[feature request] xbmc virtual theater integration
#1
There is an android app called cmoar virtual theater that allows you to watch movies in a virtual theater on your phone. There are several other apps out there like this, but this is the best one at simulating an actual movie theater. You can pick what seat you sit in and then sit back and watch a movie on your personal imax screen. With cifs manager I have been able to mount my external hard drive so that I can watch my entire movie collection in the app.

I just feel like the xbmc community can do better than this. The cinema experience add-on is so cool. Now imagine watching your cinema experience enhanced movie in a movie theater! There is no doubt that the geniuses at oculus are making a theater app with networking capability to watch movies with your friends. Why wait for them? For $25 you can make a decent vr viewer for your phone and experience how awesome a personal virtual movie theater is. I have absolutely no programming skills to make any of this a reality... Here's to hoping someone shares my excitement who also can actually do something about it!!!
Reply
#2
https://developers.google.com/cardboard/
Reply
#3
This is just a link about cardboard. At best this has a generic YouTube viewer... Not really what I was talking about
Reply
#4
XBMC can already do this. You just need to enable SBS 3D.
Reply
#5
yeah, but that's just sbs 3d... have you tried the virtual theater apps?? it seriously gives you the feeling that you are in a movie theater. Imagine watching game of thrones on an imax screen. You could do it easily if someone with the knowhow helped out these theater app designers. They can be found here: http://www.durovis.com/board/viewtopic.p...04e0#p4165
and here: http://www.durovis.com/board/viewtopic.p...43533704e0
Reply
#6
So part of my screen would be given over to simulating people walking in front of the screen? Or curtains and the back of peoples heads? Waste of screen space surely?
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
Reply
#7
no, there are no people walking in front of you. yes, there is screen space "Wasted" on showing you the rest of the movie theater... the fact of the matter is that it is not a waste. you strap the phone to your face and you aren't just watching a smaller movie screen with wasted curtains and crap around it. you get the sense that you are in a movie theater watching a movie on a huge movie screen. Its not some mystical theory. Its VR. You don't even need to buy a oculus rift dev kit to experience it. all you need is your smartphone, and some 5x magnifying glasses and boom you are in a movie theater watching whatever the hell you want. So how about we quit with the BS and start making this happen! Everything needed already exists. All that is needed is someone with some programming skills to marry xbmc with the vr cinema apps that already exist!
Reply
#8
(2014-07-31, 16:10)bbennett22 Wrote: you strap the phone to your face

If it wasn't for the fact you appear to be serious, I'd probably have laughed even harder !! I did not spend upwards of £2000 on a top of the range plasma, and another £1000 on a sound system to go with it, to then strap a phone to my face so that I can pretend I'm in a theatre.

If I want to go watch something on a very big screen, then I will do just that, but people walking around, munching, talking & swilling fizzy drinks usually is enough to make me want to stay at home. My sofa is much comfier too Wink

Phone strapped to face - RoflRofl
Learning Linux the hard way !!
Reply
#9
clearly you are not the target audience, however there is nothing stopping you from using your sound system with the setup I proposed. I also have a few thousand dollars spent on my tv. this doesn't change the fact that strapping a phone to my face while sitting on my couch is an awesome experience. I have gravity on a 3d bluray. I thought it was amazing in the theater. Watching it on my 53" sony 3d tv just doesn't give me the same experience as it did in the movie theater. I don't feel the immersion that I did when I watched it on the imax screen. I definitely felt that immersion watching gravity in 3d with my phone strapped to my face.

Its fine with me that you think its ridiculous, but after you are done laughing at the idea of some idiot (in this case me!!) sitting in his house with a phone strapped to his face, you should check out riftmax.weebly.com and https://share.oculusvr.com/app/vr-cinema
Reply
#10
https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...D_goshow01


https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...tualCinema
Reply
#11
you have to simmulate a full 3D space/room and implement this for OpenGL and DirectX. I don't think anybody in team is willing to do this, and we don't have any active GUI/RenderEngine developer atm. Maybe once we finished binary addon support we could provide needed interfaces so that addons could do this (same with RIFT support), but it's IMO nothing we would want in core (in fact we're trying to move stuff out of core to addons for easier maitenance)
Reply
#12
I couldn't agree more... If I posted this in the wrong area, I apologize. Thanks for the info!
Reply
#13
(2014-07-31, 16:26)black_eagle Wrote:
(2014-07-31, 16:10)bbennett22 Wrote: you strap the phone to your face

If it wasn't for the fact you appear to be serious, I'd probably have laughed even harder !! I did not spend upwards of £2000 on a top of the range plasma, and another £1000 on a sound system to go with it, to then strap a phone to my face so that I can pretend I'm in a theatre.

If I want to go watch something on a very big screen, then I will do just that, but people walking around, munching, talking & swilling fizzy drinks usually is enough to make me want to stay at home. My sofa is much comfier too Wink

Phone strapped to face - RoflRofl

Let's put it this way:

I currently have 3 ways to watch a movie in my home.

