Instructions for streaming videos

[HereSphere]

There are currently three ways to stream videos with the HereSphere app.

Method 1: If the website supports the HereSphere or DeoVR API, click on the Web Stream button in the upper left corner. This will load a library of videos that can be streamed.

Method 2: If the website provides download links, then clicking on them will stream the video.

Method 3: Use yt-dlp (a fork of youtube-dl) to generate video stream links. Download yt-dlp.exe from here: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases. Copy the executable to the HereSphere saved directory (C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\HereSphere\Saved, replacing UserName with your info). In the HereSphere web browser, navigate to the webpage with the video you would like to stream and click on the Web Stream button in the upper left corner. Live streams will not work at the moment, but support for live streams will be added in the future.

[TaiShar Malkier]

Youtube works great just as is. When would it be possible to watch flash or html5 streams on Twitch.tv ? Also, I use the middle mouse button to bring up the browser.


-Is it possible to have it as a cinema screen ? (without the panels left/right)
-the latest VR video you watched being able to play in the background can be distracting, I'd rather have it black.
(Or ideally, have the stream be played as a 2D video in the background and then when I middle mouse click the menu in the center would disappear and Youttube would play on a huge VR screen.)

[HereSphere]

Media Foundation doesn't support live streams, so the mpv playback option will need to be completed for live streams to work. I can't say for sure when it'll be ready, because there are still some major implementation details I need to figure out. Hopefully it'll be ready by this summer, though.

The current web browser doesn't support playing h264/h265 videos due to licensing restrictions on the h264/h265 codecs. Youtube videos work in the browser because Youtube uses an open source VP9 codec, which is included with the web browser. The web browser relies on chromium embedded framework to work, and it's difficult to grab only the video from the browser to display on the big screen. I'll take another look at improving the web browser in the future.

[gromenawer]

yt-dlp downloads videos from youtube in HEVC by default, so when I try to open them I get the HEVC "error".

Any advice for calling yt-dlp with any flags to circumvent this and get the video it in any other format? Thanks!

[HereSphere]

Originally posted by gromenawer:

yt-dlp downloads videos from youtube in HEVC by default, so when I try to open them I get the HEVC "error".

Any advice for calling yt-dlp with any flags to circumvent this and get the video it in any other format? Thanks!

Have you installed the VP9 extension for Windows?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/vp9-video-extensions/9n4d0msmp0pt#activetab=pivot:overviewtab

I should probably make the error message more clear, but missing the HEVC extension is only one of the possible issues why the video can't play. You might also be missing other codecs (like VP9, MPEG2, or Dolby Audio), or they might not be supported, like 10bit h264 videos.

This page has more codecs for Media Foundation:
https://codecguide.com/media_foundation_codecs.htm

[gromenawer]

Thank for the answer dev. I can play YouTube videos using default yt-dlp options now.

[MiPo91]

Hey, I'm trying to use "option 2" (download links), but the videos won't start to play. It just opens media player that tries to load for 1-2 seconds and then nothing.

It works in normal browser (when I click download link it actually starts playing video). Normal browser = firefox/chrome/vivaldi.

File Explorer btw works just fine in HereSphere, but I've got custom web based media library that I would want to use with this, but Web explorer download link videos just won't work. (Youtube videos work normally)

[HereSphere]

Originally posted by MiPo91:

Hey, I'm trying to use "option 2" (download links), but the videos won't start to play. It just opens media player that tries to load for 1-2 seconds and then nothing.

It works in normal browser (when I click download link it actually starts playing video). Normal browser = firefox/chrome/vivaldi.

File Explorer btw works just fine in HereSphere, but I've got custom web based media library that I would want to use with this, but Web explorer download link videos just won't work. (Youtube videos work normally)

Is the video opening in the web browser, or is the player trying to open it on the big screen? If it's playing in the web browser, you need to wrap the link in a HTML element with a download attribute. The web browser doesn't have the correct codecs to play some videos, so it's much better if the player streams the download link with Media Foundation instead.

You can also try using XBVR to create a local web server to host the videos for you. It uses the DeoVR API, so you can press the web stream button in the upper left corner of the HereSphere web browser to load a video library view with thumbnails, tags, etc.

[MiPo91]

Originally posted by HereSphere:

Originally posted by MiPo91:

Hey, I'm trying to use "option 2" (download links), but the videos won't start to play. It just opens media player that tries to load for 1-2 seconds and then nothing.

It works in normal browser (when I click download link it actually starts playing video). Normal browser = firefox/chrome/vivaldi.

File Explorer btw works just fine in HereSphere, but I've got custom web based media library that I would want to use with this, but Web explorer download link videos just won't work. (Youtube videos work normally)

Is the video opening in the web browser, or is the player trying to open it on the big screen? If it's playing in the web browser, you need to wrap the link in a HTML element with a download attribute. The web browser doesn't have the correct codecs to play some videos, so it's much better if the player streams the download link with Media Foundation instead.

You can also try using XBVR to create a local web server to host the videos for you. It uses the DeoVR API, so you can press the web stream button in the upper left corner of the HereSphere web browser to load a video library view with thumbnails, tags, etc.

Thanks, it's working now properly.

[gokushivum]

I cannot get the first way to work at all, it says looking for api and disappears immediately and nothing changes, I can't seem to get it to work anywhere even after changing the codec

[HereSphere]

Originally posted by gokushivum:

I cannot get the first way to work at all, it says looking for api and disappears immediately and nothing changes, I can't seem to get it to work anywhere even after changing the codec

If it disappears, then the website doesn't implement the HereSphere or public DeoVR web API.