Operation Manual
This manual covers day-to-day operation of Loll Player: the library, the on-screen panels, controller gestures, photo and music modes, network sources, downloads, and every settings tab. Names in bold match the labels in the app. If you want what the player can do rather than how to drive it, see the product page.
1. Quick start
- Launch Loll Player from your headset's app library. Quest 1 is not supported.
- On a fresh library the empty row leads with Browse local files. Add a source is the second button, for a server you already have.
- Point at a control and pull the trigger to click. The home screen has Video, Photo, and Music tabs. With no controller held, pinch to click.
- While something is open, press B on the right controller to show the panels, or the left controller's menu key (≡) to show and hide them. With no controller held, a right-hand pinch at empty space or at the picture does the same as B.
- Text entry uses the headset's system keyboard. There is no in-app keyboard.
2. The media library
Each home tab lists what you have opened. Video also has a Continue watching row. A finished clip shows a Watched badge. Starred items live under Favorites in the file browser, not as a fourth home tab.
The filter box (Filter visited items…) only narrows those lists — by text, plus Resolution and Source chips. The app does not build a separate index of every file on disk. Browse folders live from the file browser.
Settings at the top of the library opens the same panel you get on the left during playback. Above the tabs, Language is System (follow the headset) or any of the 26 languages the app ships. The ? button is Show descriptions — off until you turn it on; it adds one helper line under each setting.
3. The file browser
Open the panels in the library (left menu key, or hold the right trigger and press B). The right panel is the file browser:
- Breadcrumbs, sort by Name, Date, or Size, list or grid, and a type filter: All / Video / Image / Music.
- Grid cards show thumbnails, including over the network. Side-by-side and over-under stills are cropped to one eye.
- A video starts playback and closes the panels. A photo opens the viewer. Music plays in the background and does not close a photo you already have open.
- With the panels open, B goes up one folder only when the pointer is on the browser and you are inside a folder. Any other B closes the panels. B never moves the screen.
Source tabs
| Tab | What's there |
|---|---|
| Recents | What you have opened lately. Long-press the tab to clear. The type filter decides what the clear removes. |
| Favorites | Starred items. Long-press the tab to clear, the same way. |
| Network | Your servers, plus an Open URL card. Paste an http:// or https:// link, including .m3u8 and .mpd, and it plays immediately. Network files can be downloaded. |
| Local | The app's own media folder. Files here can be deleted from inside the app. |
| Device | USB storage. The tab appears after you add a device folder and the drive is plugged in. |
4. The playback panels
While a video plays, press B (or the left menu key) to open three panels: the control bar under the picture, Settings on the left, and the file browser on the right. They sit at a comfortable distance, not glued to a far cinema screen.
In Freeform, the panels dock to the screen. In Cinema and Giant, opening the panels places them in front of where you are looking; the screen itself stays on its seat. For 180° and 360° there is no screen edge, so the panels lock to the direction you were looking when you opened them. Turn far enough (about 80°) or hold the Meta button and they come back in front of you.
Point and pull the trigger to click. While the panels are open, the thumbstick scrolls the list under the pointer. It does not change volume or zoom until you close the panels.
Short notices (a crop offer, a heat warning, a save result) sit on the right of the status row and clear themselves. A failure you can act on shows a text action on that same row, such as Try again or Open settings. The title line stays the title.
Video control bar
The top row shows the battery (blue while charging, red at 20% or below), the clock, the environment name (Freeform, Cinema, or Giant), and — when the picture is not at 1× — the size, such as ×1.5. Under that: the title, the favorite star, Save converted copy when a finished conversion can be kept, and Stop.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Previous / next media | Previous or next video in the same folder. The panels stay open. |
| Back 5s / Forward 5s | Skip five seconds. You can scrub the timeline while a conversion is still running. |
| Play / Pause | Toggle playback. |
| Volume | System media volume, with a number. |
| Audio | One track: tap to mute. Mute is not remembered. Several tracks: a numbered badge; the tap opens Playback → Audio Track. |
| Recenter | Put the screen where you are looking. Same result as holding Meta. |
| Skip in continuous play | Skip this whole file when the folder advances on its own. Opening the file directly still plays it. |
| Loop | Off, Single, Folder, or A-B. A-B uses Set A, Set B, and Clear A-B at the current time. |
| Subtitles | Shown only when a text track exists. Toggles off and track 1, and opens subtitle style on the Video tab. |
| Angles | Only when sibling files are grouped as camera angles. Pick one from the strip. |
| Passthrough | In Freeform, show your room instead of the wallpaper. From Cinema or Giant, this returns to Freeform first. |
If you have set a per-file Playback method, or the clip is too heavy to play directly, the bar also shows Direct play or Convert first. The control itself is on the Video tab, not a transport button. The download icon beside the star is Save converted copy: it writes straight to the folder chosen under Download to, with no extra dialog. It appears when a converted file can be kept.
