Can all blu-ray drives play/write 3D movies or just the '3D Capable' ones ?

[ahmadka]

Hi guys .. I have a question to ask ... I want to buy an internal Blu-ray writer for my desktop, but some writers have '3D Capable' mentioned on them ... Does this mean the other blu-ray writers are NOT capable of playing back and burning 3D blu-rays ? Or is it just a marketing gimmick ?

Personally I think there's no hardware difference, and that mentioning '3D' is because the blu-ray player coming with the drive is capable of playing back 3D blu-rays ..

For example this is supposedly a '3D Capable' blu-ray writer ...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106346

... while this one doesn't mention '3D' anywhere:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136226

Whats the technical conclusion behind this guys ?

[aegisofrime]

Isn't 3D just the way the file is encoded? (e.g. H.264 MVC)

[paulvdb]

I'm not an expert but I don't think there is a physical difference that would make it impossible for a drive to read a 3D disc. But I know that those drives often come with software to play movies. Maybe the 3D capable drive comes with software that can play 3D movies.

[Ghitulescu]

Marketing gimmick.

[setarip_old]

Actually, I believe that in order to PLAY the new types (not anaglyph) of 3D Blu-rays, the player has to be able to process 120fps...