- Exposes new Diamond Plane format for 6K+ resolutions requiring lower network bandwidth.
- Bandwidth average now shown in Mb/s not MB/s.
- Better ambisonics support.

Sorry for the long, long, long time between updates. Pretty sure I have been in a time machine traveling the Universe and just got back...

Anyway, this new build picks up all the changes that Pixvana have made over the past 5 months in their SPIN SDK including better support for all SteamVR compatible graphics cards.

For content creators, the Diamond plane and Varisqueeze formats are now supported so you can render in those formats in SPIN Studio (though I still need to surface this in the in-app UI and in the Steam store). Also, Ambisonic audio support is being tested and should make its debut soonish so you can use 4-channel spatial audio in your 360 videos.


SteamVR Media Player
==================

If you're here looking for something to play your local video files in a VR headset, SteamVR now has a player in beta that you can access from the SteamVR monitor window (choose Run Media Player). At some point in 2018 this new media player and the Steam 360 Video player will merge into one all encompassing player, but for now we are going to continue the two betas independent of each other.

Fixes in this build (#1945381):

• Steam 360 Videos can now be viewed without a VR HMD. This build is a first attempt at it, but it still needs more work. If SteamVR is not installed, the 360 video window will start up and you can use the mouse to control the view. Left-click and drag to move the camera around. Right-click to hide the help and analytics information.
  
• Oculus Touch is now properly supported. Inside the HMD, the transport UI will appear above an active touch controller. Use the thumbstick to play/pause (push up), seek (left/right), stop (down), change quality (pull a trigger and push up/down, or push right to reset to auto).
  
• Gamepads are now properly supported. Same controls as the Oculus touch controllers.
  
• Updated the network code to request more data less often to help reduce issues with latency.
  
• On-screen network analytics - you can now see in the app window the amount of data we are requesting, how long it takes to get it, etc. Hopefully we can use this data to better identify when their are network issues with the player.
  
• Fix a hard-lock that could occur when watching FOVAS based videos

Next build should have support for Stereo FOVAS (so lower bandwidth requirements for stereo videos), and we are working toward Spatial audio support.

Thanks!

Fixes in this build (#1864698):

• Most UI is now moved into the HMD view. The video name, quality level, 360 format, status messages, buffering indicator, etc. are all displayed either above the Vive controller, or at the "front" of the video so it's easy to know what's going on.
  
• Quality level can now be adjusted from the Vive controller. Pull the trigger and you'll be shown the current quality level. Then push up or down to change to a different quality level. Press right (the A in a circle) and the video will go back to Automatic quality mode.
  
• Buffering, Seeking, Quality level changes, etc., will now all show a buffering indicator so you know what's going on.
  
• If turning on the Vive controller after video playback has started, the UI should switch to the controller properly.
  
• Some more network performance data is now being collected and sent back during playback so we can get a better idea of network performance, resolutions, etc.
  
• The latest Steam Client has an updated message when the video player is not installed to help users find and install the tool quicker.

Some of the Vive specific controller functions may work on Oculus touch but the UI hasn't been moved over to work with that yet. YMMV.

Some upcoming work includes Spatial audio support and Stereo Frustum (lower bandwidth requirements but higher quality streams). Other things such as mouse interaction, Win7 support, etc. are still on the agenda to get done.

Also new content is coming soon... we are working with more partners and preparing their content for publishing on Steam. Expect to see new videos to watch in the next few weeks.

Thanks!

Fixes in this build (#1834419):

• Performance improvements related to scaling videos up to HMD resolutions. Should result in smoother playback when looking around.
  
• Fixes rendering issues with Stereo videos when a quality level lower than the maximum resolution was selected (manually or automatically).

An update to the Steam 360 Video Player is now available. Thank you for all the feedback and suggestions so far. We are keeping track of them and making sure to update our feature backlog.

Fixes in this build (#1828669):

• For users with Room-Scale setups, the orientation of the video was rotated based on the room-scale setup orientation. The orientation of the video is now based on the rotation of the headset when the video starts.
  
• Various seeking issues have been fixed.
  
• Fix for Hunger Games 360 video where the L/R eye projection was reversed.
  
• Improvements for some stereo depth issues seen in a couple of the videos.

Thanks!
Sean