WatchVROpen player

Playback guide

How to play 180°, 360° and SBS VR videos online

WatchVR opens a local video in your browser and maps it to an interactive VR view. Use this guide when the source looks split, stretched, reversed or wrapped around the wrong part of the scene.

Four quick steps

  1. 1

    Open the online VR player

    Open WatchVR and select your video file from the device. The file remains local to the browser.

  2. 2

    Choose the projection

    Select 180° for a front-facing half-sphere video or 360° for a complete panoramic video.

  3. 3

    Choose the video layout

    Select SBS/LR for side-by-side video, TB/OU for top-bottom video, mono for a single view, or front-back where appropriate.

  4. 4

    Play and adjust the view

    Drag to look around, seek through the video, change playback speed, zoom, or tune the image controls.

Choose the right VR settings

180° versus 360° projection

A 180° video covers the area in front of the viewer. A 360° video surrounds the viewer with a full panorama. If a scene is duplicated, heavily stretched or leaves the wrong part of the view empty, try the other projection.

SBS, top-bottom and mono layouts

Side-by-side (SBS/LR) files place the left-eye and right-eye images next to each other. Top-bottom (TB/OU) files stack them vertically. Mono files contain one view. Choose the layout that matches how the unprocessed video looks.

Browser compatibility

WatchVR requires JavaScript and WebGL2. Video format support comes from your browser, so a file can fail when its container or codec is unsupported even if the extension looks familiar. In that case, try a current browser or convert the video to a codec supported by that browser.