Watching The Incredibles on a $25 VR Headset
I have a great love for pop culture, and a robust operation at home that enables me to pursue it. I have a dedicated media server running on an i5 that makes all of my movies, TV shows, and music available through SMB in a way that makes sense to me. I copy files using SSH or USB 3 and also use that machine to play my library using Kodi, which I’ve configured to run a web server for remote control functionality, in addition to the Kore and Yatse Android apps, as well as the 2 physical keyboards connected to the machine. I also use it to mirror my gaming machine to my TV through Moonlight and play Spotify through the stereo I’ve had for over ten years. Everything uses wired connections where possible and I have DHCP reservations for everything on my LAN. I say all this to tell you I have experience making technology work for me to improve my life.
What I don’t currently have is a great movie-watching environment. I have a futon that’s a little far from the TV I have, and it’s thin. The angle it sits at in “couch mode” can mess you up if you’re not sitting right, and since I still have that damned cyst on my liver (it grew back, yaaayy), there’s really no way for me to sit on that thing for extended periods. I’ve been looking for a good way to explore my constantly expanding media library. If I had my druthers I’d get a projector for my media center and a nice sofa and call it a day, but I came upon a creative solution that is mind-blowing in its own way.
On a recent trip to Wally World I splurged on myself and spent $25 on a headset specifically designed to play movies on your phone. There’s plush (but cheap) cushioning where the headset contacts your face, integrated over-the-ear headphones with similar cushioning, fairly good lenses that adjust, and knobs that move your phone closer or further from your face. The 3.5mm headphone jack is commodity-grade, to say the least, but it allows for you to adjust the volume using a rocker on the underside, which is a nice touch at this price point. The headphones don’t 100% line up with my ears, but I had no issue hearing, and I had decibels to spare. The bass was a little impressive, and although the overall sound gets muddy, I had no issue with the sound given the price point and application.
This is clearly a device for the people, by the people. My phone, a Samsung Galaxy S6, doesn’t really fit in it. There is a slight, contoured phone-holding ledge in front of the lenses that your phone is supposed to slide into, and mine sits on top of it. I won’t keep describing the headset, but I wanted to express how rough around the edges it can be at times.
There is a vast ecosystem of VR garbage on Android directed at people like me who haven’t bought into a real VR ecosystem like Oculus or Samsung Gear, and making VR work with your device and your media files can be challenging. What you’re looking for is an app that plays a video twice, side-by-side, such that it works with the lenses in the headset to appear as a single image to your eyes. This required trial and error.
The first thing I tried was Kodi’s Android app, which I have found to be perfectly functional with normal use, reading seamlessly from my SMB share as if it were local. I was in for a bummer though. Without modifying filenames to make it seem like my files were 3D movies, Kodi will not play the video side by side, although it will double up the user interface, which gave me a twinge of false hope.
Another thing I had to deal with was the harsh realization that any successful VR implementation would require local playback; my precious SMB share would not be good enough for the various apps I tried, which meant I would have to find space on my phone for movies. I wound up using an app called VaR’s VR Video Player, which has a basic interface but many options for configuration, which you will need, I am so serial. You’ll also need to install Google VR Services.
The first video I tried with any success, believe it or not, was an episode of Parks and Recreation. It was fascinating seeing something so familiar in such an unfamiliar way. One thing people might not know is if you’re doing VR, you’re not going to get HD. In fact, barring any times I’ve pulled out a magnifying glass, this was one of the first times I was really aware of my phone’s pixels. I’m not saying it’s a deal-killer, by any means, but it’s important to manage your expectations.
I experimented a lot with various videos. There is a lot of adjustment that goes on. The headset’s adjustable lenses help a lot, and as the packaging suggests, I can confirm you don’t need to wear your glasses. The way your head interacts with the headset and how your phone sits inside it will inform how the image appears, and luckily, VaR’s VR player can be configured all sorts of ways to accommodate that. For example, since my phone was higher than the headset seemed to anticipate, the image appeared higher than I’d like. I was able to move it down using the app while keeping my phone secure in the headset, which really improved the experience. You’ll spend a lot of time adjusting knobs and re-seating the headset on your face. By the way, doing all this uses a significant amount of computing and power for your phone. Keep it plugged in and charging, and let it cool down after you’re done watching. My phone got pretty warm, but never to the point of worrying me. It goes without saying that you have to remove any case you’re using.
Then came the real challenge: watching a full-length movie with this thing. I chose The Incredibles, which was a great choice, and also a terrible one. It was great because it’s a fantastic movie that’s visually and emotionally compelling, and both of those things don’t work as well as one would hope with VR. Laughing at Jack-Jack’s antics or Edna Mode’s general distaste for social niceties moved the headset out of that focal sweet spot, making the picture blurry suddenly. The action sequences got a little hectic and choppy, because my phone and brain were having trouble processing the images. Additionally, and this has nothing to do with the headset, 27 year-old me feels way more emotions about this movie than I did when I first saw it. Every time, Pixar. Why.
Was it worth doing? YES. I had a lot of fun watching a movie this way. The pixels on my phone being visible at times and the various ways light changes as it passes through lenses made for some curious images, and, this is me being purely subjective, it’s beautiful. It reminds me of watching CRT TVs, touching my nose against the glass and seeing the individual RGB elements, but it’s on another level. The light in these images moves and cuts like fabric, with none of the interlacing and roughness of CRTs. I haven’t looked up the actual resolutions I’m dealing with on my phone (I think the phone itself is 2K?) because it doesn’t matter. It’s the phone I’ve got, and it’s the phone I’m going to keep using for this.
Another thing that was really great about watching a movie in VR is it really helps with my terrible, awful, nonexistent attention span. This isn’t an issue at actual movie theaters because of etiquette, but at home…BRUH. Having the screen literally strapped to my face makes me the most captive of audiences, but any other time it’s a miracle if I even stay seated. Pausing after ten minutes to go see if anything has changed in my kitchen or on social media isn’t really an option here, and it was refreshing.
I’ll miss having that $25, but I’m really glad I found a fun way to enjoy movies. It’s not ideal for every situation, but I got to lie in bed on my back and take in a great film, with minimal interruption, and very few opportunities for that cyst to ruin my nice time. I’m already lining up other things to watch this way, like Tron (duh) and The Shining :-D.
Godspeed,
Kap Benlan