After a long period of inactivity, I am happy to announce the release of VRTV 3.6. There are no new features in this release, the major change is the update of the SDK versions used to comply with Play Store regulations.

With this change VRTV will once again be possible to purchase in the Play Store. Unfortunately, with each new version Android becomes more restrictive, so some features that is working in the current version will be difficult to reimplement in the new version. This mostly relates to file browsing, especially from special directories or connected devices.

Due to this, I’ve chosen to make the previously released full version of VRTV available for download. If you are still using an older version of Android and this release removes some of the functionality you use, you can find the previously released version 3.5.3 at the following location:

VRTV 3.5.3

New beta of VRTV 3.1 out!

New in the beta:
– File viewer in VR (only in paid version)
– New, improved screen lock
– Better thumbnail caching
– Perfomance improvements

File Viewer

Show Hidden Files

Enable this setting to display hidden files and folders in the file viewer.

VR Display

Show UI in VR

This setting controls the visibility of the player UI in VR mode.

Select Virtual Environment

Select which virtual environment to display when viewing in flat screen mode.

• None
• Home Theater
• Cave
• Living Room (Only available in the paid version)

Environment Brightness

Controls the brightness of the virtual environment.

Location of UI in panoramic video

Controls the location of the player UI in VR mode for panoramic 180/360 videos. 90 degrees puts the UI straight down, 0 degrees is straight ahead and -90 degrees is straight up. Default is 70 degrees.

Enable timed trigger

Enable triggering a button by keeping it in focus. Useful for headsets without trigger button.

Timed trigger length

Controls how long a button has to be kept in focus to be triggered.

FF/Rew time skip

Set the size of time skip for FF/Rew buttons in the player UI.

Screen Size

Change the size of the flat screen in the player. Does not affect the screen size for panoramic 180/360 videos.

Disable Cardboard SDK distortion

Turn off the barrel distortion correction in the Cardboard SDK. Disabling distortion will reduce the load on the GPU, but will remove lens correction resulting in a slightly warped image.

Background Color

Select background color. Only visible when virtual environment is ‘None’. Input is a RGB or ARGB value in ‘#RRGGBB’ or ‘#AARRGGBB’ format.

Enable Gyro Bias Estimation

Gyro Bias Estimation is a feature of the Cardboard SDK that aims to reduce drift by constantly estimating bias in the gyroscopic sensor of the device.

Enable EDS

EDS stands for Electronic Display Stabilization, which is a technique that warps the frame using the latest sensor data just before rendering the frame to reduce perceived latency. Requires Cardboard SDK distortion to be enabled, since it is done in the distortion rendering pass.

Renderer for 180/360 panoramas

Select rendering technique for 180/360 panoramic videos.

• Shader – The position on the surrounding sphere is calculated by a shader for each pixel, giving very exact results. If the device has a slow GPU relative its screen resolution this technique can be too demanding.
• VertexHQ – The sphere is approximated by a mesh of polygons. This is the default setting as it gives very good quality/perfomance.
• Vertex – Uses less polygons to approximate the sphere, suitable for older/slower phones.

Headset Setup

Head tracking algorithm

• Google Cardboard SDK – Use the head tracking provided by Googles Cardboard SDK.
• Manual touch input – No tracking of the device orientation, look around by swiping.
• Improved Orientation Sensor –
• Calibrated Gyroscope –

Inter-lens distance

Set the horizontal distance between the centers of the lenses in the viewer in millimeters. If you’re device doesn’t report the correct DPI, measure the actual on screen distance between the reticules for each eye and set this value so that the real distance on the screen matches the distance between the lenses in your viewer.

Incorrect lens distance will make it hard to focus on objects.

Screen to lens distance

Set this to match the distance between the lenses and your screen when placed in the viewer.

Vertical distance to lens center

The vertical distance between the bottom of the tray holding the phone in your viewer and the center of the lenses.

Correct vertical distance will place the reticule in the vertical middle of your field of view.

Synchronization

Setup sync peer

When using the Sync feature to play a video in sync together with another device, specify the IP of the other device here. The IP of your device is shown, and can be entered in the configuration of the second device.