Whirligig VR Media Player

This app has gone down in quality, continuous issues plague each version.

Great for Academic research.

I overlooked this application a while ago, at the time it didn't work for my needs and refunded it. That said as I was using DEO VIdeo CPU Gobbler taking 50% sometimes even 100 percent of my CPU, it had to go.

Tried Whirligig and it was way more usable, lightweight and the biggest selling point is it doesn't grind my computer to a halt.
Respect to the developer for taking constructive feedback and making an insane application, has a lot of features other media players don't, I haven't run across any that autoplay the next file. That said its not really plug in play, you kind of have to mess around with it to get what you want and luckily thats where the save/load presets come in handy.

Things I like
Autoplay
Cosmetic Controllers
Customization of backgrounds
Lightweight
Random file feature, however i wish you could go back instead of that being random but maybe thats just me. like if you pressed Left on the left control stick.
Slideshow

However I do have some requests, Pausing once a menu has opened is really quite annoying, like if you skip ahead in the progress bar it pauses it there's ways to prevent this from happening like binding Up on the left controller to pause play and that's really the biggest complaint or lack of feature from me.

png webp gif and ( i cant remember if jpeg was one of them) files don't seem to open hopefully that's fixed in the future.

and lastly clicking on shortcuts in the explorer menu specifically the premade ones for clicking on Videos, Downloads or Images can and will break you from interacting with other media, if you try and go to one of your Shortcut 1-10 the files show up for a split second and disappear. which can be annoying cause you can fix the problem not knowing what you did or it doesn't fix at all.

Also I don't know how to reprogram any of the Shortcuts 1 through 10

Has more options for controls than other players, but no proper Index Controller integration (the touch pad is tread as 1 singular button wth), also the tilt control can't be changed from 0,5 increments and give me motion sickness because it's so unsmooth.
Also: why do i have to set the proper 180° SBS individually for every video.
Way too clunky all in all

Deo VR started with low framerates and stuttering badly on loads of videos so I tried this out and it plays them all brilliantly.

The UI takes a bit of getting used to but overall excellent.

Good VR video player. Seems to play all the formats that I've thrown at it, and has may options for getting the VR 3D view looking correct.

My go-to VR movie player for many years now.

This developer has hit it out of the park with this one IMO. More versatility, options, and control over everything from the environment to the picture itself. Control feels so tune-able that you can compensate for vision issues almost. VLC support for remote file access, add on the ability to utilize this with virtually any VR platform even Mobile and Phone*( not native just hella easier with this and something like iVRy) and just a ton more to play with and is still basically in beta at this stage. Leaps better than any of the other dozens of VR theater or media player apps I have tried over the last few years!

I like prawns. I use this player to watch prawn videos.

Every update makes things run worse. The last one made it where I could not adjust tilt or any sliders without the selector being "stuck." It is basically unusable and not worth $5 or whatever it costs now.

Listen, you paid a ton of money to watch prawn videos on VR, spring for a decent player. I bought HereSphere and it is leaps and bounds better. Yes, it's more costly, but your prawn will thank you.

Seriously well put-together bit of software. It has all the tweaks you need, all the buttons and settings work well (i encountered some audiovisual hickups with 4K video, but that's fair) and the whole thing just works, there's even some customisation! I'll be watching a movie with this sometime soon!

If you're looking for a VR video player, this really seems like it'll cover any type of video out there. It's got a bunch of options for video formats and what-not.

The performance is solid, and the controls are simple and pretty easy to figure out. The looks are simple, but it only needs to be simple, so that turns out to be a good thing.

System Specs: 7950X, 32GB DDR5@6000MHz, 6800XT, SSD, Win10, HP Reverb G2v2 VR Headset

This is my go to VR player for "scientific research" type videos. I really enjoy videos that explore topics of physiology and anatomy, and this player is excellent for that usage.

ATTENTION!! If you encounter some video types that won't play correctly (green screen with sound or very stuttering video in slow-motion), like I did, you must install LAVFilters + CodecTweakTool and SVP (SmoothVideo Project).
Note that before installing these, I mainly had issues with h265 videos above 4K (and high bitrates). Note that I installed these with default settings and used CodecTweakTool to set "Preferred Decoders" (DirectShow) 32 and 64bit, HEVC/H.265 to "none". These settings seem to work fine for me. Additionally, I tried the latest beta release and then went back to stable release.

POSITIVES:
- Very accessible player with plenty of features available.
- Hasn't missed a beat playing any type of video files (once I sorted out the codecs).
- Easy interface and easy to navigate in VR.
- VR implementation is well thought out.
- Active developer who listens to the community, despite somewhat slow development (it's one guy!?).
- Works nearly flawlessly for a project still in E.A.
- Good value for the cost.

NEGATIVES:
- Interface could be slightly improved.
- Occasional bugs due to ongoing development and changes.
- Screen mirroring is enabled by default. (ummm... what's the issue, you ask?)
- No way to save various control schemes for each control type - can only back up your config file locally (as far as I'm aware).
- Limited control support for Windows Mixed Reality/OpenXR (which is not so uncommon).

