Cannot Run MaxVR

Feedback
1

Hello, I hope someone can help me. I’ve not long bought the Pimax 4K head set, primarily for paying movies. I would like to use a VR video player to play stereoscopic side-by-side videos with head tracking, both 180 degrees and 360 degrees. It will need to support the use of Extended mode as PiPlay only gives me the option to use that mode, and I want to use 1440p.

Anyway, I found MaxVR in the PiPlay folder but it will not run. Each time I attempt to run it a message pops up stating that:-

Filters on PC incompatible with MaxVR, Please Install LAV Filters and use Win7DSFilterTweaker (Codec Guide: Windows 7 Preferred DirectShow Filter Tweak Tool) to set LAV Filters as Preferred.

I even found the Codec Tweak Tool and set all to LAV under preferred decoders, but it still fails to work and I get the same message appear on the screen.

Moreover, I have even ended up buying the official version of MaxVR. But when I try playing version 1.3.0 it simply cannot find my HMD. Does it need to be placed in a particular folder?

I don’t care which version of MaxVR I can get working (the one in the Piplay folder or the one I’ve downloaded from the official site) I just want to play SBS videos with head tracking.

I’m willing to try a different VR Player. Just so long someone can give me full instructions in how to set it up so I can watch SBS videos with my Pimax 4K at the highest resolution possible, which I guess will be 1440p, whether for MaxVR or whatever other player is easy to set up.

Please help, this is doing my head in! and I’m rather new with VR.

Kind regards.

By the way, I’ve just tried a separate install of MaxVR Version 1.2.7 and it was able to run! However, it only displayed the image on the computer scree and not to the head set. I had a look at the MaxVR.g2log file and I noticed the line:-

2017/01/03 13:34:08.21103 INFO [cOculus.cpp L: 114] “No Extended Desktop for Rift Found, Direct to HMD Mode is being Used.”

So it looks like this attempt has failed to detect my Pimax in Extended Mode, which I can guarantee is indeed in Extended mode.

So of anyone has any ideas about resolving this or any of the above problems, then please let me know.

Thanks.

2

You might want to try using Kodi if you mainly want to play movies. It can organize and download meta data for them and provides a nice user interface. There is a version that gets automatically installed with PiPlay.

3

Maxvr is not good for video quality. So I recommend SimpleVR.
Take a look at the explanation here.

http://community.openmr.ai/t/the-best-vr-video-player-and-the-right-way-to-set-it-up-includ-method-to-watch-4k-videos/124

4

@crony Simple VR Player requires SteamVR which does not work with PIMAX in Extended Mode.

5

Hi Dzeek, thank you for your reply. I’ve tried running Kodi and it does seem to work. However, it does not seem to provide head tracking. Is there something that I need to set up somewhere in order to use head tracking with my SBS videos?

Also, the strange thing about my separate install of version 1.2.7 of MaxVR is that despite the fact that it does not recognise my Pimax head set is in Extended mode it does support head tracking! When I move the head set, the display on my computer screen moves in relation to its motion. Everything looks good, it just fails to project the image to the head set and instead displays it on my computer screen. Evidently, it is using Direct mode rather than Extended mode, which is no use to me given that I cannot get any mode in PiPlay other than Extended mode.

So, there seems to be some success, but there is still no apparent solution. That said, I’m not all that familiar with using VR as this is my first head set to use with my computer. The only other one I own is the Samsung Gear VR.

6

Hi there, Crony. Yeh, Simple VR would have been my first choice, however, PiPlay will only allow me to use Extended mode. This is rather anoyiong as I was hoping to play some game via steam, despite the fact that my main interest is to use my Pimax 4K for SBS videos.

Thank you for your post anyway, any help is most appreciated.

By the way, I was wondering about the player called ‘VR Player’. It has been mentioned in a number of reviews, but when I clicked the download link in what I understand to be the official website, Chrome blocked the download informing me that it was suspected of being malicious.

Do you or anyone else know if Chrome is just being a bit sensitive, or is the threat real?

7

Re: Kodi. I don’t believe it supports head tracking. I suppose the reason might be that it is not really necessary since you are just looking at a flat screen and can see all of it without moving your head.

It seems strange that MaxVR won’t work since that is what PiPlay uses. Does PiPlay work correctly to display photos, videos and movies?

8

LiveViewRift is good in Extended mode. The real question is why Pimax mode does not work?

1 Like
9

Hi there. It all looks fine in Piplay, it detects my head set and I can see the Pimax logo when I look through the visor. I have so far only downloaded a demo called Villa Savoye which supports Exteded mode. It looks great! the resolution looks very nice (I’m assuming it’s using my selected 1440p in the Piplay set up) and the head tracking is smooth and responsive.

So it looks like all is good with Piplay, or at least does not pose any problems with the aforementioned demo. Clearly in this case the fact that my head set is in Extended mode has been used by the application, as the demo is projected onto the 4K screen of my Pimax rather than onto my computer screen.

