The Struggles of Watching VR Porn with PSVR

Out of the major virtual reality headset models, the PlayStation VR is definitely one of the hardest to watch porn on. From compatibility issues to lack of Playstation support, it’s always such a hassle to get to the point where you can just relax in a comfy chair with your PSVR on and have some quality time with Mr. Johnson. Hopefully, some of you can empathize with me on this: watching porn with PSVR is always such a struggle.

The Cycle

The most important step of watching VR porn is to find some porn to watch. If you use PSVR, this step has to be done on PC because Sony doesn’t believe in giving the PlayStation an internet browser capable of VR video streaming. Once you find the hardcore lesbian orgy of your dreams, you have to download it. If you’re like me and have super slow internet, boy are you in for a wait.

A standard 40-minute virtual reality porn scene for PSVR will typically have a size of about 2.0-3.0 GB. Downloading VR porn for me is an all-night job, meaning I’ll set the download before I go to sleep and then watch it the next evening. But there’s always something off about watching ‘yesterday’s porn’. Maybe one night I’m in the mood for a cheerleader scene but when I go to watch it the next night, I’ll think “Why did I download this? What was I thinking?” If that isn’t a first-world problem, I don’t know what is.

There’s also the hassle of copying the porn over to the PS4. The 2.0-3.0 GB file will normally take about 10 minutes to copy over to a USB. 10 minutes is just the worst amount of time for something to take. It’s not long enough that I can walk away and work on something else, but it’s not short enough that I won’t get bored. After that’s done, then I can finally plug the USB into the Playstation and start watching.

This forms the foundation of our PSVR porn cycle, for now:

1. Find porn
2. Start porn download
3. Wait one day
4. Copy porn to USB
5. Plug USB into PS4
6. Enjoy!
7. Repeat

The Miracle of LittlStar Sideloading

Image: LittlStar

If you have a PSVR and don’t know what LittlStar is, I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. LittlStar is an app on the PlayStation Store that lets you play VR videos. It comes with a whole library of online videos and even lets you download some of them for offline use. Unfortunately, it doesn’t find NSFW content by itself, so you still have to find your own porn.

Image: LittlStar on PS Store

The developers of LittlStar, however, have blessed us with a feature that would otherwise make it impossible to watch VR porn on the PlayStation: sideloading.

In March 2017, an update to LittlStar implemented sideloading, making it possible to simply plug in a USB stick (with your porn loaded onto it) to the PS4 and watch your VR video. There are a few catches though. The filename of the video must follow a few conventions that tell LittlStar if the video is 180 or 360 degrees and if the lens outputs in the video are top-bottom (over-under) or side-by-side (left-right).

For example, if you wanted to watch a 180, side-by-side video, the file name must include either _180_sbs_ or _180_lr_. If you wanted to watch a 360, top-bottom video, the file name must include _360_tb_ or _360_ou_. This means there’s a little hassle involved if the website you download the porn from doesn’t do this for you. Most VR porn websites will fill in the filename properly at the download, including VRporn.com

So our new PSVR porn cycle becomes:

1. Find porn
2. Start porn download
3. Wait one day
4. Check the file names and correct if necessary according to conventions
5. Copy porn to USB
6. Plug USB into PS4
7. Open LittlStar and check for viewing issues
8. If there are issues, go back to step 4.
9. Enjoy!
10. Repeat

Compatibility Issues

LittlStar isn’t a perfect application. If anything, it’s actually still a little experimental. One of the main issues I’ve gotten in the past is an infinite loading screen when you start up the app. This set me back a few days while I tried to troubleshoot. It turns out that the PS4 needed to be connected to the internet for the app to load. Whoops.

They actually recently updated LittlStar so you don’t end up with that infinite loading screen when you go offline with your PS4. Instead, it notifies you that you’re offline and asks if you want to go to the offline mode. After you click yes, you’re brought to all of the videos you’ve downloaded in the app, and only the videos you’ve downloaded in the app. If you were hoping, like me, for offline sideloading then fuck you!