SUMMARY:
Great software from a great developer! I'm surprised it's not a lot more popular (except that it has a small price tag compared to some free alternatives). I started out using Whirligig in Oculus Home with a Rift CV1 (most of my usage time is on there), and then bought it again on Steam (and recently started using it here since acquiring my Reverb G2). The other software (which shall not be named), I tried and found to be a bit clunky and not as feature-rich.

Highly recommended!

P.S. If you have trouble getting videos to play correctly and your system is up to spec with video files on an SSD, I recommend checking pinned threads on the Whirligig Steam discussion page for help. Or ask in comments on this review.

Bog standard h264 and h265 videos, I have all the codec-support installed, still can't play the files...

EDIT:
Installing LAV codecs and switching to DirectShow seems to have mostly fixed things. Mostly. Some videos stutter for the first few seconds, forcing a rewind to get audio back in sync, but I suspect this is more of a codec issue.

I think it used to work in the past but now it doesn't play anything. So far, DeoVR is what works for me.

ok, tried doing the reset, still does not play most of the videos. I only get the error message that whirligig cannot open the file.

I cant believe it, its so good on an Valve Index to watch movies and this because only it got the function "Background Glow" (Ambilight) which kills 99% of every god rays. Every cent worth

Not bad, but for 5K, 6K, 8K Videos you'll need to install the very latest h265-codec from microsoft.
All in all the controlls could be better, could be worse - it's ok.

UI can be a little strange at first especially when you're trying to find specific depth/projection combos for different videos. That being said, this definitely seems to be the best VR media player available at the moment. Some videos that wouldn't play initially were fixed by installing K-Lite Codec Pack. Handles >6k res videos much better than GizmoVR does. Multiple projection types, different depth types, customisable menu themes and a ton of different variables to adjust (fov, rotation, depth, stretch, etc as well as color correction settings). A ton of different "rooms" out of the box for cinema mode. Pretty much the only two gripes I have (when comparing to GizmoVR), is the lack of thumbnail previews and (seemingly) no option to manage files within the app, preferably being able to delete videos that turn out to look worse than expected. Overall, I'd buy this if it was $15. No second guessing the price tag here.

Not running with Oculus Quest 2 through cable/SteamVR. In the headset I only show the clepsydra while the app runs on desktop. How to set it up for Oculus Quest 2?

UPDATE: Thank you for help, now is working!
After some tests I discovered that the problem is not related to beta version, the app don't works from the desktop shortcut, it works, for me, by launching it from STEAM.
Thanks!

EDIT: I solved the initial criticism I had by going into menu and selecting the 'hide cursor during playback' option. I'm removing the previous review and adding a new one.

Whirligig in my opinion is the best player in VR for 3D movies. It allows you to customize your screen as you wish, for example with 3D it's awesome to curve the screen around yourself so it adds immersion but not so much that you lose the picture out of your peripheral vision (I use Index, the amount will differ for other HMDs).

It's simple and does what it says without any overbearing menus or gaudy themes - there are themes in the options for those that want, but honestly at that point you're better off with Bigscreen VR. Great player, recommended.

Hi.
Can anyone tell me, why after owning this product for a couple of years with no issues, suddenly when I try to view a 360 photo I just get a black screen with a few faint white dots on the screen?
I've uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of times.
I will delete this review when the issue is sorted.

unreliable, has a mind of its own. drops settings, resets itself. No way to change back rather then reinstalling a beta. All betas show the same behavior, just brakes after a short while. frustrating. not recommended

Was abit sceptical with the bad reviews but, it works just the way i wanted it to. Had to download the LAV Codecs which the dev has got pinmed in the discussion page. Its works great, and yes it works great for 3D videos that we all want it for in the first place, if we're on the same wave lenght lol ;)

Absolutely amazing video player for use with the HTC Vive.
Just make sure you go to the forum section of this software on Steam, and look at the pinned threads.
YOU WILL *NEED* TO INSTALL K-LITE, AND SET THE VIDEO ENCODERS TO *LAV*. Otherwise it will *NOT* work for 90% of the videos.

Had an issue where the controllers wouldn't do anything in the player, emailed the developer and got a response within 10 minutes! Very friendly and offering to help and support in any way possible.
Turned out to be an issue with Steam VR itself, not with Whirligig.

Also, pro tip, if you mess up distance/scaling in such a way that the video comes INFRONT of the menu, tap your circular input on the controller until the scale/distance is highlighted, then click left/right to adjust until the video is behind the menu again.

Good for "Researching" various videos from the internet.
I needed to install a codec pack before all videos worked.

I wish it remembered the last settings I last used to play a video.

For the most part you will only need to change two settings:
Format of Barrel Stereo OU (Over Under) or Barrel Stereo SBS (Side By Side)
and then
FOV to either 180 or 360

Despite what some people here are saying, I have no problems with this player whatsoever. No motion sickness, no problems playing MKVs (I've only tried two different ones though, both about 14 GBs in size). Controls work well when using an XBOX controller.

But for the price I feel like I recieved an excellent product.