VR Movie Player

[noro]

Hey Guys I’ll just take the oportunity to gather some off-topic info about VR Players and discuss them in a competent community like this. Any comments, suggestions with which player you wanna use your 8k are greatly appreaciated! (Tried Vive, Rift and some on Go)
I’ll try to focus on app solutions, but feel free to include Pc streaming workarounds as well. I will include an overall rating over time as well which will be subjective on certain criterias though (eg importance of webbased streaming, which is not my focus since YouTube bitrate is usually poor anyways)
Most important criterias are:
Picture quality, SS, controls, ease of use, GUI, codec support,
coverage of basic settings like 3D SBS OU 180 360
Player that I have tried so far and most important impressions of mine (I’ll leave out surrounding, rooms):

Skybox (4/10)
+free
+best button assignment for super fast tilt and positioning (point and drag)
+streaming from network devices
+perfect GUI
+remembers file settings
-issues with certain codecs (lagg or no audio)
-overall mediumminus picture quality
-no supersampling

Oculus Video (3/10)
+free
+good overall picture quality
(presumably intergrated but not advertised SS)
-bad button assignment
-needs to restart after certain changes
-no zoom, tilt
-issues with OU videos
-arkward access to files

Whirligig (7/10)
+very good picture quality
+integrated SS
±lots of options…many useless though
±not ready to go, but good results if set right
+global save slots
+individual file property save
+controller mapping
+active dev
-hustle to set up, strange distortions on the very edges
-translucent menu background makes me throw off, dizziness when focusing
fair 4 bucks

NVR Player (2/10)
+best overall picture quality
-bad controls
-rest insanely bad
-10 bucks

Deo VR (6/10)
+free
+mediumplus picture quality
+post fx
+options
+remembers file individual settings
+smooth playback
+menu does not cause dizzyness
-menus (FF, RW) too big on screen or not readable if size is reduced
-does not save global file stettings, every new vid needs to be declared SBS, OU, 180, 360 and so on at least once
-no SS
-medium GUI
-nas must be network drive

MoonVR (0/10)
-useless, buggy, clunky
-10 bucks

Bigscreen
+free
+good quality (mad vr, SVP pro)
+laser pointer
+SS
-vlc and mpc work well but are not optimised for wand/touch controls
-arkward to start and setup spontaniously
-issues in vr using 21:9 screen as main screen

Vorpx same as above but no laser pointer though which makes navigation a little uneasy

So basically DeoVR with “Input” quality of NVR Player, making use of Whirlgigs SS and Skyboxes controls and gui would be close to perfect.

Update 23.05.

After some digging I have tried some more VR Players, hoped that more plp had suggestions though…
Still, I’d like to know whether there may be more criteria that I did not consider so far and experiences that
you guys are willing to share.

AutoplayVR (3/10)
+free
+mediumplus picture quality
+no codec issues with klite
-strange fps conversion (stuttering no dropouts though)
-horrible GUI
-bad streching needs tons of adjustments
-“goingmad” bumpy controls

CMOAR VR Cinema (0/10)
-extremly buggy controls
-buggy GUI especially if dealing with more than 1 page
-impossible to scroll
-utter garbage

Power DVD (1/10)
+very good picture Quality, even without SS
+good gui
+easy to use
+good for static 2d and 3d (non vr) movies

• mediumplus (limited) controls
  -no pan/tilt/zoom
  -not usable for vr videos at all

• INSANE!! pricetag 100bucks

Simple Player VR (8/10)
+superb picture quality (better than DEO)
+Super Sampling
+super enhance function (impressive)
+Antialising
+medium GUI with little but most important options (zoom, tilt, post fx, filebrowser…)
+no noticable bugs so far
+easy controls
+at least saves general options per session
+no codec issues with 5k/HEVC (FIXED using newest LAV Filter)
-does not save individual file and application settings (at least I do not how IF there is an option for that)
-no controller mapping

+8 bucks that I pay gladly

So far suprisingly Simple Player VR is hands down the best VR Player in town, not free though and also…not perfect
Is it 3 times better than Deo? (which is free), no. Is it 8 bucks better?, definitly yes! if you care about a decent player.
I think that 5-10 $ is absolutely ok to pay for a good app so I won’t consider it a minus exept it’s payforgarbage.
Unfortunaly there is still no app that covers all of the criterias and there is still a lot of room for the close to the perfect app.

Again, I’d be happy if some of you would like to contribute their thoughts. This topic does not seem to be extensivly covered anywhere. And just in case VR videos cover so much more use cases than what you guys may think, so there’s no need of blushing when talking about VR Players.

Update 04.06.
After Whirligigs update it may be a contender.
It’s still a hustle to find the right adjustments but if set right the results are pretty sweet.
Had to go into all options to actually find what I was looking for
A big upside is that you can save global settings onto different slots and activate ini save
that will consider all individual changes per file.
There are lots of backgrounds available but the translucent menu cant be changed (at least i dont know how)
which leads to extreme focusing issues when the menu is displayed on top of 3d footage, resulting in dizzyness.

I find it interresting how the menus are handled throughout the apps. SPVR just plain dark background, Deo huge and dark background. All of that makes the effect of reading less unpleasant.

Btw. I have contacted the dev of mobile vr station which is the perfect app! unfortunaly it just works on android and ios but he is considering to rewrite it. It’s not the topic here but just in case you’re using cardboard or iOS check his app out it is freaking amazing! Unfortunaly of course due hardware limitations of phones makes VR movies less enjoyable.
Mobile station vr is handling the menu issue by simply switching to mono which is a smart move as well.

So after many comparsions I decided to pick the only 4 apps that can
be taken seriously and provide a one on one chart.

[Heliosurge]

This is an awesome topic. I don’t know if much has been done with it.