5. Controller gestures
Almost everything is the right controller. The left controller's only playback key is the menu key (≡), which shows and hides the panels.
Hands
With no controller held, point at a panel control and pinch to click it. A right-hand pinch at empty space, or at the picture itself, shows or hides the panels — the same as B. A pinch on a panel is only the click. Hands do not zoom, pan, skip, or change the volume.
Right controller
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Thumbstick up / down | Shrink / grow the picture in Freeform, from 0.5× to 4×. Cinema and Giant ignore this — change the seat row instead. On a 360° or 180° photo, up and down tilt the view. |
| Thumbstick left / right | Video: volume down / up. Hold to keep stepping. A flat photo: previous / next photo. A 360° or 180° photo: turn the view. Panels open: the stick scrolls lists instead. |
| Hold trigger + stick left / right | Previous / next item in the folder (wraps around), for video and photos. Music is not skipped this way — use the audio bar. Changing photos does not stop the music. |
| B | Panels closed during a session: open them. Panels open: up one folder if the pointer is on the browser inside a folder; otherwise close the panels. An open popup closes first. Never moves the screen. |
| Hold trigger + B | During a session: stop and return to the library. In the library: toggle the panels. |
| Hold trigger or grip and move | On a 360° or 180° photo: level the horizon, then pan left and right only. |
| Long-press Meta | Recenter onto your gaze, panels open or not. On 180°/360° the panels jump back in front of you too. |
One stick gesture does one thing. A diagonal push stays on the axis you started — zoom does not also change the volume. Let the stick spring back to switch.
Quick reference
| You're viewing | Stick left / right | Next item |
|---|---|---|
| Flat photo | Previous / next photo | Flick the stick. No trigger. |
| 360° / 180° photo | Turn the view | Hold trigger, then flick. |
| Video | Volume | Hold trigger, then flick. |
6. Photos
A photo uses the same three panels. The control bar has the title, favorite star, a wallpaper action for a 360° photo, and Stop. Under that: previous, n / N, next, Rotate 90 degrees for a flat photo, Passthrough, and slideshow play/pause. There is no volume or seek bar. Slideshow interval lives on this bar (presets from off up to 5 minutes; the start value is 5 seconds), not in Settings.
- Zoom a flat photo with the stick up/down, in Freeform.
- 360° / 180° look. Rotate mode starts on Snap: each left/right flick turns Snap angle (15, 30, 45, or 90°; start value 30°). Smooth pans continuously. Up and down always tilt smoothly. Hold trigger or grip and drag to pan sideways only; the horizon levels when the drag starts.
- Wallpaper. From a 360° photo, set the current mode and seat. Settings → Environment → Wallpaper shows each slot and can Restore it to the built-in sky.
- Album order (Photo tab): Name, Date ↑, or Date ↓.
- Transition between slideshow photos: None (the start value), Crossfade, Slide, or Fade through black.
The Photo tab is always in the tab bar. With no photo open, the per-photo rows show their defaults and do nothing, with the hint to open a photo. With a photo open you can override projection and stereo, Swap eyes, and Eye alignment (±10%). Auto-stitch 360 raw unwraps dual-fisheye raw stills (on by default). Gravity leveling keeps a calibrated 360° still upright (on by default); turn it off and a recenter aligns the picture's up with your head instead.
7. Music in the background
Start a track from the Music tab, or from a music file in the browser. It keeps playing while you browse photos. A second bar appears under the photo bar, or under the library panel: title, n / N, favorite, stop, a seek slider, previous / back 5s / play-pause / forward 5s / next, volume, Skip in continuous play, and Loop.
