How to Watch Movies in VR? Best ways in 2022

VR is a great medium to enjoy movies. You can watch movies in VR in several ways: by downloading them to your computer, by streaming them from a service like Netflix or Hulu, or by playing them on a VR device like a Playstation or Oculus Rift. 

Many people enjoy watching movies in virtual reality (VR). The two most popular ways to experience movies in VR are with the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. Both headsets work with all smartphones.

There’s no need to miss a single frame of your favorite movie when you experience it in VR! With the right equipment, you can watch movies in VR in the comfort and convenience of your own home.

How to Watch Movies in VR?

Many people enjoy watching movies while at home, in the office, on the go, or in bed. It can be an enjoyable in-depth experience, and even in these other environments, the sound can sometimes get a little annoying.

Watching movies in large, vibrant, and immersive movie theaters is great, but you don’t need an expensive home theater to get the full effect of watching movies. You can experience the movies in your own VR headset, which will allow you to enjoy them as if they were in a theater.

When is watching movies in virtual reality going to be good? Well, VR headsets have been around for decades but are just now maturing. The headsets range wildly in quality. Some accept a smartphone and split the screen so that each eye sees one half of it.

There are VR headsets that are designed specifically for the video production industry. Yet even today’s cardboard headsets can provide intense and pleasurable immersion in a great video. With the right VR apps, you can watch a movie with far greater realism and pleasure than ever before.

How To Watch Movies On Oculus Quest 2?

Bigscreen for Oculus Quest

Bigscreen for Oculus Quest is one of the best ways to watch movies and TV on Oculus Quest 2. It’s a free app that lets you enjoy cinema-like experiences on the Oculus Quest 2 by sitting in an immersive environment.

Bigscreen has several options for you to play your content or stream licensed content, both free and paid. It has lots of social options, making it the best app to watch movies and TV with friends in VR. Here are the options, broken down into categories.

Bigscreen: On-Demand Rentals

Bigscreen has an extensive movie library available for rental. You can view these by clicking Movies in the main menu. There, you can rent any of the movies available for rent.

The selection of movies available is decent, with Bigscreen managing to strike deals with some big movie studios such as Paramount, Funimation, and more. After you’ve completed the payment, you’ll be able to watch it in an environment of your choice.

Plus, you can invite your friends into rooms to watch rented movies with you. They’ll just have to make sure they also purchase the right access to the movie before joining your room.

Bigscreen: Free Public Movies and TV Rooms

Public rooms on Bigscreen also continuously stream free TV shows and movies, similar to free-to-air TV channels. It is possible to find channels dedicated to one show, such as Doctor Who Classic and Rick & Morty, as well as those dedicated to a particular type of movie or TV show.

Sometimes you’ll find yourself watching a public movie with other people, but you can’t choose what you watch. They’re all public, so you’ll be watching with anyone else who joins the room as well. You can mute other people, so you can focus on the show without having to worry about chatting with or hearing anyone else.

Bigscreen: Streaming Personal Media Content in Bigscreen

With Bigscreen: Streaming Personal Media Content, you can easily stream personal media content to Bigscreen on your Quest headset. Just like you’d see on a standard PC, the built-in media player will play any local video files stored on your Quest headset.

You can move videos from your PC to your Quest using SideQuest, but it can be a little clunky. You’d have to go through downloading the SideQuest application, then transfer the video files to your Quest via a USB cable.

In addition to the video file, your friend will also want to watch it from your own DLNA media server, on a computer connected to the same network as your Quest.

A DLNA media server gives you the option of streaming your media content to any device on your local network. With one already set up, it will appear in Bigscreen with no additional steps required.

Some media server applications, such as Plex, have optional DLNA server settings that can be turned on from the application’s settings menu.

Setting up your virtual desktop will depend on what your primary goal is, so we’ll go over both options below.

Bigscreen: Streaming Your Desktop

Bigscreen is an excellent free alternative for streaming movies to your PC from your Android phone or tablet. It has virtual desktop capabilities allowing you to stream your desktop view to the Bigscreen app on your Android device.

If you want to stream your desktop view to Bigscreen, you’ll have to install the PC VR version of Bigscreen and download it into your Oculus app. When you launch the Oculus app, click on Bigscreen and the app should automatically start in desktop mode (you don’t need any PC VR headset to do this).

If you have a Roku Ultra, then you can watch Bigscreen directly through your TV screen, instead of the PC.

How to watch Movies or Videos On the Oculus Go Headset?

How to get movies or videos onto the Oculus Go headset. If you want to watch movies or videos on the Oculus Go headset, you just put the movie on your PC and play it using the instructions further down in this article.

But if you’re using an Oculus Go headset, it’s completely self-contained, so it doesn’t connect to your PC at all. What do you need to do to watch movies when you’re wearing it? Several options are available: You can use the built-in browser, accessed via the menu at the bottom of the screen – just make sure to use private browsing mode, clear your history, and delete downloaded files.

Maybe you’re watching something embarrassing, like videos from Linux fan clubs. Depending on the site that you’re getting videos from, you can usually just stream them without having to download them at all.

Download the files to your PC and either copy them directly to the Oculus headset using a USB cable or stream them from your PC or Mac to your Oculus Go using Skybox VR. Keep reading for the instructions on how to use it.

Important Note: If you are streaming directly off a website, click once the movie starts playing, click the HQ icon, and change it to HD or the highest resolution possible. Most sites default to a blurry resolution but they have HD if you manually choose it.

How to Watch movies on the Oculus Go, Daydream View, or Gear VR?

