Provided by: bino_2.5-1_amd64 
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° surround 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 command line 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 Virtual Reality mode instead of GUI mode. See Virtual Reality.
• --vr-screen screen
Set VR screen geometry, either as the special values `united' or `intersected', or 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 an aspect ratio followed by the name of an OBJ file that contains the screen
geometry with texture coordinates (example: `16:9,myscreen.obj').
• --capture
Capture audio/video input from microphone and camera/screen/window.
• --list-audio-outputs
List audio outputs.
• --list-audio-inputs
List audio inputs.
• --list-video-inputs
List video inputs.
• --list-screen-inputs
List screen inputs.
• --list-window-inputs
List window 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.
• --screen-input si
Choose screen input via its index.
• --window-input wi
Choose window 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.
• -p, --playlist file
Load playlist.
• -l, --loop mode
Set loop mode (off, one, all).
• -w, --wait mode
Set wait mode (off, on).
• -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, hdmi-frame-pack, left-right, left-right-half,
right-left, right-left-half, top-bottom, top-bottom-half, bottom-top, bottom-top-half, even-odd-rows,
even-odd-columns, checkerboard, 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).
• --surround mode
Set surround mode (360, 180, off).
• --surround-vfov degrees
Set surround vertical field of view (default 50, range 5-115).
• -S, --swap-eyes
Swap left/right eye.
• -f, --fullscreen
Start in fullscreen mode.
Output modes
Most output modes should be self explanatory, but there are some exceptions:
• stereo requires OpenGL quad-buffered stereo support, typically limited to high-end graphics cards.
• alternating tries to mimic stereo mode by displaying the left and right frames alternating, ideally at
display speed. This is unreliable since Bino has no way of making sure that its output frames actually
correspond to display output frames, but it might work, depending on your hardware and system setup.
• hdmi-frame-pack is a special mode supported by some 3D TVs via HDMI 1.4a, where the left view is placed
in the top part of a frame and the right view in the bottom part, and both parts are separated by a
blank area that takes 1/49 of the vertical space. To use this mode, force your display output
resolution into either 1280x1470 (720p 3D: 720+30+720=1470; 1470/49=30) or 1920x2205 (1080p 3D:
1080+45+1080=2205; 2205/49=45).
• even-odd-rows, even-odd-columns and checkerboard are for (older) 3D TVs.
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
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.
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 arbitrary 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] [--screen-input si] [--window-input wi]
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-load playlist.m3u
Load the playlist.
• playlist-next
Switch to next playlist entry.
• playlist-prev
Switch to previous playlist entry.
• playlist-wait mode
Set wait mode (off, on).
• 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-surround-vfov degrees
Set surround vertical field of view (default 50, range 5-115).
• 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.
Slideshows
You can play slideshows of images (or videos) simply by making a playlist and switching on its wait
status. This is the default whenever one or more of the files you open are images instead of videos;
this works from the command line as well as from the GUI.
With wait enabled, the next media in the playlist will only be displayed after you press the N key, or
choose Playlist/Next from the menu.
For automatic media switching based on predefined presentation times, use the scripting mode as in the
following example:
set-fullscreen on
playlist-load my-slideshow.m3u
playlist-loop on
playlist-wait on
playlist-next
wait 4
playlist-next
wait 7
playlist-next
wait 5
quit
Virtual Reality
Bino supports all sorts of Virtual Reality environments via QVR:
• When QVR is compiled just with Qt6, CAVEs and powerwalls and similar multi-display setups are
supported, including multi-GPU and multi-host rendering.
• When QVR is compiled with VRPN, all sorts of tracking and interaction hardware for such systems are
additionally supported.
• When QVR is compiled with OpenVR, SteamVR is additionally 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.
The --vr-screen option also accepts the special values united and intersected. This will unite (or
intersect) the 2D geometries of all VR windows at runtime. For example, use --vr-screen=united
--qvr-config=two-screen-stereo.qvr for a two-screen stereo setup, where the left view goes on the first
screen and the right view goes on the second 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 with VR controllers. This will be added in a future version.
Feburary 15, 2025 Bino(1)