A system and method for adjusting the depth or view of three dimensional (3D) images in streaming video is provided. The invention enables the 3D streaming video client to change among different 3D disparities without any knowledge of the disparity maps or requiring any image processing at the client. Multiple versions of the video sequence are pre-encoded with each version representing a different disparity. The disparity of the 3D image may be changed on-the-fly to a selected rendering of a particular disparity. The 3D video player may switch among disparities seamlessly during playback.