Recently, I joined up to VRporn.com Premium. It’s actually a pretty good deal with access to such a wide variety of porn. It’s great for people who are eclectic when it comes to porn, like myself. I watch most genres from lesbian to solo to kinky to she-male.

The problems came when I tried loading some of the videos into LittlStar. After tapping X on the play icon, I would just end up with a black loading screen while the audio of the video played in the background. This happened for a lot of the videos but not all of them. My first instinct was that maybe it depended on the studio the video was sourced from. I still don’t know whether that was the problem and I can’t be bothered checking, to be honest.

I tried looking on the LittlStar website to see whether the videos followed the right specifications. They did, so I was stumped for a few days.

Image: H264LevelEditor

I then stumbled onto a post in the PSVR subreddit (here) where someone else was having similar issues. One of the comments from user TinikSony said that they needed to modify the header of the video (I’m not smart enough to know what that means) and that they could do it with the PC application H264LevelEditor. You just open the faulty video, change the level to 5.1 and it will work. So I tried it and I can confirm it works. Thank fucking God.

So our new PSVR porn cycle becomes:

1. Find porn
2. Start porn download
3. Wait one day
4. Check the file names and correct if necessary according to conventions
5. Feed the video into H264LevelEditor
6. Copy porn to USB
7. Plug USB into PS4
8. Open LittlStar
9. If you get the PS4 offline notification, turn on the Playstation internet connection
10. If the image looks weird, go back to step 4
11. If you hear audio but only see a loading screen, go back to step 5
12. Enjoy!
13. Repeat

Under-Powered Hardware

I think it’s fair to say that the PlayStation VR is a little underpowered when it comes to the VR headset market. Once you finally get to the point of being able to watch porn, the images may look a little blurry and not as crisp compared to other headsets. It makes sense when you consider that the primary purpose of the PSVR was to play games with. I’ve played through the entirety of Resident Evil 7 with the PSVR and had a hell of a time. But when it comes to watching videos, don’t be surprised if you struggle to make out some of the more nuanced details.

Image: Major headset competitors – (from left) Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PSVR

The PlayStation VR is only capable of outputting a resolution of 960 by 1080 per eye. This is in comparison to headsets like the Oculus, which is capable of outputting a resolution of 1080 by 1200 per eye. With the PSVR, you may be able to see the girl with her perky nipples, surrounded by areolae, but you may not be able to see the little pores in the areolae. You may be able to see able to see the folds of her vagina, but you may struggle to make out the clit.

Generally, 180-degree videos are much better suited to the PSVR than 360-degree videos. The video file itself must be below a certain resolution for the PlayStation to be able to play it. The PlayStation is not as powerful as, say, a gaming PC. So if you have a low-resolution VR video, the PlayStation will attempt to stretch it so it fully wraps around the viewing space of the headset. What you’ll end up seeing is some skin-colored blobs, that resemble people, moving around the room. So if you have a PSVR, maybe stick to the 180-degree videos.

What I Want From PSVR 2

Luckily, we do have a good chance of there inevitably being a second generation PSVR. I would predict it probably won’t be with the PS4 or even the PS4 Pro, given the limitations of their hardware. Probably with a PS5, if we eventually get one of those.

The first thing I want, even before I mention the laborious cycle you have to go through to watch your sweet sweet VR porn, is better hardware. If we do end up with a PSVR 2, this is pretty much guaranteed to be the case, but I want it good enough that I can see those more nuanced details in the porn. I want to be able to see the girl’s facial pores or the wetness of their pussy. I want to feel like I’m there.

Secondly, I want a major upgrade to the PlayStation firmware with one feature in particular. I want a first-party internet browser that is capable of either streaming video for VR or is capable of downloading video for use offline. This will save the absolute nightmare of finding videos on my PC and transferring them manually.

Oh boy, what a rant!

Now I pass the conversation onto you. Do you have PSVR? How do you feel about the cycle of downloading and sideloading? Do you have any tip and tricks to speed up the process? I’d love to hear from you guys down in the comments!