Hardware PSVR 3D SBS MP4 Videos via Littlestar

[cots]

So I just got a PSVR unit and the thing rocks, but wanted to get some of my 3D content that I have been collecting in anticipation for a 3D HDTV to play on the unit. I found an app named Littlestar which by itself is really cool (it allows you to stream VR content to your PSVR). Littlestar allows you to "sideload" MP4 files with very specific encoding properties. It works pretty well as I was able to transcode Terminator 2 3D and watch it on the PSVR in 3D. Littlestars website links to a script to convert your media to the format it supports, but I couldn't get it working under Linux and I don't have Mac OSX. So I set out to use ffmpeg to convert the movie and after a few attempts I succeeded.

Here is the format that Littlestar supports.

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Video Spec
H.264 [email protected] or lower
Max pixel width: 2560
Max frame rate: 60fps
YUV420/NV12 color space
20Mbps bit rate or lower

Audio Spec
Stereo Audio only
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
320Kbps bit rate or lower

Container Spec
File extensions: MP4, MOV
No fragmented MP4
No DRM

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Since most 3D movies are packaged as MKV I had to come up with a good method to transcode them to MP4. Here is what I ended up using;

ffmpeg -i "Terminator 2 (3D).mkv" -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v high -level:v 5.1 -b:v 15000k -ac 2 -c:a aac -b:a 320k -f mp4 "Terminator_2_3dff_sbs.mp4"

This will take the movie MKV and encode it H.264 [email protected] with the YUV20 color space, limit the bitrate to 15,000kb and convert the audio to 320Kb AAC with 2 channels (as the specifications request). The naming of the output file (the last bit) is required by Littlestar. You can see how to name your movie here.

The Littlestar application can be downloaded from PSN for free and only requires you to create a free account to be able to play your multimedia videos. I opted to just write this simple post instead of making a guide as it's pretty straight forward. Maybe I'll make a guide in the future, but for now all you need to do is download ffmpeg and run it from the command line and then make sure to name the output video correctly and place it in the right spot on your USB device.

 

[cots]

I wanted to follow up with an email reply I got directly from Littlestar. They have a more comprehensive conversion process, but I'm not sure why MP4Box is required.

"Our ls-psvr-encoder tool uses FFmpeg, as well as another program called MP4Box to produce videos that work for VR Cinema on PSVR. To achieve results that closely match what you get from ls-psvr-encoder, I recommend having both programs installed on your Windows system before proceeding.

The FFmpeg command that most closely matches what we do on the ls-psvr-encoder tool is:

ffmpeg.exe -i INPUT.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:a 192k -ac 2 -ar 48000 -pix_fmt yuv420p -b:v 15000k -bf 0 -refs 1 -threads 0 -slices 24 -x264opts "no-cabac:aq-mode=1:aq-strength=0.7:slices=24:direct=spatial:me=tesa:subme=8:trellis=1" -flags +global_header OUTPUT.mp4

This will encode the file INPUT.mp4 into a new file called OUTPUT.mp4. You'll want to rename this OUTPUT.mp4 file so that VR Cinema properly detects it in your sideloading library. Our sideloading guide provides our file name requirements.

Next, run the following MP4Box command to appropriately package and interleave the renamed MP4 file:

MP4Box.exe -inter 1000 YOUR_RENAMED_FILE.mp4

If that command completes successfully, then your MP4 should be ready to sideload. Let me know if you run into any issues with this solution. I will be sure to reach back out once Windows support officially comes to ls-psvr-encoder."

 

[cots]

I wanted to follow up with an email reply I got directly from Littlestar. They have a more comprehensive conversion process, but I'm not sure why MP4Box is required.

"Our ls-psvr-encoder tool uses FFmpeg, as well as another program called MP4Box to produce videos that work for VR Cinema on PSVR. To achieve results that closely match what you get from ls-psvr-encoder, I recommend having both programs installed on your Windows system before proceeding.

The FFmpeg command that most closely matches what we do on the ls-psvr-encoder tool is:

ffmpeg.exe -i INPUT.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:a 192k -ac 2 -ar 48000 -pix_fmt yuv420p -b:v 15000k -bf 0 -refs 1 -threads 0 -slices 24 -x264opts "no-cabac:aq-mode=1:aq-strength=0.7:slices=24:direct=spatial:me=tesa:subme=8:trellis=1" -flags +global_header OUTPUT.mp4

This will encode the file INPUT.mp4 into a new file called OUTPUT.mp4. You'll want to rename this OUTPUT.mp4 file so that VR Cinema properly detects it in your sideloading library. Our sideloading guide provides our file name requirements.

Next, run the following MP4Box command to appropriately package and interleave the renamed MP4 file:

MP4Box.exe -inter 1000 YOUR_RENAMED_FILE.mp4

If that command completes successfully, then your MP4 should be ready to sideload. Let me know if you run into any issues with this solution. I will be sure to reach back out once Windows support officially comes to ls-psvr-encoder."