February 1, 2023
Bino is a video player with a focus on 3D and Virtual Reality:
Support for stereoscopic 3D videos in various formats
Support for 360° and 180° videos, with and without stereoscopic 3D
Support for Virtual Reality environments, including SteamVR, CAVEs, powerwalls, and other multi-display / multi-GPU / multi-host systems
bino
[options] URL…
-h
, --help
Displays help on commandline options.
--help-all
Displays help including Qt specific options.
-v
, --version
Displays version information.
--log-level
level
Set log level (fatal, warning, info, debug, firehose).
--log-file
file
Set log file.
--read-commands
script
Read commands from a script file. See Scripting.
--opengles
Use OpenGL ES instead of Desktop OpenGL.
--stereo
Use OpenGL quad-buffered stereo in GUI mode.
--vr
Start in Vitrual Reality mode instead of GUI mode. See Virtual Reality.
--vr-screen
screen
Set VR screen geometry, either as a comma-separated list of nine values representing three 3D coordinates that define a planar screen (bottom left, bottom right, top left) or as a name of an OBJ file that contains the screen geometry with texture coordinates.
--capture
Capture video/audio input from camera and microphone.
--list-audio-outputs
List audio outputs.
--list-audio-inputs
List audio inputs.
--list-video-inputs
List video inputs.
--audio-output
ao
Choose audio output via its index.
--audio-input
ai
Choose audio input via its index. Can be empty.
--video-input
vi
Choose video input via its index.
--list-tracks
List all video, audio and subtitle tracks in the media.
--preferred-audio
lang
Set preferred audio track language (en, de, fr, …).
--preferred-subtitle
lang
Set preferred subtitle track language (en, de, fr, …). Can be empty.
--video-track
track
Choose video track via its index.
--audio-track
track
Choose audio track via its index.
--subtitle-track
track
Choose subtitle track via its index. Can be empty.
-i
, --input
mode
Set input mode (mono, top-bottom, top-bottom-half, bottom-top, bottom-top-half, left-right, left-right-half, right-left, right-left-half, alternating-left-right, alternating-right-left).
-o
, --output
mode
Set output mode (left, right, stereo, alternating, red-cyan-dubois, red-cyan-full-color, red-cyan-half-color, red-cyan-monochrome, green-magenta-dubois, green-magenta-full-color, green-magenta-half-color, green-magenta-monochrome, amber-blue-dubois, amber-blue-full-color, amber-blue-half-color, amber-blue-monochrome, red-green-monochrome, red-blue-monochrome, even-odd-rows, even-odd-columns, checkerboard).
--surround
mode
Set surround mode (360, 180, off).
-S
, --swap-eyes
Swap left/right eye.
-f
, --fullscreen
Start in fullscreen mode.
Bino can read commands from a script file and execute them via the
option --read-commands
scriptfile. This works both
in GUI mode and in Virtual Reality mode.
The script file can also be a named pipe so that you can have arbitraty remote control interfaces write commands into it as they come in.
Empty lines and comment lines (which begin with #
) are
ignored. The following commands are supported:
open
[--input
mode]
[--surround
mode]
[--video-track
vt]
[--audio-track
at]
[--subtitle-track
st]
URL
Open the URL and start playing. The options have the same meaning as the corresponding command line options.
capture
[--audio-input
ai]
[--video-input
vi]
Start capturing camera and microphone. The options have the same meaning as the corresponding command line options.
play
Start playing.
pause
Pause.
toggle-pause
Switch between pause and play.
stop
Stop playing.
playlist-next
Switch to next playlist entry.
playlist-prev
Switch to previous playlist entry.
playlist-loop
mode
Set loop mode (off, one, all).
quit
Quit Bino.
set-position
p
Set the video position to p, where p=0 is the beginning and p=1 is the end.
seek
seconds
Seek the given amounts of seconds forward or, if the number of seconds is negative, backwards.
wait
stop
|seconds
Wait until the video stops, or wait for the given number of seconds, before executing the next command.
set-mute
on
|off
Set the volume mute status.
toggle-mute
Switch between mute and unmute.
set-volume
vol
Set the volume level to vol (between 0 and 1).
adjust-volume
offset
Adjust the volume by the given amount (the final volume is clamped between 0 and 1).
set-output-mode
mode
Set the given output mode. See the command line option
--output
for a list of modes.
set-swap-eyes
on
|off
Set left/right eye swap.
toggle-swap-eyes
Toggle left/right eye swap.
set-fullscreen
on
|off
Set fullscreen mode.
toggle-fullscreen
Toggle fullscreen mode.
Bino currently cannot detect the stereoscopic layout or the surround video mode from metadata because Qt does not provide that information. It therefore has to guess.
Bino recognizes the following hints at the last part of the file name, just before the file name extension (.ext):
*-tb.ext
, *-ab.ext
: Input mode
top-bottom
*-tbh.ext
, *-abq.ext
: Input mode
top-bottom-half
*-bt.ext
, *-ba.ext
: Input mode
bottom-top
*-bth.ext
, *-baq.ext
: Input mode
bottom-top-half
*-lr.ext
: Input mode left-right
*-lrh.ext
, *-lrq.ext
: Input mode
left-right-half
*-rl.ext
: Input mode right-left
*-rlh.ext
, *-rlq.ext
: Input mode
right-left-half
*-2d.ext
: Input mode mono
Additionally, if the number 180
or 360
is
part of the file name and separated by neighboring digits or letters by
other characters, then the corresponding surround mode is assumed.
Bino supports all sorts of Virtual Reality environments via QVR:
When QVR is compiled with just with Qt6, CAVEs and powerwalls and similar multi-display setups are supported, including multi-GPU and multi-host rendering.
When QVR is additionally compiled with VRPN, all sorts of tracking and interaction hardware for such systems are supported.
When QVR is additionally compiled with OpenVR, SteamVR is supported and automatically detected (e.g. HTC Vive).
To start Bino in VR mode, use the option --vr
. Bino will
then display a screen in the virtual world, and the video will be
displayed on that screen, unless the input is a surround video (360° or
180°), which will of course be displayed all around the viewer.
The default is a 16:9 screen in a few meters distance from the
viewer, but you can use the --vr-screen
option to either
define arbitrary planar screens via their bottom left, bottom right and
top left corners, or to load arbitrary screen geometry from an OBJ file.
The latter case is useful e.g. if you want Bino’s virtual screen to
coincide with a curved physical screen.
Bino uses QVRs default navigation, which may be based on autodetected controllers such as the HTC Vive controllers, or on tracking and interaction hardware configured via QVR for your VR system, or on the mouse and WASDQE keys if nothing else is available.
Additional interaction in VR mode is currently limited to the same keyboard shortcuts that also work in GUI mode. That means you currently must specify the video to play on the command line, and have no way to pause, skip or seek – this will be added in a future version.