- Starting a video stops the music and hides the audio bar.
- Stop on the photo bar closes only the photo. The music continues.
- One audio track: the audio button mutes, and the mute is not saved. Several tracks: pick one. Mute is never the saved choice.
- Stick flicks do not change the music track. Use this bar.
8. Subtitles
A subtitle file beside the video (same name, or a matching name) loads by itself. The app detects the text encoding. Styled subtitle formats keep their fonts, placement, and karaoke timing. Image-based subtitle tracks show up as choices too.
- The control-bar Subtitles button toggles off and the first track, and opens the style section.
- Style is the last section of Settings → Video, not its own tab: Font size (50–200%, start 100%), Color (White, Yellow, Cyan, Green), and Position (negative moves the line up).
- The track you pick is for this session. The style is kept.
9. Network sources and USB
Add servers under Settings → Sources. Saved passwords stay on the headset. The server list can sync with Meta Cloud Backup; the passwords do not, so a restored headset may ask you to sign in again.
| Section | How you add it |
|---|---|
| SMB servers | Host and share, or Find servers on network. Guest access, or a username and password. A sleeping share reconnects in the background instead of ending the film. |
| WebDAV servers | An http or https server URL, for a NAS or Nextcloud-style host. Accept self-signed certificates is off, and per server. The app warns that this accepts any certificate. Plain http is not given that switch. |
| SFTP servers | Host, port, username, and password. Read-only, except a converted copy saved back when the server allows writes. |
| FTP servers | Host and port. Use TLS (FTPS) is under Advanced. |
| Media servers | Scan UPnP or Add media server by address. The scan looks for Emby and Jellyfin. If nothing is found, type the address — discovery does not see every host. |
| Play to this headset | Off until you turn it on. Other devices on the network can then push a video to the headset. |
| Device folders | Plug in USB storage, then Add device folder and pick the folder. The grant is kept across reboots. If a row says access must be granted again, tap it — you do not have to delete the folder first. |
10. Downloads and saved copies
Resumable downloads
A file on the Network tab can be downloaded for offline play. The queue survives a restart, and an interrupted file continues from where it stopped. New downloads wait when the headset is hot, the battery is low, or the connection is metered. Settings → Storage shows usage against the queue's limit and lets you remove finished or failed entries.
Download to (same tab) is App storage, Source folder, or a folder you pick. Source folder writes next to the original when that place allows writes (local and USB folders, SMB shares that allow it, WebDAV, SFTP, and FTP). A media-server item has no write-back and will say so. An unplugged destination fails out loud — it does not silently land somewhere else. A picked folder is also added as a device source.
Old containers
Some older files cannot play as they are. Legacy playback mode (Playback tab) is the default for those files: Direct play or Convert first. It applies on the next open and does not restart a clip that is already playing. The control bar's Playback method overrides that default for the file you are watching.
A heavy file that cannot play directly shows Too heavy to play directly and converts, with a percent on the status row. You can still scrub. Play matching MP4 instead of converting is on: if a same-name MP4 already sits beside the old file, that MP4 plays and the conversion is skipped.
When a conversion finishes, Ask to save converted copies (on by default) offers Keep converted file? — Save next to original when that folder is writable, Choose folder…, or Not now. The title-row download icon, Save converted copy, instead writes straight to Download to. Either way the save is a re-wrap of the converted stream, not a second encode. 360° and 180° copies are named so other players can recognize the shape. The next play of a saved copy skips conversion.
11. Screen, environments, and comfort
Settings → Environment has three viewing modes:
- Freeform — a screen you place yourself, over passthrough or a wallpaper. Stick zoom and the per-file size, distance, curve, height, and tilt apply here.
- Cinema — a fixed theater. Pick Front row, Middle row, or Back row. Stick zoom does not apply.
- Giant — a wall-sized screen at a fixed distance, with the same seat rows.
Passthrough is the eye button on the control bar, not a fourth mode. Dim environment while playing is on: the room or the passthrough darkens while the panels are closed, and brightens halfway when you open them. The 3D-room dim starts at full black; the passthrough dim starts at 80%, so the room can stay faintly visible.
