Forum Discussion
Outputting MPEG .264 for Oculus from Premiere
I managed to solve all my other problems but one last sticking point. Everyone talks about producing Rift ready video with MPEG .264. The problem is that codec is fussy about the frame size. The only way I can output is with plain ole vanilla MPEG which doesn't have the best compression. Is there a plug in for Premiere or another method to get .264 to handle the Oculus frame size? The other option would be exporting a frame sequence and a separate audio track but it'd still need to be turned into a video format Oculus can handle.
4 Replies
- As I mentioned in the other thread, the Rift does not play video files directly. You need to use a 3rd party video player app, in which case the video can be in any format supported by the player.
- Not trying to cause problems I'm just not used to handling non standard formats. I realize you need a player. I'm just trying to figure out the best output. I can render top and bottom 3D which apparently the Rift can handle. It looks like I can just output standard 1920X 1080 because it's really close to the Oculus ratio and will cause minimum distortions.
Sorry for any confusion I just can't render a shot until I knew what the Oculus can handle and there just isn't a lot of information about the Rift and video. If the players and Rift can handle 1920X1080 then all my problems are solved. The players seem to be talking about 1920X1080 but the Rift is a different ratio and I just wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any problems before I rendered 10 minutes of video.
I come out of animation and special effects but to be quite honest I'm used to dealing with labs on these issues. Now I have to R&D everything myself. There are gaps in my knowledge but I think I just filled the last one on this issue. The difference between 1920X1080 and 1920X1067, the Oculus Rift ratio, is pretty minor so the distortion would be very minor. I guess I'm thinking of how fussy codecs are about frame size and ratio. If the player handles standard 2K so will the Rift since it's just using the player's output. It makes sense but sometimes you have to talk out loud to be able to think it through. - That is what I'm trying to explain. You don't output the video into the Rift format. You just output like you would any other stereo video file normally. So it could totally be a 1920x1080 video file with squished aspect ratio SBS stereo. That would probably be the easiest thing.
Then you need to find a stereo video player that supports the Rift. There are some third party apps out there, though it may be more difficult to find something that fits your needs exactly. The point of the player is that it would perform the optical distortion and chromatic aberration correction, enable head-tracking, and output in stereo 3D, along with the other features your expect from a video player. You cannot just play a video in Windows media player (or whatever) and expect it to work on Rift. Even if you somehow made it in the right format, you won't have head-tracking (and this is extremely uncomfortable). So you need a VR compatible video player.
There are a few options, however most of them seem older or unsupported now. Maybe take a look here, as this seems to have current support. http://www.mindprobelabs.com/cineveo_vr_cinema_dk2.html "Belseth" wrote:
The difference between 1920X1080 and 1920X1067, the Oculus Rift ratio, is pretty minor so the distortion would be very minor.
The DK2 is a 1920x1080 screen, not 1920x1067.
It acts as two eyes that are 960x1080 each (side by side stereo).
