Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

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Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

Post by book_guy »

So, I figure someone at Milovana can give me a quick and easy answer to this question: as a newbie, can you let me know ...

How do I look at VR porn?

I own a smart-phone; I have a Pornhub account; so, really, I OUGHT to be able to put the two together rather simply, get some kind of goggle-type device to strap my phone into, and away I go. Right? I'm on Android platform, BTW. But I seem to be getting into some kind of circular feedback loop of problems whenever I try to figure out for myself most of the technical details. Rather than getting a horny experience in which I look at a Pornhub streaming video (or a downloaded video) that is supposed to be an "immersive virtual reality sex experience" I end up not seeing the thing as VR. It looks like two images; or, the two images don't coincide; or, the video offerings are rather furkin' lame-ass; or it's just a leader-link to a high-cost pay-per-view site; or ... ya know, newbie mistakes.

Help appreciated. Just a quick pointer or two, the basic info, I think I'm not a computer-tech idiot. Thanks!
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Re: Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

Post by Chico »

I think you have to use a video which is specifically for a smart phone.
I'm on another board where a lot of this VR realty stuff is downloaded and it seems to be
categorised as "Oculus", "GearVR" or "smartphone"
I don't know how it works but I could ask on there if you like, if you want to PM me with
details of your phone and what problems you've had.

cheers,

Chico
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Re: Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

Post by book_guy »

Yeah not much specifics engendered in this thread hunh? Thanks tho ..
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Re: Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

Post by book_guy »

Hi, here's a follow up to my cluelessness about Virtual Reality and 3d viewers ...

So, I simply got sick of not being able to figure out solutions to what I wanted, and decided to grasp the bull by the horns. I checked internet reviews. Then I went to Wal Mart and bought a medium-range VR headset and dickered around with it for a while. Ordered another on-line. Got another from Office Depot. Here's some of the things that I learned. Maybe other pornsters will benefit from a little of this knowledge? Dunno. Not much of a TECHNICAL or programming-oriented or settings-oriented nature in this post, just generalizations that should apply to most situations. Please feel free to correct or augment this information, I claim no special knowledge.

First, you can't really go wrong by getting a basic headset (presuming you have an adequate smartphone to use within it), because there's no such thing as the "wrong" headset, except way up in the highest most expensive tier. The headset is simply the hardware. All videos will play adequately on (almost) all hardware. The hardware choice is (roughly) parallel to the choice of what laptop or desktop computer you will decide to buy. You can rest assured that you are highly, highly likely, to be able to look at almost any porn video (and lots of other VR 3d movies and games) on your hardware. I include this statement because I was kind-of worried about the risk of investing some money into a piece of hardware which then would have proved to have been useless to me because it was somehow incompatible with what porn I would want to watch. That risk is minimal, or even non-existent, in my experience.

Second, as for software, it also doesn't really matter, for there are tons and tons of "free" VR viewers. This is the major piece of software which will play your intended VR videos for you in either split-screen-3d or in single-screen-2d. Nearly ALL of the free viewers have at least two rather common commands, aside from the other obvious necessary ones (necessary commands such as volume control, play, pause, skip forward, skip backward, exit, are all available in the visual interface and often as buttons on your headsets too). The two rather common new commands specific to VR are, (1) "recenter" or "reorient" the video; and (2) swap from VR view to non-VR view. In VR view, there are actually TWO videos playing, each a little bit off-kilter from the other, one for each eyeball in your headgear (and head). In non-VR view, there's only one video playing, it has somewhat of a fish-eye lens effect, and it offers a sensible conglomeration of the two views that would be available in VR view. As far as VR versus non-VR, you can almost always swap from one to the other pretty easily (usually by clicking an icon that looks like VR goggles), so, if you think you are getting a bad arrangement or you aren't enjoying the supposed three-dimensional effect the right way, you can just punt, by watching the video in "normal" instead; and this watching can happen either on your headset, or on your laptop; no big whoop. Believe it or not, your brain is intelligent enough to trick you in whichever manner is necessary for the video that it is being presented with: if it's a double-video (true VR view), then your brain will see the two akilter versions as one and will automatically conglomerate them into a 3d immersive view; whereas, if it's a single-video (non-VR view), then your brain will see it as one image (and do so despite the divider that runs down the middle of your nose inside the headgear) and present you with it (again) intelligently. So, really, your head does most of the work! Anyway, as far as software, the choice of VR viewer is (roughly) parallel to the choice of using VLC media player, versus Windows media player, versus Windows Movies, versus some other player. Mostly, they all come out almost exactly the same, but some have better interfaces or more options or are less confusing or are, simply, what you're used to. As for the command to "re-orient" the video, well, it's not always ideal, but it does what it claims to do. There are problems with it, but mostly those problems come from dumb-ass porn producers who don't get the concept. More on that later.

