• PSVR Tips

I just read the "Tips for VR porn producers" and I think its really nice that you guys are doing something like that, so thumbs up. But I found the infos about psvr a bit lacking and...they have some issues, and since I know its hard to get infos on how to encode for psvr I thought I might help out here.
This could also be interesting for non porn producers.

So... for starters it is allways a good idea to have a look at the official littlstar specs here: http://docs.littlstar.com/display/CG/PlayStation+VR+Video+Sideloading
Its a good starting point and you cant make anything wrong when you follow their instructions. But there are some issues:

First of all I should mention that littlstar has (other than mentioned) problems with 60fps. It is better to encode using 59.94fps. Lower fps are, of course possible of course, but it wont look good or feel as realistic.
Second, a bitrate of 20Mbps might work (on a pro), but only in short videos with low resolution. The longer the video and the higher the resolution, the worse it gets (slower playback, high latency, etc).
For videos from ~20 minutes and more its best to choose something from 13 to 15Mbps, depending on the resolution. For example: for 4,096×2,160 its still too high.
Coming to the resolution:
4096x2160 might be possible with the pro, but you should consider the low bitrate you need to aply for this to work...
The best resolution (for the pro) for sbs videos ranges between 3200x1600 and 3840x1920 @59.94fps and 15Mbps.
For tb it should be even lower: from 2160x2160 to 2560x2560 @59.94fps and 15Mbps
Half the size for the non pro.
And at last, the video profile MUST be high, using main profile results in a black screen and only audio playing or even freeze. Aditionally everything between 4.1 and 5.2 should work fine.

Well, thats that for now.
I should mention that the infos I added here are recommendations, I'm no publisher or professional. All I know comes from personal experience and testing.
English is not my native language, so ther might be some errors :/

It would be nice to get some feedback to further improve the results 😉
Cheers

    recreation Hey, great insights!
    We are currently fixing all of our psvr videos and these are great tips.
    However, which particular videos you faced an issue with?

    Thanks!
    SLR

      Philip Hey, I didn't have an issue with one of your videos, but with some of the infos about psvr encoding.
      The videos I have seen for psvr on this site all work and the quality ranges from okay to really good.
      I have seen many videos out there (generally on the internet) that are meant for psvr but encoded the worsed way possible because people just dont know how to do it better... and there is allways room for improvement. Thats why I posted this here 🙂

        5 days later

        recreation Hey, we've done some fixes for PSVR files, mind to take another look, please?
        So now we are giving just two files instead of a bunch as before.
        For Pro I found out that 2880 x 1440 plays great via littlstar even tho they claim to support max of 2560 in a doc!
        For 2160 we are giving 2160 x 2160 TB and everything that is below.

        I don't own a regular PS4, so I can't test those 1080p yet.

        I just wanted to make sure we are supplying the best possible format to users without a headache and confusion.
        Can you check confirm everything looks good for you (at least PS Pro)?

        I also wanted to test 2560 х 2560 and 2880 x 1620 (we have quite few), wondering if those will play smoothly, any idea?

        Thanks!

          a month later

          Hey sorry for the late reply, I was moving and then all the christmas stuff.

          I'll have a look at some vids, but I have a really slow internet connection at the moment in my new flat, so it might take a while to download >_<

          Philip I also wanted to test 2560 х 2560 and 2880 x 1620 (we have quite few), wondering if those will play smoothly, any idea?

          The 2560 x 2560 should work fine, I have vids ranging from 2048 x 2048 @ 59.94, 20mbps, up to 3360 x 3360 @ 59.94 fps, 10mbps running smothely on my pro.
          But I cant tell for 2880 x 1620 at the moment. I have some 3200 x 1600 which also work nicely @ 59.94 and 13-15mbps but 2880 x 1620 sounds a bit exotic. I wonder if it even looks right. Do you have a link to a vid?

          What I can tell is that in my opinion it was the right decision to lesser the options. If a vid plays and looks smooth on both, the PS4 and the pro then there is no point in having more then 2 options to choose from and as you said, it is also easier for the users.

          Thanks!

            recreation Hey,
            Glad to see you back! haha

            I've been running some tests then, but mainly switched to the app development recently, leaving PS as a resolved thing. I've also done some testing with those weird formats, but none of them worked out good enough, minding that we have 40 studios and variable bitrate encoding, I decided not to risk with giving a higher resolution then the one I'm sure will 100% work. It seems so far so good, except that some files take a bit of time to get processed before they show up on the website. I've designed some UI to make users aware of it too.

            I was ultimately thinking of way to make the app for PS and somehow get around the store restrictions. But I couldn't. Let me know if there might be anything you know about that. I'm pretty sure I saw one Japanese app on the store with mixed content including adult content too. It was well disguised, but I saw it.

            Best

            Maybe there is a way to use the ps browser instead of making the app work on the ps4. Something like if the user has a account and uses the ps4 browser show a special app-like website.
            On the other hand, the ps browser is not vr-ready, so people would still have to download the vids to play them on a video app like littlstar.

            A simple vr video player that has a option to add or import web recources (like the SLR website or youtube) could also work. I mean, maybe you could even use the SLR app but without the content at first until you add your account data. But that would also mean the app has to handle content and accounts of other websites like mentioned youtube to get around sonys restricions...
            I haven't done any coding work in years, but I know its possible, I also know this would be a hack lot of work, so maybe there is a better way we just didn't think about yet :/

            I will try to find the japanese app too, maybe this gives me some other/better ideas. I'll post if I have any 😉

              recreation Thanks!
              Hopefully we'll soon see SLR app for Playstation VR, I have an idea how to make it work most likely.

              Cheers

              a year later

              UR34 Hey!
              Yes there is something wrong with file, we are fixing it now, I'll let you know once it's available