cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
42 REPLIES 42

AVOlight
Protege
Really Appreciate the feedback Cyril! Thank you 🙂 

HiThere_
Superstar
So after spending two hours...

As a self contained "single" VR media player :
- It has Touch support (instead of gamepad only support).
- It can play audio.
- It can show pictures.
- It can play videos.
- It can skip to the next media in the folder by itself (which none of the other self contained VR media I tried so far could), and it can do it in a random order, which makes it my best (and only realistic) VR media player for browsing through a ton of short media (audio folder, picture folder, short video clips folder).
- You can move the menu to the side (instead of closing it), which allows you to manually select another clip by looking at the already open playlist selection on the side, and selecting any other media displayed there with a single trigger click, with no menu or submenu selection required : All VR media players should work like this.
- There's more then one choice for watching a full film, but AOVlight is the one to use if you also want to browse pictures, browse music, and play a bunch of small videos in a row with a single self contained VR media player.

As a "multi" VR media player :
- It's the only one I know of that works on Windows 7.
- Because it focuses on reading media, it's simple to use and performs great.
- A critical feature : It takes ~1 second to create/delete a full clone window (it doesn't clone just the size of the window, but also what it's doing, and in which folder it is doing it).

The real question is, what can you do with multiple VR media players ?
- You can set one window to play audio in random order (~5 seconds), one window to play a slideshow in random order (~5 seconds), then clone the slideshow window (~1 second per clone) more times then you need to. An example would be setting up a VR family photo album this way. You could even set it as a 3D dome instead of a 2D album.
- You can set one window to play a collection if short clips in a random order (~5 seconds), then just clone it a few times (~1 second per clone). An example would be playing a collection of family vacation trip videos this way, basically the video version of a family photo album.
- You can set a window to play your long videos/films folder in random order, clone it and move their menu to the side (~2s per clone), manually switch the video any of the windows is playing to a new randomly selected video at the press of a single button (thanks to the side menus being open and directly available on the right and left sides of the cloned windows you're watching) and once you've decided which video you want to watch you can then close all the excess windows (~0.5 second per window) and stretch and play the video you want to watch in full. This is like selecting a video cable channel from a grid of miniature previews of each channel, except in this case you're browsing the content of a folder, and each of the previews you're watching can be made to feel bigger then watching a 100 inch TV.

The demo :
- Allows you to try out the full version of a single media player : See how easy it is to set up a media folder slideshow, how conveniently it skips to the next media without any user input, and how fast it is to add a audio folder reader in the background of that first (picture) media player by opening a second VR media player out of sight.
- Allows you to create a single clone of the first window, which is not enough to understand how great it is to be able to open even more clones, but at least enough to understand how convenient it is to be able to create/delete those clones in only ~1 second : AVOlight's ability to read multiple medias just wouldn't be convenient enough to use, if you had to set up each window manually instead of just being able to clone the first one. It's so fast to set up those clones that you don't even need the ability to store and reload the multi window setups you have created (but you can if you want to anyway).
- On launch you can choose between a Steam version (forget that one, it just slows things down by wrapping through the Oculus SDK), and the faster direct Oculus version. Having an Oculus version available means you don't have to launch Steam to be able to use AVOlight, you can just use a desktop icon shortcut to launch it without launching Steam.

Stryker1000
Heroic Explorer
sorry but I wont be purchasing . You set the bar waaaaay too high with the graphics card requirement

AVOlight
Protege
@Cyril Thank You Again 🙂

@Stryker1000
Yes I will lower the recommended specs; if you get the chance let me know how well the demo runs with your graphics card

HiThere_
Superstar
On my ~6 year old I5-2500K CPU and ~2 year old GTX970 GPU... I opened 20 different MP4 video files and my CPU was only running at 35%, with no VR tracking or sound problems.

So I'd say the minimum requirement for opening a single media player is probably well bellow a GTX950...

And probably even bellow my previous ~7 year old HD7850 GPU really, since it was about half as fast as my GTX970.

AVOlight
Protege
@Cyril Thanks for posting your specs 🙂


the latest update adds the ability to temporarily modify what the trigger does; 
to do this, 
look at your hand and then hold the thumbstick in different directions to see the available actions; 
when you decide on what action to take press the trigger while holding the thumbstick in the direction of that action 

some actions can be used both on a single screen (by pointing at one screen when pressing the trigger) or on all screens (when not pointing at any screen)


image effects have also been added in settings for boosting overall image quality; more options for tuning the internal settings will be added in future


Try the free demo: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1174371059345457/

stargate88
Protege
I've tried it this evening. Pretty good for a first version.

Here is my feedback:
* It's possible to change the size, but not the distance. You can check BigScreen (free) where both can be changed. 
* sub-directories should be listed on top of the list of the files
* I didn't understand the save feature. It would be nice if you could save your screens configuration (with locations and play settings)
* Maybe the joystick could be used for scrolling too when focusing in a scrolling area

HiThere_
Superstar
The first demo was limited to two media players, but the latest demo allows to open an ~unlimited amount of media players, which gives a much better understanding of the product and it's performance.

You can change the distance with hand gestures the same way you can rotate screens, but I find the movement multiplier for controlling the distance too small so you have to repeat the push/pull gesture multiple times to get the distance you want : Would be better replaced with some kind of "grip+thumbstick" control.

The "save media players environment" works by typing the new name on the (real) keyboard : A virtual keyboard is probably planned, but it might be better (less confusing and faster) to just have a limited bunch of labeled icons to choose from (such as A to Z), which you can save and load back from with a single click.

I agree the thumbstick should be usable for scrolling : It can be tricky to stop on the media file you want by only using the window slider.

Basically the core product is already up and running, it's already optimized in both file size and performance, and the developer just needs to improve the way to access those features (which for now are mostly packed in a single GUI window), which is probably what he is busy doing 🙂

AVOlight
Protege
@stargate88 Thanks 🙂 and sorry about the save feature, it's fixed now. Moving a screens distance with motion controllers has also been improved, and now in the process of doing the same for scrolling and dragging sliders.

Thanks @Cyril yes 🙂 very busy.. Working on adding more of the UI options to motion controls for the next updates. Hope you like the update to the push/pull gesture.

HiThere_
Superstar
Pushing/Pulling works fine.

Autosave has become very convenient to use (perhaps hide it's ".txt" extension in the GUI).

I kind of stumbled on how to reassign thumbstick controls with hand gestures, it works it's just that it's the first time I've seen something done this way.

Apparently the trigger by itself is used to hide/unhide the UI.

My favorite method to skip to the next video is now thumbstick right + thumbstick button press (instead of thumbstick right + trigger press before).

Maybe a tutorial to explain the thumbstick mechanics is needed, because they are increasing and easy to miss : Clicking does nothing, and you have to be watching your hands to notice that pushing the thumbstick does something.

Suggestion :
- The two scroll bars on the GUI could be made wider (and perhaps have two different colors), to make it easier to select them ?
- The GUI could have a better separation between the top options part and the bottom browser part : A horizontal line to separate them, or a different color to differentiate them.
- The font used for the Thumbstick button options could be improved.