Third, there seem to be about four "levels" or tiers of headset.

1. Dumb headset
The first is what I'll call the "dumb" headset. This is just a box, with some lenses in it, which has maybe some straps to hold your phone in the right place in front of your eyes. You would have a hard time making your own box, because you need to have the right lenses. (In fact, if you wear glasses for reading, then putting on and taking off the VR headset is a bit of a drag, because you will almost always have to swap the headset for the glasses, and that gets messy and annoying and fuckin' pain in the butt.) You can't make the lenses. There are YouTube videos about cutting out plastic Coke Bottles and pasting them together with water in between, but, just don't. Focal length? Concave axis? Convex axis? Orientation of ... never mind. Just don't. The lenses allow you to put your phone smack dab right on your damn nose, like, literally one and a half inches away from your eyes. Without the lenses, you won't be able to focus close enough onto your phone's imagery (unless you are so damn myopic you don't actually need to read this post anyway). So, at a minimum, I'd say you have to buy the dumbest box, rather than just make one, because you need the lenses. But down at dumbest box level, the dumbness can sometimes be a problem, because it means you essentially have to get everything ready to go, hit play, and then REAL FAST you have to stick the phone into the headset and put the headset on and start watching. Also, at the bottom tier, things are made very cheaply, probably prone to breakage etc..

2. Smart headset
with or without ancillary interface devices (headphones; joystick; exterior button)
The next tier up, is a (slightly) smarter headset. It might have move-able lenses (you reach down underneath, and push them forward or backward, or outward or inward, to help focus the same way you would focus binoculars or other eye-pieces). It probably has a BLUETOOTH set-up, which will cause your phone, your headset, and the playback of the video, to all coordinate a bit better. With the proper software running, the Bluetooth will automatically kick the coordination into effect, or shut it off, depending on whether you have the phone locked into the headset or out in your hand. (In fact, this can be annoying, if you want to do something to the phone by touching its screen, but you don't want to exit playback, because it might exit playback against your wishes.) Another thing Bluetooth will do, is connect the AUDIO of the video-file to some built-in EARPHONES that come attached to the headset. Many headsets have attached earphones, so that you effectively are buying eyepieces AND earpieces when you buy your VR headset. And most of these (slightly) smarter headsets have an exterior button on the top, which engages your phone's main button, and causes (depending on the software that you're running) the major click-in of a command (such as the two VR-specific commands mentioned) to be engaged. These (slightly) smarter headsets are essentially the minimum for usefulness, and I'd suggest that Bluetooth-connected earpieces, and the main external button, are pretty much necessary for a reasonably enjoyable VR porn experience.

3. Smarter headset
Another tier up, is a headset that comes with more built-in buttons, commands, and other "intelligent" capacities. It is, in effect, a player-machine which simply uses your phone's playback capacity, your phone's screen, and your phone's Bluetooth, to put on a good show for you. A decent version of this smarter headset, tier 3, can be had in the range of $50 or less, and is probably the most sensible purchase for most guys who want to watch the VR-3d porn videos that are available on Pornhub and the like. The earphones will automatically take over the audio playback whenever Bluetooth tells them to do so, and it's likely you'll either (a) wonder why you are getting no audio, until you remember that you took the earphones out; or (b) blow your eardrums out, because you failed to fix the audio to a reasonably low volume, before putting the earphones in. The transition from lower quality tier 2, to middle or higher tier 2, on up to 3, is really just a continuum, depending on what's available at the store and what's on sale and so forth. The major distinction between tier 2 and tier 3, in my mind, is the processing capacity; tier 2 can be super-dumb, whereas tier 3 pretty much has to have a full logic chip, in order to make sure that (a) any of the various software programs which you might use as your playback-software, and (b) any of the various videos or games which you might choose to view, are all engaging correctly. You probably can't play a decent VR game at any tier below tier 3 of headsets, simply because you'll lack adequate command buttons.

