Guide: Use Oculus Rift for Youtube 360 Videos!

Want to watch the latest Youtube 360 videos on Oculus Rift? There is a way to make it work on your DK2, and that is exactly what I’ll teach you here.

See an updated version: Looking For an Oculus Rift Youtube App?

Phone, tablets, and even Google cardboard can play these kinds of 360 videos, but for some reason, DK2 has been left outside the party. To truly appreciate the 360 option on Youtube now, you absolutely have to try it out!

 

Guide to Play Youtube 360 Videos on Your DK2:

1. Install Virtual Desktop.

oculus rift youtube

 

 

2. Find a 360 Youtube video.

oculus rift youtube

Copy the link from the 360 video. For example, you could paste the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdTm7Vpape0

To watch it in 360, you better use Chrome as it’s the only browser that allows you to play it without problems.

 

 

3. Copy/paste the link to your Virtual Desktop.

oculus rift youtube

Open up “Virtual Desktop” and go to VIDEO PLAYER tab. Paste the link in the “Paste URL” blank.

Virtual Desktop will take care of downloading the video at the highest quality possible (usually 4K when it’s available) and will play it back right away.

The videos are saved into your “My Videos\360 Videos” folder.

 

Some other 360 videos you might want to check out:

 

EDIT: The support for hardware accelerated video playback is very limited in Windows 7 and will result in error messages such as “Unknown” when trying to play a lot of formats. He hasn’t gotten to falling back to software decoding when its unable to play those.

Note that this error is specific to Windows 7: Windows 8 can hardware accelerate any H.264 content and Windows 10 will support even more formats out of the box.

*Big thanks to Reddit user ggodin for his help and permission to share his discovery with others!

See also: Buy The Best VR PC Hardware

 

Want something to add? Feel free to comment below:

 

 

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