Opera 49 Beta RC – VR Returns

October 30th, 2017

Hi all,

Opera 49 is getting closer to the stable release. Today, we are introducing the Release Candidate build with a quick look at the return of the VR 360 Player.

Built-in VR video player

Opera recently became the first browser to provide support for 360-degree videos to be played directly into virtual reality headsets. Owners of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and other OpenVR- compatible devices can now easily view the quickly-growing library of awesome 360-degree content.

Opera’s VR 360 Player will automatically detect an installed VR headset. When a user browses to a video, the “Watch in VR” button will appear on the top (next to the video pop out button). One simple click will engulf the viewer into the 360-degree world offered by the video. Plus, you will not need a mouse or keyboard to look around in the video. Simply turn your head in the direction you want to look.

VR 360 Player improvements

We have fixed problems with video flickering for some videos seen in the player. The series of fixes covers better audio-video synchronization and better management of frame order to prevent dropping frames and causing image flicker. Also, availability of the ‘Watch in VR’ overlay button is corrected to better match detected VR state.