the correct file that starts the movie which is what I did for the last one. I wonder if doing this messes something up. I have reinstalled the LAV filers a couple times and changed the output to something other than MadVR and back. One time, I thought I found an option to reset something in MP which seemed to work on one movie. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the whole thing to work for more than 3 movies until I bought Passkey and, just recently, the thing decided that it was no longer paid for even though I had bought the lifetime option so I contacted them and had to download the latest version and enter in my account credentials to reactivate it.

  • Genial tu tutorial, me funciono al 100%, gracias por tus horas de esfuerzo ayudaste a todos quienes buscaban alternativas libres.

  • I am thinking of buying an Oculus Quest 2, but I don’t want to buy it if I cannot view my Blu-ray 3D discs (I have 86 3D discs in my collection so far) in full screen, correct aspect ratio, max resolution. Has anyone successfully tried this wonderfully researched procedure on an Oculus Quest 2?

    I am using a 7 year old HP pavilion dv6-7043cl Entertainment Windows 10 64-bit PC, which has an Intel I5-3210M cpu @ 2.50 GHz with Intel HD graphics 4000, 8 GB system memory, a 1 TB hard drive, and 3 TB external hard drive. Is the Intel HD graphics 4000 going to be sufficient to handle the Oculus Quest 2 and this procedure? Thank you for any insight you may have!

  • How the heck is over/under supposed to provide a 3D stereoscopic video? The human eyeballs are positioned side-by-side. You’d need a vertical skull with you eyeball positions turned 90° for that to work!

  • you have my deepest gratitude

  • Ive followed this guide exactly, got my player to play a 3d blu ray in bigscreen, but inside my vive headset the resolution is HORRIBLE. Idk what to do, its insanely pixelated-any suggestions?

  • It works on my monitor, but in VR I get a brown screen inside the player instead of the movie. Does anyone know how to fix this? I’m using a Quest 2 with either Virtual Desktop or Air Link.

  • I am use anydvd and problem solved. All movie sbs 3d.

  • Thanks, it worked like a charm.
    One question: I have SVP 4 and I can´t use it without avysinth, but avysinth “breaks” the stereo (top/bottom becomes a mono image.Is it possible working together?

  • Thanks, I’ve been looking for something like this for years. I even bought the DVDFab blu ray ripper just to get to watch 3D movies in VR. Great write on how to do it. Much appreciated.

  • I wanted to tell about a very complete player – PotPlayer – which uses MVC and does exactly the same great job described here while watching the movie. This may perhaps help those who are not very capable of getting into the options that need to be done. even the potplayer, however, you have to enter 3d video options,check mvc..then:input: original and output: I chose sbs top and bottom to be seen obviously together with virtual desktop or bigscreen in VR

  • Thank you, this worked for me. 🙂

    The only thing that gave me issue was getting into the madvr settings (did not show up in start menu, even after installing successfully).

    To get there, I just had to go to the MPC settings -> External Filters and double-click “madvr”.

    Kudos, and thanks.

  • Hello. I was so exited to use my VR headset to watch my collection of 3D bluray disc’s. Everything was going well step by step till the moment when I suppose to configure madvr. Running bat file was giving me info about success installation and not deleting the folder etc but when it comes to run madvr after typing madvr in start search window. The only madvr listed was the zip downloaded file. Can’t find any trace of madvr program to perform necessary setup. I was really hoping to make this work, I got pretty big collection of 3D movies and no way to watch them after my 3D TV broke down. Please help.

  • I can’t get this to work if I play the disc directly (it’s like madvr isn’t even activated, no SBS), but if I rip it first, it works.
    Strange, because I remember getting this to work properly around a year ago.

  • Hi,

    Powerdvd 18 does the trick on the fly with 3d iso files like as mentioned from the author . But it recognizes only rift ,index

    Does anybody knows a other software for the quest 2 ?

  • Stuck in 2D.
    Checked all of the settings dozens of times, even tried other settings. Browsed to the external filter files manually to add LAV filters (also tried the ones that came in the MPC install). Everthing is running in my taskbar.

    It just looks 2D, no split OU or SBS.

