Ubuntu Manpage: Bino is a video player with a focus on 3D and Virtual Reality:

Overview

       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

Invocation

       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 coordi‐
         nates 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.

Scripting

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.

File Name Conventions

       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  exten‐
       sion (.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.

Virtual Reality

Bino supports all sorts of Virtual Reality environments via QVR (https://marlam.de/qvr):

• When QVR is compiled with just with Qt6, CAVEs and powerwalls and similar multi-display setups are sup‐
ported, including multi-GPU and multi-host rendering.

• When QVR is additionally compiled with VRPN (https://github.com/vrpn/vrpn), all sorts of tracking and
interaction hardware for such systems are supported.

• When QVR is additionally compiled with OpenVR (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/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 cor‐
ners, 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.

February 1, 2023 Bino(1)