4. Super genius
There are some headsets that are actually their own computers. The tier 3 headset, above, does have its own processing power, as described (in fact, tier 2 does as well, if you consider that it has to have a logical capacity to enact or dis-enact the Bluetooth connection). The tier 4 headset is ENTIRELY its own processor. It abandons the use of your phone, provides you with its own (likely very fancy schmancy) screen, probably has Dolby or Beats Audio for its earphone playback, and claims to be "the best" VR experience on the market. There are essentially three or four tier 4 versions to purchase, and they do compete with one another. A "standard" Pornhub VR video will probably play just as well on any one or another of the tier 4 headsets. But the proprietary tier 4 pieces -- games, videos, immersive experiences -- won't cross platforms, usually. So, if you buy an Oculus Rift, then you are only ever going to get full advantage out of it when you are playing Oculus Rift branded, specific, dedicated videos. No (or, ahem, very very few) porn videos worth your time, are also proprietary to only one tier 4 headset. (Gear VR is the major competitor. There are a few smaller other platforms.) So, strictly for porn enjoyment, I wouldn't bother with a headset higher than tier 3. Presuming, of course, that you have an adequate smart-phone to put into the tier 3 headset.

So, to summarize the tiers:
tier 1 -- a dumb box that might strap to your head to hold your phone there
tier 2 -- a headset capable of Bluetooth but not much more, which holds your phone in front of your face (adequate for porn)
tier 3 -- a headset with extra buttons and Bluetooth which will allow all the functions of a typical porn video, and which holds your phone in front of your face (sufficient for porn)
tier 4 -- a complete playback machine, which does not require the use of your phone and provides one of several competing, non-compatible, proprietary experiences (excessive, and perhaps problematic, for porn) (Gear VR, Oculus Rift, others)
Among these tiers, I recommend as "probably necessary" for porn, that you get headgear which has earphones (and therefore, to engage the earphones, also Bluetooth), and has the main external button, at a minimum. This is a high tier 2 or a tier 3.

I'd make some other recommendations --

Get a headset that has not only an around-the-head strap, but also an over-the-head strap. You'll be surprised how heavy the damn thing is, hanging off the front of your face.

Make sure you check the returns policy of the store where you buy it. A LARGE number of these things are put together very very cheaply, and you can end up with something lacking the functions which you would have (rightly) expected, on the basis of the exterior packaging. And they're just slip-shod, chintzy. They have interior padding (to hold the phone; or, to softly cushion your face) that is supposed to be stuck onto a particular location, but I found consistently several which had lost the padding's adhesion so that the pads and cushions were floating around sloppily. Sure, you CAN just glue the pad back down with a little stickum, but who wants to have to do that for a piece of electronic equipment you spent good money on?

Don't expect the immersive porn experience to be all that great. I was surprised to learn that many, many of the free VR porn videos I could find on Pornhub were very disappointing. I had expected to be "immersed" into the point-of-view sex, blowjob after blowjob, and I do admit that my personal porn preferences very much include the POV style videos. But I found that the non-VR view of any of the supposed 3d-VR videos, was just as immersive and enjoyable as the VR view. In other words, I could just watch the mono-video (though it would have a little of the fish-eye lens effect) and not need to put the damn thing into a strapped on helmet type contraption to watch it.

