We had in front of us the perfect streaming service to watch 3D movies, even with HFR at 4K per eye

UPDATE: lately, YouTube is deprecating not only 3D uploading to its service, but also 3D visualization of existing 3D videos that were playing correctly in 3D until now. They’re sabotaging themselves for its new Android XR system. Encourage them to correct their mistake following the steps in this article.

We, 3D enthusiasts, are constantly asking and looking for 3D streaming services. We asked Netflix, Disney+, and others to be able to watch existing 3D movies in that format at home. Vudu already offers 3D movies, but only in the US and Canada.

But, we inadvertently didn’t notice a video streaming service that is already ready to stream 3D in the most demanding standards, a video website almost everybody uses daily, the biggest streaming service: YouTube.
YouTube already has two important things: the ability to stream 3D content (even at 4K60P per eye, maybe even 8K per eye), and a catalog of movies to rent or buy directly on the service. That means it will be effortless for them to add 3D movies to their catalog.

Most modern DLP projectors, and existing 3DTVs, can watch native 3D videos from YouTube. VR headsets like Pico, Quest, Vive, and Reverb, can play native 3D YouTube videos automatically too. Some other 3D displays -like the ProMa King or the Nintendo 3DS-, can watch in real 3D when opening YouTube from the browser instead of using the YouTube App. Even users without a 3D display can use Anaglyph glasses to watch a 3D YouTube video, being perfectly watchable on today’s high contrast LED and OLED panels. Some of them could find 3D exciting enough to buy a brand new 3D display and buy/rent more 3D movies.

And the YouTube player offers the possibility to deactivate 3D at any moment, so if -for any reason- someone doesn’t like the 3D effects, they can deactivate it to continue watching the movie. There will be no need to ask for a refund to rent/buy 2d version instead.

YouTube already has all the tools needed to offer movies in 3D (They could even show the director’s vision by offering Avatar 2 with HFR), added to 4K, HD, and SD quality choices. They are losing the opportunity to satisfy a long-awaited desire of our niche.

Let’s make them clear that it is nonsense to not offer 3D versions in their catalog. They won’t need to do any effort to include 3D versions besides requesting licenses for 3D versions, added to the usual license requests for 4K versions; All the technical work is done. They just have to store the 3D movie file with the 3D metadata encoded, not any other effort different from publishing the movies in UHD.