On my 23" 1080p monitor 36" inches from my face in my bedroom
On my 40" 1080p Flatscreen TV about 6' from an armchair.
On my 92" 1080p projector and screen about 12' from the couch.

All provide me with roughly the same angular FOV. That is to say, all 3 sizes of screen fill the same amount of my field of vision.

Putting aside sound, why then am I least impressed with the visual impact of a movie on my monitor and most impressed by the visual impact from my projector??

It turns put that it's less to do with angular FOV and more to do with the sense of scale of things/viewing environment.

In VR Cinema assuming I pick the best seat in the house, the angular FOV from my virtual centre isle centre row seat 200' back from the 100' virtual screen will be roughly the same as from my 23" monitor 36" away, 49" TV 6' away and 92" projector screen 12' away. However in the virtual cinema, I look all around me and see 50 rows of seats in every direction. I look up at the auditorium ceiling 40' over my head. I look behind me and see the projector lamp flickering at the back of the auditorium. I move seats and pick a seat nearer the front. The screen towers over me and I have to shift my gaze around to take in the huge screen.

I get to sit on my comfy couch without any of the hassles of going to real cinema that we all complain about and yet I get to experience the movie and the sense of scale to the proceedings as if I were in a real cinema which as I have explained is worlds apart from watching the movie on my $2000 TV or Projector.

What I also get is zero crosstalk 3D movies, zero dim 3D movies, inky black levels and uber contrast (OLED display) attainable neither at home on a Home PJ or in a real cinema itself. I also don't need to dedicate a room to a Home Theater, nor set up my PJ and screen to use in a non dedicated room. I don't have to change room decor to maximise contrast, optimise furniture arrangement to suit a projector and screen over aesthetic considerations. I don't have to fit heavy drapes and close them to watch a movie on the big screen during the day. All I have to do is have the little rift tracking camera nearly hidden away between my front speakers to lock the virtual IMAX screen between my real life speakers.

I decide to have a Batman Movie session. Instead of using the regular cinema auditorium theme, I load up the bat cave auditorium. There's a full size Tumbler batmobile on the stage under the screen. I look around me and am surrounded by fellow viewer avatars in superhero cosplay costumes.

Next I decide to watch the great Gatsby. I load up the luxurious 20's ArtDeco auditorium and my fellow viewers are all wearing roaring twenties style clothes.

Feeling like a bit of mindless B-movie schlock after that. I load up the Drive-In cinema theme and park up my virtual car and watch the sun set as the movie begins.

When we get a 4k Rift which will be needed to do movies in the rift justice with CV2 most likely, VR Cinema will be the killer app that popularises VR to the masses. Oculus obviously think so too. They hired the creator of the VR Cinema app.

Even if you kitted out the whole family with Rifts it would still cost less than a Plasma or Projector. They're going to be about $300 each. Worth the price for VR cinema alone never mind the myriad of other amazing uses they'll have (gaming, education, sightseeing etc etc)

For someone laughing at the thought of the visuals from a 'phone strapped to your face', you are merely showing a lack of 'Vision'. Big Grin

Quote:If I want to go watch something on a very big screen, then I will do just that, but people walking around, munching, talking & swilling fizzy drinks usually is enough to make me want to stay at home. My sofa is much comfier too

Like you and I, the guy in this video also hates the downsides of a real cinema but understands how with VR Cinema he gets to have his cake and eat it too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvaEvzNMK-o
Reply
#14
I think the XBMC (Kobi) integration might actually be something thats done on/inside the VR Cinema app end.

EG.

You open up your VR cinema app and pick your seat. Once you sit down, you look down and on the virtual armrest is a virtual tablet PC touchscreen interface displaying XBMC. ie. you interact with a normal 2D XBMC interface displayed on the virtual tablet. Positional tracking lets you lean closer, gaze recognition moves selection focus on the virtual touchscreen with just one real life 'Select' button needed. Maybe Voice command.

Basically the VR cinema app just needs to display the display output of XBMC on a virtual screen inside the virtual space. Then behind the scenes use XBMC as the playback software. Personally, with VR Cinema I'd like to interact with my media collection via the XBMC GUI but inside the virtual space. However, personally I think having the XBMC GUI displayed on the giant Virtual screen might ironically break the immersion and sense of presence of the VR Cinema because I am only used to seeing the interface at home on a small screen and never in a real cinema. Displaying the GUI instead on a tablet PC remote might not break immersion and instead make me feel like I was still in a real cinema but had hacked into the real cinemas digital projection system and took control of it Big Grin
Reply
#15
Calibos you rock!!! Thanks for writing up such a bad ass retort! I've been in contact with the creators of each of the vr cinema apps for android. They all said they would look into it, but theyve never heard of xbmc. On another note, I watched a video on my friends lg g3.... That screen is already perfect for vr cinema!
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
[feature request] xbmc virtual theater integration0