    • finally solved it. I was ripping the bluray’s wrong. I wasn’t selecting the other “eye” in makemkv, so it only had the video from one eyes perspective. it’s working now, and it looks really good using Virtual Desktop.

      now i wish i owned more than 2 3D blurays, time to raid my parents house for some more 3D

      • It would be nice if the instructions had a non-copyrighted 3D test clip or something to try as the last step, I would have known at least 6 hours sooner that I was the problem.

  • Thank you for this supreme guide!!!

    It was a little cumbersome to backup my 3D-BlueRay collection to hard disk, but the perspective of being able to watch it in VR was very tempting.

    Worked brilliant. Watching the movies again on giant screen is worth the time invested in the process.

  • Does anyone know though the part that says ” From there, you should be able to set your desired 3D format to “top-and-bottom”

    Can I click on auto or does auto not know what type of 3D it is? As I did rip many films in SBS and OU .

    Thanks

  • I can’t run madVR in order to change the settings that you mlist in your madVR Settings section.

    Unzipping the madVR.zip file to a folder c:\program files\madVR then running install.bat as Administrator gives me a “DOS” window (run as Administrator) that says “Installation succeeded” – but I cannot find any way to actually run “madVR” as an app – there’s no madVR.exe that I can find or any shortcuts or other way to start the actual program to configure the settings that you describe in your “madVR Settings” section.

    Typing madVR in the SEARCH BOX just opens the folder c:\program files\madVR and in that folder I find nothing which actually runs an app called madVR. So how do I actually RUN madVR? Or do these settings in your “madVR Settings” section have to be set inside some other program that is calling madVR?

    FYI running on Windows 11.

    • It appears that you need to run the madHcCtrl.exe in the extracted madVR folder. Once you’ve set Media Player Classic to output to madVR, then when you try to play a DVD/Blu Ray then Media Player will try to run madHcCtrl (unless you’ve already launched it).

  • Does anyone know with this process how to get the Blu-ray menus working?

    It seems like it will just autoplay the default movie setting and bypass all the menus, so for a 3D only movie on the Blu-Ray it’s fine, but for other movies that have both 2D and 3D on 1 disk, where you chose what to play then it won’t work and will always play the 2D version. (I’ve tried on a few Blu-Rays like Creature From the Black Lagoon and Doctor Who Dark Water / Death in Heaven 3D) and I haven’t figured out how to switch to the 3D version.

  • Has anyone managed to get this to work recently on either a Quest 2 or a Pico 4? I’m tempted to get one to play my collection of 3d Blus that have been sat in storage for the last 4 years since santa brought a bow and arrow for Christmas and my 3d TV decided it was allergic to arrows… 🙁

  • Can’t get this working. MPC just gives me a timeline and a black silent image. Have no ideer what I’m doing wrong and there are no error messages.

    • Same here the player stay with black screen and the timeline of the movie but never play it.
      I have made a copy of the disk with MakeMKV and surprisingly when i tried to play the index.bdmv it worked!
      No clue why the player cann´t play the film direct from the disk.

  • MPC BE couldnt detect 3D layer, powerdvd and stereoscopic player too.

    Now Im using PotPlayer for 3D ISO playback and it works for me.

  • Could not get this to work, the madVR app does not actually install and can’t be found when searching the Start menu. It SAYS it installed, but it’s not.

  • Can’t get this to work and already tried all the ‘solutions’ provided in the comments.
    MPC-HE does read the disc, shows the timeline and the chapters, but sets itself on ‘pauze’ and at the end. Pressing Play does nothing.
    Can get the bluray disc read and play in MPC-BE and VLC player, but only in 2D. Even if the disc supposedly only has the 3D version on it. I have several blurays which contain both the 2D and 3D version, but on seperate discs. So I’m surprised that even the 3D disc only shows a single image.
    Even tried Potplayer, but that one doesn’t do a thing at all, basically the same as MPC-HE.

    I set everything in madVR like suggested here. My screens aren’t 3D monitors, but I was under the impression that this method was exactly the reason to avoid needing one.

    Don’t get why this isn’t still/yet even possible in 2024. I bought the discs but can’t even watch them. I don’t want nor have the space to keep them all on hard-drive.

    Cheers.

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