Bino is a neat 3d player that is opensource. There is supposed to be some vr additions to it. I can say its great for viewing 3d videos & can play 2d vids in 3d & vice versa.

[noro]

Need to check the additions since I prefer controlling video with the touch/wands.
And it seems like that ANY 3d intended application has big issues with bigscreen/Vorpx using SBS functions if the
main monitor is 21:9… it can be fixed by setting the resolution to an 16:9 ratio, but it’s very annoying
to do it each time, makes sense though if I play longer games using Vorpx.
The SBS pictures do not “merge” right probably due cropping/streching
So Player that can be started via oculus or steam have no issues with my 21:9 AND already
have (differently good though) integrated controller Support would be better for me.
Qualitywize Bino seems great so far, definitly will have a look at the addons.

[Heliosurge]

There is some new controller mapping in steamvr to allow using controllers. I think for example you might be able to use a controller to do vive wand functions…

Haven’t look into ir yet. There is also openvrinput?

The neat thing on the 3d it supports pretty much any type & can play one format as a different 3d format. Ie sbs->Checkerboard. Anaglyth (red/blue) etc.

But haven’t looked into the BinoVR as of yet.

[oysta1109]

I feel that another important feature of the player is support for SVP because SVP really makes videos in VR much much more real and smooth.

I can see myself using 8k with svp for a real movie watching alternative to tv

[noro]

Yes apart from the hustle switching the windows aspect ratio to16:9 and remapping controller I had the best results with bigscreen SS SBS + mpc HC with madvr and Svp. I am still not sure whether the 90 fps (reclock30x3svp) actually got passed 1:1 to the hmd. Probably need somehow to assign eg. oculus as screen first, since basically cloning will most likely adapt the refreshrate of my mainscreen as well that runs at 75hz 21:9…
Nevertheless ist quite a hussle each time and I’d much prefer a oculus/viveapp solution without the need to clone my monitor via bigscreen/vorpX and all the issues above involved.

[Heliosurge]

Here is the steamvr input topic.

http://community.openmr.ai/t/steamvr-input-announcement-controllers/6071?u=heliosurge

[noro]

I have tested some more Players, OP updated

[Cams86]

How does whirlgig compare to simple player vr?

you should give all players maybe a number from 1/10 in order of quality?

cheers

[Sjef]

I noticed that simple player VR doesn’t play all vids (seems to have problems with 5k/HEVC). Other than that, great player indeed.

[noro]

Yes, i figured that as well…later.
There just had to be a catch.
I will add that to the list, this is exactly the kind of experiences that we need to discuss to get a better picture.
Of course some impressions are subjective or may depend on daily moods

[Cams86]

no support coming ? or is it just abandoned by the creator for a money maker.

Maybe could ask for support if you really want 5k

[noro]

Unfortunaly seems like it…hasn’t been updated for quite some time which is kinda sad. Pls understand that it is hard to implement support
as a criteria cuz this would be too time-consuming to get in touch with each of the devs. I think 5k was not considered 2016…Suprisingly it’s still more than keeping up with newer apps and it’s hard to draw a support quality picture by the frequency of updates only since it’s eye washing most of the time anyways. But in this case it may be worth a shot to get in touch at least with the devs of simple player VR. Still… I’m looking for a better app out there. I’m also pretty sure that VR Live streaming will be the next thing for selling concert broadcast tickets, which is already more than a niche at least in the 2D world.

[Cams86]

i correct me if im wrong, but vr players etc most of the time are made by 1 guy , im no expert, but i don’t think you need a big group of people to write such program to start with…its pretty basic compared to gaming

[Heliosurge]

Opensource plugins like is it Gstreamer are usually pretty good.

[BlaZ]

My experiences with movie players are Simple Player, Whirlgig and Deo.
SPVR has very good picture quality, but menu can bug out and “float” away into the infinity… And repeat function (and maybe others) don’t work properly. It’s not free and hasn’t been updated in quite a while if I recall correctly.
Deo, no real problems, but no real advantages to get me to stick to it.
Whirlgig works without a hitch, has lots of options (which do not always get remembered correctly sadly), was? free (I got it free but got it from the official site, not through Steam) and has decent quality picture. Menu’s are a hastle though, since it’s all bound to keyboard inputs.
It’s the one I now use exclusively although I paid good money for SPVR. The menu bug I get 90% of the time makes it practically unusable for me. I believe it has something to do with the Pimax renderer, cause when switching to Piplay 1.2 and beyond this bug started to appear for me.

[TForm4]

Problems with 5k HEVC in Simple VR Video Player have solution!
http://wearestars360.nsccreative.com/setup
Install codecs following this instructions and all videos will open and play.

I also think this is absolutely best player. Also it have this setting “Super enhance” which make picture much better than supersampling in other players or in steamvr.

P.S: Settings saves actually. How didn’t you see this? Special button “Save settings” there.

@noro @Sjef

[noro]

thx awesome, I will try that!
Had LAV already installed though…, think there is a newer version out,
I’ll update and re-check. I’m on a rx580 so probably the missing cuda hardware acceleration in LAV settings could cause the 5k issues in SPVR

concerning the save functionality I made (probably unclear) distinction
between global save (which obviously works cause there is a button for it) and individual save (that does work like in eg. Deo, for example remembering that the individual file was OU or 360)

[noro]

Wow, it worked!
@Sjef try to confirm if you have the time

seems like the latest LAV Filters did the trick, I had a previous version installed.
Just a thought in saving individual file settings:
It would be awesome if a player could automaticaly detect if a file is 5k and deactivate
or at least lower SS because the 5k Image is already sharper but hits way more heavy on resources
resulting in frame drops.

[Sjef]

Nope, still doesn’t play 5k/hevc. Works fine (always did) with deoVR