Also, porn producers being what they are, they often misplace the "re-orient video" button to a place where it's useless. It's so low on the video, that, in order to re-orient the video, you have to over-tip your head way down low to the extent that, after you've re-oriented the video, it's too low! You need to re-orient it again! (To understand this complaint, you have to first realize that the way to move the mouse in order to select an on-screen command is, quite often, to tip the headgear such that the pointer moves across the screen.) I personally wanted to lie back on my bed, with my head on my pillows, at a typical angle -- maybe, 10 degrees off vertical? I dunno ... -- and watch immersive porn. Unfortunately, when I tried to do that with the various headsets I'd tried out, I ended up quite often only able to see the ceiling of the porn video. I was looking UP above the chick's head, because I had the headset and the smartphone tipped (relative to real gravity) such that the video would only show me the upper portion of the playback. It thought I wanted to tip my head back. So, the solution SHOULD be, to re-orient the video so that the center of the video is being shown in the center of the screen when the headset is tilted 10 degrees off vertical, right? You'd think this would be a sensible thing to implement, right? But you can't always do it. Depending on which porn-video producer you're watching, or which playback software you've chosen, you actually have to TIP DOWN to get at the button which will re-orient. In other words, you have to UN-orient where you want the headset to be, just to get the right to RE-orient it. You have to move away from what you want, in order to get at the command that allows you to indicate what you want. DUMB. Way to go, idiot porn producers. You can try to stick your finger inside your headset to tweak the settings or to push-drag the screen sideways, and that will sort-of work, but mostly you're hampered by the fact that the Bluetooth playback may (or may not?) shut itself off if you disengage the clasp which holds the phone into the headset. So, you can either (a) watch the ceiling above the chick's head while she is probably giving you a blowjob, and not really enjoy the video; or (b) agree to sit upright whenever you are watching the chick, so that you can see more than the top of her head. This incompetence really blew my mind -- it recurs with almost all the playback software which I tried, and with all four of the headsets I looked through. It's essentially based on the ineptitude of the porn-producer, a fact I've determined from further investigation of non-porn videos that, consistently, do NOT have that problem.

To put the complaint in terse, rather confusing, but direct terms: I would want a permanently relative orientation of playback, by which I would choose which real (headset-to-gravity) orientation is associated with which video (playback-to-screen's-center) orientation; but the porn producers have generally made the opposite assumption, that playback orientation must always match real orientation of the headgear. Idiots. Sure, you CAN beat it, if you're smart; but who WANTS to? Especially since the porn videos aren't all that thrilling.

At least, not to me, they aren't all that thrilling. I decided I was not getting the exciting immersive experience I had expected from using VR headgear to watch a VR porn video. The 3d effect was hard to "believe in" -- depending on where you put the binocular-like settings for the location of the lenses, either the chicks face or her hands or the wall behind her would be what was in focus. The VR headsets are all rather cheaply produced. The videos (even a few expensive paid-for experiences, which I snatched as "free trial" versions from a few of the different studios) are not exploiting the potentially amazing advantages of VR (the immersive experience of virtual-sex, causing the viewer to "forget" ((at least a little bit)) that he is watching a video, and causing him to become unable to distinguish from REAL reality as opposed to VIRTUAL reality) as much as they are just making some novelty-items, the sorts of things you'll try because you say to yourself, "oh hell I got to try THAT at least once!" but not because you say to yourself, "yeah that was awesome! So let's get another!"

And the streaming aspects are problematic. If you can download from Pornhub, store on your phone, and watch later, that will work a lot better than simply trying to stream from Pornhub (whether or not you're using Pornhub's own smartphone app ... which CLAIMS to be also a VR viewer, but isn't really, though it is sort of). Many of the playback options are simply incompatible with streaming videos, and finding out a video's URL in order to plug it into the playback software, while also browsing the internet from inside your goggles, is all just too complex. I certainly didn't ever end up putting on the headgear, and THEN booting up Pornhub from within the goggles to surf for cool sexy videos that would playback in VR. Instead, I went to Pornhub on my laptop, found some stuff I wanted to try on VR, then had to figure out how to transfer the experience to the goggles, either by recording and transmitting the URL somehow, or by surfing directly to the same place on the internet all over again by smartphone and then REAL QUICK inserting the phone into the headgear, or by downloading the whole video onto the smartphone and then engaging the headgear to play back the saved version.

