Samsung VR: How to demo your 360 content in Samsung Gear VR the easiest way
Step by step guide how to showcase your 360 work in HMD (Gear VR) with free apps and no need to ask your viewer to choose anything or tap anywhere.
To promote VR we need to show that it is the future. However, obvious decisions to showcase your film in Gear VR usually include either “go to Oculus Video — choose video, tap there, tap here, ok, you need to change the type of the projection” or you’re paying to InstaVR/Headjack or developing your own app which allows you to do it with one tap (and that’s actually awesome, but not free and requires internet.
So, as I’m doing lots of demonstrations (especially individual one), I’ve started to use workflow based on the use of Samsung VR (Oculus version) // Samsung VR (Android version) — https://samsungvr.com/
Basic overview of the material is that you can sideload your video to your phone and use Mobile version of Samsung VR to start the video in a Gear VR mode which would wait for the phone to be inserted into the headset as well as will give some time to tune for the best sharpness before starting that exact video you want. Additional features would allow you to remotely control with another smartphone what the viewer is watching, as well as fast forward the video, choose any point you like, choose another video etc. As Samsung VR is a native tool, it supports a much wider amount of codecs, resolutions, spatial sound configurations etc. So with the Samsung S8 you can have almost the maximum possible quality for mobile VR devices at the market right now.
WHAT YOU NEED:
- Samsung Galaxy/Note smartphone, Samsung Gear VR, Headphones
- additional Android/Samsung phone as a potential remote controller (not obligatory)
- Google Account, Oculus Account, Samsung/Samsung VR account (the last one is not obligatory as well).
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Use Google Play and install Samsung VR for mobile:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samsung.android.video360&hl=en
2. Use Oculus Store and install Samsung VR for Oculus:
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/837075486363650/
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3. After installing Oculus version, go to it through the traditional Oculus Home page and agree on all the conditions they are asking you to approve during the first launch of the app.
4. Prepare your file for the upload to the phone: monoscopic video should have _mono360 at the end, while stereoscopic Top-Bottom should have _TB, f.e. video_mono360.mp4, video_TB.mp4
5. Create MilkVR folder in your root folder (not obligatory any more, but better to keep everything in one place). Also, the same folder might be created on your SD card.
6. Drop the file to MilkVR folder (depending on how you would upload it to your phone — by cable using PC, by cable using Mac and Android File Transfer, by downloading file from Internet to smartphone — up to you).
7. Open Samsung VR Mobile version and choose the icon with the human head.
8. Choose “Gallery videos” there (this window might look different if you’d sign in Samsung VR account).
9. Choose a video you’ve sideloaded and start it. In the up right corner you’ll see an icon of the headset, that’s what you need.
10. All you need to do now is:
The video would not start until you insert the device. And your viewer do not need to touch/tap/choose anything and anywhere.
However, the video would not start immediately.
First, the viewer would see a Samsung VR logo, which is the perfect moment to tune for the best sharpness
Second, he will see a black screen for 5–7 seconds, and that’s the perfect moment for a viewer to take the headphones.
Third, he’ll see the video without any menus (unless he’d touch a touch bar, so better to inform him/her not to do that in advance).
After the video, player start counter to start the next video. Optionally, viewer can tap the touch bar, and choose looping option (if needed).
In the situation when you want to show person only one video once this workflow is perfect.
BUT Samsung VR has much more to offer — REMOTE CONTROL
If you’d install Samsung VR Mobile to another Samsung Phone, you can use the second phone as a remote controller for the first one. For that both phones should be under the same wi-fi network and have the same videos (with the same titles) in MilkVR folder.
1. In the starting menu of Samsung VR for mobile choose three dots in the top right corner -> Settings -> Presentation Mode. (for both phones)
2. Choose “Receiver” for Demo Phone and “Synced Playback” for the phone-contoller.
3. With your demo phone go to Oculus app and start Samsung VR (for Oculus) app, insert the phone in the headset.
4. With your controller phone go to Samsung VR — Gallery videos, choose the video you want to show and start playing it. Demo phone should “catch” the signal and start the video at the same point. You can choose different points on timeline, pause, stop, fast forward/backwards, start next videos — all these commands would be sent to Receiver. And you’ll see what moment he’s watching, however, without the information where his head is looking at (so he’ll be able to observe all 360 space and you have no control over the points of interest).
Quite awesome tool to show several video or review one video over and over again and stop at some specific moments and now what are those moments.
More on that: https://samsungvr.com/portal/content/presentation_mode
AND THAT’S NOT ALL — SIMULTANEOUS SHOWCASE.
Did you notice the third option, “Remote control”?
It is a tool to start the same video simultaneously on several devices. It’s not working as great as you would expect and definitely not the way it works with such a great tools like VRCM and others, but still a good thing to try.
1. For that you need to have the same video with the same title on all the Samsung Galaxy phones and they all should be under the same wi-fi network. Sync is playing the video alphabetically, so check that the video you want to show is the first one (has 1_ f.e.) in the library/folder.
2. You’ll need to create a text document titled “user.cfg” with this text:headless:true
headless-auto-play:false
3. User.cfg should be uploaded to MilkVR folders on every device except of the Controller Device.
4. Start Samsung VR Oculus app with all the devices and insert the phones in the headsets. When user.cfg is not in MilkVR folder, you’d see a starting window and home for Samsung VR app, but with the file there would be just a black screen “waiting” for a command.
5. Use your controller to start/stop/pause/do what you can and viewers would see the videos based on the alphabetic order in the MilkVR folder.
More info on that: https://samsungvr.com/portal/content/gear_vr_synchronization
Basically, Samsung VR is also a content platform where you can upload and store your great 360 works, as well as do 360 live broadcasts, interactive rooms and watch quite amazing pre-moderated content. But as a content producer I see Samsung VR as a great tool to show a really high quality videos. I easily could play h.265 4096x4096 360 3D video with 60 fps on my Samsung S8 and it looks so much better than on Samsung S7 with 30 fps (however, S7 and Samsung VR can play h.265 easily as well).
Some of the new options include subtitle support . I’ve tested it and uploaded *.srt file next to the video under the same title (video.mp4 + video.srt) and Samsung VR mobile gave me an option to turn the subtitles on, but not in Gear VR mode. I’ve asked for support and I hope they’ll have an answer or fix really soon.
I hope that was helpful and that now I’ll be able just to share this article with my friends/colleagues/clients rather than explain the same technique over and over again :)
Thanks!
P.S. You can check our channel Russian VR Seasons on Samsung VR – some Russian 360 films/Trailers might be found there – https://samsungvr.com/channels/cp-page/590a5736b0a8c2005d7fad2e