Is it because the demo is running directly from Piplay and not from an external source? That is to say, not something downloaded from the Piplay store. I really have no idea.

10

Hello. I’ve read about LiveViewRift, but I thought that it did not support Windows 10, which is my OS.

The reason why I can only get Extended mode in Piplay is, I suspect, because I’m currently using a laptop with integrated graphics. It is a very good laptop, however, an MSI gaming laptop.

From other discussions, it seems apparent that other people with integrated graphics, e.g. with laptops, have had problems getting Piplay to use Pimax mode. I’ve tried to resolve that problem and just gave up! So I thought to myself, hopefully I can at the very least play some SBS videos in Extended mode. No luck there either it seems.

11

That’s unfortunate but LiveViewRift works on Win 10 no problem. I have Win 10 Enterprise x64 on 2 setups. No issues with LiveViewRift.

1 Like
12

Did you try using PiPlay to download and play some photos and videos? That’s a good test to confirm that MaxVR is working.

1 Like
13

Hello. I’ve just downloaded one 360 degree picture and one 360 degree video from the Piplay store. They both work when I select either one from the Piplay interface, so it look likes the player is fine via Piplay. Although, the head tracking did stutter a bit. This was not the case with the demo I downloaded from Piplay, which was very smooth. So, that’s good I suppose. However, what I would like to do is play SBS visoes that I’ve obtained elsewhere, and thus do not show in the Piplay interface. These videos are stored elsewhere on my computer’s hard disk.

I did find the location of the downloaded picture and video from Piplay store. So I tried placing a single video in the same folder as the video I downloaded from Piplay in the hope that it might be recognised by Piplay. As you might have expected it did not work! It was a long shot, but I thought what the hell I’ll give it a go.

Anyway, at least it is now established that the MaxVR platyer is working via Piplay. But it does not give me the MaxVR menu screen, and when playing I cannot choose a different file from the computer to load and play.

Thus it appears that I can for the time being only play videos which I have downloaded from the Piplay store and play via the Piplay interface.

Any ideas how I could play other videos not from the Piplay store?

14

I have run MaxVR outside of PiPlay. When I ran it the window would open on my monitor. I then used the menu to open a file. To get it display on the PIMAX you need to shift the window to the extended display and maximize it. Here’s a link to the keyboard sequences you’ll need.

2 Likes
15

Hi there. I tried your suggestion and it works fine, which is interesting given that prior to using MaxVR via Piplay I could not run MaxVR outside of Piplay. I kept getting an error message pop up on the screen stating:-

Filters on PC incompatible with MaxVR, Please Install LAV Filters and use Win7DSFilterTweaker (Codec Guide: Windows 7 Preferred DirectShow Filter Tweak Tool) to set LAV Filters as Preferred.

But now it runs without any problems. I then simply load the video and slide the window into the extended screen.

The only problem is that there appears to be minimum support for the different types of 3d stereoscopic videos. However, after downloading and installing LiveViewRift I’ve noticed that it supports a number of different distortion options and as such I have been able to play all the types of videos I have. Moreover, both the 3D video and picture I downloaded from Piplay look so much better than playing with MaxVR which came with Piplay. There’s no lag or stutter that I could see, unlike with MaxVR.

I have other versions of MaxVR installed elsewhere on my hard disk, but I’ve not been able to get any of them to work in Extended mode.

Anyway, thanks for you help it’s really appreciated.

16

Thanks for the update. I’m glad you were able to get it working.

1 Like
17

Thanks for your suggestion. I’ve since then downloaded and installed LiveViewRift and it works very well indeed. I’m particularly impressed with the range of distortion options that it provides. Moreover, it gives far better performance than the version of MaxVR which came with Piplay.

So I’m happy, but will continue playing around with my Pimax VR so to get used to it and explore other possibilities.

Thank you for your help.

18

Hi, sorry for late reply, also appreciate @dzeek who gave a correct suggestion. Normally MaxVR should be opened firstly and then shifted to extended screen, but Piplay itself integrated this operation, that’s why you could watch videos directly from library of Piplay.

Maybe you have already knew these shortcut keys, I still paste them which may be useful for other guys.

Shortcut keys of MaxVR:

  1. R or F5: shift screen in front of you.
  2. S: shift type of 180/360 degree videos.
  3. Tab: shift type of 2d, 3d, etc.
  4. Num - : shrink screen.
  5. Num + : magnify screen.
  6. ↑: screen would set to top.
  7. ↓: screen would back.
  8. ~ : shift Cinema Mode or Normal Mode.
  9. shift+win+→ : shift to headset screen.
  10. shift+win+←: shift to PC screen.
    11.Alt+Enter: shift full screen or windowed mode.
19

MaxVR as soon as I switch to full screen, it cuts the resolution on the headset (second screen back to 1080p) If I than while in full screen force the second desktop screen to 1440 the display shows nothing as if broke. It doesn’t even truly to 1440… false advertising.

20

Have you selected 2K resolution in Piplay settings?