When you buy the headset, by the way, you'll probably get a bunch of ancillary things. The higher the tier that you buy, the more gadgets that come with it. Some of mine had little joystick type contraptions, about five buttons on a triple-AAA-battery operated finger-sized trigger mechanism. The joystick, headgear, and phone all connected by Bluetooth admirably. But the buttons on the joystick almost never did what they were supposed to do, and their functions rotated through various useless commands depending on the VR-viewer software I was using. There was no documentation, no way to know which was intended, no hope for "setting up your key bindings" as you might have hoped to do for the typical video-game. And you'll get (or be told to download) a type of software for your phone that is the headset-management software, not the playback software. For instance, you could get software that coordinates your library of videos on your phone, software that has a graphic equalizer for your audio playback, and (mostly) software that advertises what games you can download. And of course the games are mostly paid-for-play, and if not, then there's in-game purchases to get you beyond level 3 or so. One of my headsets came with what they call a "game cube to get you started" which was, actually, a small plastic bubble with a QR code (and some dragons) printed on it. It was a hexagonal cylinder -- base and top were six-sided, and there were six faces connecting base to top. How this is a "cube" is beyond me. It was about two inches across, made of very thin printed plastic, and its two pieces were secured to one another with SCOTCH TAPE. Just to give you a hint about the chintzy construction of these things.

Well, those are my present thoughts. I returned the headsets I tried (geez the vendors are easy-going if you buy with a credit card and have your receipt, so KEEP THE RECEIPT!). I only ever bought what I call tiers 1, 2, and 3; maybe ultra-expensive tier 4 would have been great for me, but I doubt it. I'm glad I tried out the lower-tier headgear, but porn isn't up to snuff yet. When it gets to where the immersive experience of watching point-of-view virtual sex with VR goggles is so exciting that the fantasy becomes "believable" I may try buying another set. Or not ... presently, porn on 3d VR is mostly a gimmick. There are unpleasant hassles in figuring out how to make the video play on your particular set-up, in getting your own house laid out so that you can sit back and relax and watch (with a five-pound Alien pod hanging off your face), in distinguishing which software setups do or don't work with which porn videos, in trying to keep the rather touchy little buttons from engaging when you don't want them to engage, in trying to hit "play" but finding out you actually hit "exit", in getting your eyeglasses ON to read the instructions on the screen while keeping the headgear OFF, but then having to do vice-versa to do so during VR playback, etc. etc.. Worse, and probably more important to most readers here, there are major disappointments in the quality of the videos being produced, such that the fantasy simply isn't believable, and therefore isn't any more exciting than any normal porn video, about 99% of the time, in my experience. So, for now, it doesn't really work, but I do look forward to a time when VR figures out how to make porn really immersive; or, to put it differently, when porn figures out how to take advantage of VR. Not there yet.
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Re: Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

Post by doremi »

No experience with 3D either. But I hear that the hardware, not just the 'display', but the computer is important because of all the change of view angle calculations. That the slightly misalligned sensor/motion detector keep the system non-functional with increasing frustration.

Hopefully, someone with experience can point you to a tutorial detailing every steps that need to be taken with your equipment.

-----

Personally, I'm not inclined to try it because I don't think that the phone hardware solution works that well, and I don't want to waste money on equipments that may or may not make me feel dizzy because of the 3D disorientation, kind-of sea sick experience. Also, the point-of-view seems a little limited to me.
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Re: Quick start-up for Virtual-Reality Sex Machine?

Post by book_guy »

Well, thanks for the suggestions, but they aren't really germane to me. I did manage to fix any of the technical problems that I described above, and therefore I did view a sufficient number of 3d / VR porn videos and interactive game-type sequences in order to be able assess my level of interest. The tech concerns and other complaints I wrote about in my longer post (just above) are there for discussion's sakes, to inform other novices at VR of what they might be getting themselves into.

Hope others might benefit from the info! :wave:
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