SOLVED: Transferred video to Mac - cannot view on Playstation VR

I made the mistake of deleting photos and videos from my Theta S and copying them to my Mac. Now I want to view them on my Playstation, so I got a USB stick and exported the videos in 1080 mode to the drive. When I try to view them on the Playstation, no media are found in the MOVIES folder, although I can see the still image that I took in VR mode.

Any suggestions, or have I basically lost these videos from use?

@dameladyluck2, It sounds like you’ve set up directories (folders) for MOVIES, IMAGES and MUSIC on the USB stick. That’s good! I did have trouble with certain types of videos even after doing that. I didn’t totally solve it. But I would suggest taking a new video on your RICOH THETA, transferring to your USB stick, and testing to see if it shows up in Playstation Media Player (VR Mode).

Few more tips here: http://lists.theta360.guide/t/new-sony-playstation-vr-integration-with-ricoh-theta/691/2

Prior to that announcement, I made another guide for accessing the media from a USB stick.

I don’t have a sony playstation right now for testing, but the graphics below show the MP4 videos in equirectangular mode that I saved from my Windows computer to the USB stick. Note that I have all the files in a single folder on the USB stick called, DCIM. Also note that these files were converted with the RICOH desktop application from dual-fisheye to equirectangular.

Select the device that the THETA Media is stored on.

Press the options button on your PlayStation controller. You must select VR Mode to view the images in your headset.

Turn on VR Mode.

The videos worked on the USB when I did my test. If it works on your desktop computer, you should be able to get it to work on the PSVR

Why are you setting up separate folders for MOVIES, IMAGES, and MUSIC on the USB stick? I didn’t need to do this. Was there a problem with just putting the videos and images into a single folder? Is there documentation from Sony or the community that recommends this method?

I don’t have a PlayStation VR right now, so I can’t test it. When I tested it a few months ago, I just dumped everything on the a USB stick into one folder and it worked fine both for 360 video and 360 images.

Yes, I saw a post somewhere about the file structure, so I followed that advice. It seemed to work. I am pleased to report that when I remembered to use the Theta app to transfer the files, rather than the Mac Photo export feature, I created movie files that were detected on the USB stick. While I did not view them in VR, I am sufficiently satisfied that I can now do this going forward. Thanks!

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Thanks. I am pleased to report that once I remembered to use the Theta app to transfer my files, I was successful in finding them on the Movies directory on my USB stick.

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For anyone new reading this post, my problem came when I didn’t use the Theta app to transfer the files. Once I did that, both the still image and videos were accessible.

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thank you for reporting on the solution. Other people can benefit from this experience.

There are two different techniques to view THETA videos with the PlayStation VR:

  1. THETA is connected to the PlayStation VR with a USB cable and the THETA is in PlayStation storage mode (three leds on front of camera are blinking blue)
  2. video files are on USB stick in equirectangular mode

The procedure is different depending on which method you use. If you are plugging the THETA directly into the PlayStation VR with a USB cable, the PlayStation viewer software will automatically convert it from dual-fisheye to equirectangular.

If you have the files on a USB, then you need to first convert the files to equirectangular.

Fantastic, I like happy endings. :theta_s: Thanks for posting your solution. That’s helpful to other people in the community.

Again, great news that you got things to work. Just to clarify the folder structure on the USB stick. You just need a folder with any name. It doesn’t have to be MOVIES, IMAGES, MUSIC.

For example, if you have a folder like THETA, you can put both images and videos into that folder. I’m not sure what the best practice for naming is. If you use audio files, I believe it needs to be in a folder called, “Music”. However, that is unrelated to THETA videos and images.

See this thread from the PlayStation Forums. There’s another relevant article on HowTo Geek.

@dameladyluck2 if you have a moment, can you copy the DCIM folder from the THETA onto a USB stick and test if you can play videos and images from the same folder? I don’t have a PlayStation VR right now. I only had access to one for testing when the media player was originally upgraded.

It’s possible that the file structure requirement changed from Media Player 2.50 to Media Player 2.51.

Also, are you using the PSVR in some type of business application, maybe real estate? I’d be interested to learn how the video and images are used by different types of people.