When it comes to viewing videos on your Oculus Go, Daydream View, or Gear VR, you can always stream videos from the web, view videos you’ve paid for in the apps store, or just watch local videos that you’ve purchased.

But when it comes to watching downloaded content, you may want to consider other options, like Skybox VR. You can watch your content streamed directly to the headset through a Plex server. Note: If you’ve got a Plex server, you can simply install the Plex app from the respective store and connect to your server.

If you aren’t going to be mixing your own VR videos into your Plex server, or if you just want to play content that you’ve downloaded directly onto the headset itself, you should use Skybox VR Player instead.

Skybox is a virtual reality (VR) theater. It lets you watch local videos in VR on your Daydream View or Gear VR. Simply install the app and it’ll start doing its thing.

You can use the AirScreen plugin to watch videos stored locally on your phone or stream videos from your PC as long as it’s connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your phone.

To begin, download the Skybox Client from the Oculus Store, or download the video files directly from your phone using the app.

If you’re new to Skybox, it may take a little bit to get used to, but once you do it’s very easy: just click the “Open” button to add files or folders to its library. You can also drag and drop them into the player window. Everything should appear in Skybox after it’s finished.

You’ll first want to click on the AirScreen button on the left side. Then choose “Search Device.” Your PC will appear, so you can just click on it.

The button will appear when your PC is discovered. Click that to connect. That’s awesome. Now all your videos are automatically uploaded to your Skybox library whenever they’re saved to your PC.

How to Watch movies on the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive?

Since we wrote the first article about this, Skybox VR has improved considerably. It’s definitely worth trying out first since it’s completely free, as well as offering network streaming from another PC.

You can find the movie in the Oculus Store, or for Vive users, get it on Steam. I love how much tweaking you can do to the playback of the movie. You can adjust the playback options using the cube icon in the menu, as you did for the Oculus Go earlier if your movie isn’t appearing correctly. There are 180 and 360 options, as well as side-by-side and regular playback options.

No matter which version of the Skybox you use, if it doesn’t fit your needs, you can continue to read about the Skybox. For more information on the Skybox, keep reading.

How to Watch movies on the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive Using Whirligig?

How to Watch Videos on the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive Using Whirligig. The only way to watch videos in VR is with Whirligig. It’s easy to download and you can get it for free on their website or get the $4 version on Steam which gets occasional updates, improvements, and new features.

I recommend buying the $4 version, but you can try out the free version to see if it’s your cup of tea first. (Note that the free version may stutter when playing large files.) If you have an Oculus Rift, you’ll first need to enable Unknown Sources to allow SteamVR to use your Oculus Rift headset.

If you already own the $4 Whirligig on Steam, you can download the beta version that adds support for the Rift and a few other features. If you’re looking for the best experience possible, you should grab this beta version.

So, after buying Whirligig, open Steam, head to the Library tab, and click “Games” in the upper right corner of the sidebar. Click “Software” to find Whirligig in your Library.

You’ll find Whirligig in your Steam library. Choose “Properties” from the menu by right-clicking. Then, click the “Betas” tab to opt into the latest beta. Whirligig will update to the latest possible version.

Depending on the videos you plan to watch, you might need to download and install the K-Lite Codec Pack. I recommend installing the Basic version. Just make sure you click the “Expert” radio button when prompted, and don’t allow K-Lite to install any additional software during the installation process.

You can launch Whirligig in your VR environment of choice, and you’ll see a heads-up overlay.

You can use Whirligig’s menus with the HTC Vive’s touchpad, an Xbox 360 controller, or a mouse and keyboard. I strongly suggest using a mouse and keyboard as it’s easier than any controller.

To watch a video, click the Browse button in the top left-hand corner of the menu. Whirligig lets you browse your hard drive to select a video file, and it supports YouTube links too.

Once the video starts to play, you’ll want to use Whirligig’s heads-up controls to change some settings. Here’s what you should do for each type of video:

2D videos:

Set the camera to Projectorto Curved. 

3D video:

3D video formats include Full Side-By-Side, Half Side-By-Side, Half Over-Under, and Full Over-Under. When you download a 3D video, check the settings you used to rip it to see which one you have. 

Set your projector to either Cinema or Cinema Curved, then select SBS or OU instead of Mono.

When the video is Half SBS, set Stretch to “100” to display in the correct aspect ratio.

180 or 360-degree video: 

The video usually tells you which direction you should be facing, whether it’s 180 degrees or 360 degrees before you click download.

Make sure the fisheye effect is turned on (the preview screen looks like a 180-degree lens).

The “barrel” projection mode makes the display a circular screen that looks like it’s rolling around you, while the FOV (Field of view)

You may need to tweak “Tilt” or “Rotation” so the video is facing the right direction.

FullVR video:

Combine the correct settings from the “3D video” and “180 or 360-degree video” sections of this list.

You have several options for changing the Scale and Distance settings, so check out these details to see what you prefer. You can also adjust them from the Settings cog in the lower right-hand corner.

Whirligig is one of the few products that offers a feature-packed setup. It’s got loads of cool features like saving different presets, but these basics should get you up and running pretty quickly.

You can watch videos in Virtual Reality in many ways; most work just fine. For most people, however, the best VR experience comes from watching a movie with the included motion controllers.

You’ll find that Virtual Desktop ($15. is more than meets the eye–with a little planning, you’ll be able to get much more from your desktop than just watching videos. You can watch a video of your choice, set it to full-screen, and press play. If you have any problems with Whirligig, Virtual Desktop is almost certain to impress.