Curved screen is on for flat pictures. 180° and 360° are never curved. Eco render quality forces the curve off until you leave Eco; your on/off choice is kept.
Wallpaper is one picture per mode and per seat row. The unset slot is the built-in sky (System). Set it from a 360° photo; restore it here.
Head lock is Auto, Lock, or Unlock. Auto holds the remaining flat screen, library, and panels to your head when positional tracking drops, or when the headset is in a moving vehicle and not in airplane mode. 180° and 360° pictures stay world-oriented; only the panels follow your head. Lock forces this. Unlock keeps the world seat. Everything re-anchors when tracking returns.
On the Video tab, while a flat Freeform video is open, Screen size (50–400%), Distance (0.8–4 m), Curvature, Vertical offset, and Recline are remembered per file. Under about 1 m the app warns that text may ghost. In Cinema and Giant those sliders wait — the seat row is the distance control. Horizon lock holds the horizon in a calibrated 360° video; off, a recenter uses your head's up instead.
12. Settings reference
Left panel, in tab order. A row that belongs to the open file is always shown. With nothing open it shows the default and does not write. Your explicit pick wins over the factory value from then on.
| Tab | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Video | Projection (Auto, Flat, 180, 190, 200, 360, EAC, Cube), Rotation (Auto, 90°, 180°, 270°), Mirror (Off, Flip (up/down), Mirror (left/right)), Stereo (Auto, 2D, SBS, OU, Mono), Screen aspect (Auto, 16:9, 4:3, 2.35:1, 1.85:1, 1:1), Playback method (Direct play or Convert first; remembered per file; tap the active choice again to clear it), Black bars (Auto, Crop, Off), screen geometry, Horizon lock, Color range (Auto, Always expand, Never expand), Color look (Natural, Vivid, Extra Vivid — Vivid is the start), picture Presets (Neutral, Cinema, Vivid, Punch, Night — Cinema is the start; camera clips start Neutral) plus brightness, contrast, and saturation, then subtitle track and style. |
| Playback | Loop. Skip beginning and Skip ending in seconds (0–3600; a value that would leave nothing to play is rejected). Clips in one folder share the last pair you set. Audio Track when there is more than one. Playback speed 0.25×–2× for this session only — not saved. Bluetooth audio delay 0–500 ms, saved per headset; the row waits until a Bluetooth device is connected, and suggests 200 ms the first time. Auto-play next in folder (on). Preload next video (on; files 4 GB or larger are skipped, and a line says why when preload cannot run). Detect black bars (off — detection only; cropping is still the per-file Black bars row). Content-based format detection (off — may vote side-by-side versus over-under; it never changes projection). 360° audio (ambisonic) (off until you turn it on; only a marked ambisonic track is affected). Resume last clip on launch (on — if you did not leave from the library, the last clip reopens 10 seconds before the saved position). Ask to save converted copies and Play matching MP4 instead of converting (both on). Legacy playback mode. |
| Photo | Per-photo projection, stereo, swap eyes, eye alignment, auto-stitch, gravity leveling, rotate mode, color, and RAW color space. Global rows: transition and album order. See Photos. |
| Environment | Freeform / Cinema / Giant, seat row, curved screen, head lock, dim-while-playing, wallpaper slots. See Screen. |
| Performance | Render quality: High, Balanced, or Eco. Quest 2 starts on Eco; Quest 3, Quest 3S, and Quest Pro start on High. Max resolution Off, 1080p, 2K, or 4K (Off lets the player probe). Network buffering Auto, Low, High, or Max, on the next clip. Battery saver Auto caps decode when the battery is under 20% and not charging. Thermal derating Auto steps quality down as the headset warms, and never above the quality you picked. A warm or hot headset says so on the status row. |
| Sources | SMB, WebDAV, SFTP, FTP, media servers, Play to this headset, device folders. See Network sources. |
| Storage | Keep unused URLs for (30–3650 days, start 90) and Clean records — drops old recents, resume points, skip times, and A-B marks. Favorites and servers stay. Cache size and Clear; over 1 GB the tab warns in place. Download queue and Download to. Backup: download a zip of settings, or restore one. Passwords are not in the zip. |
| Privacy | Send crash reports — off until you turn it on. Reports queue on the headset and upload later. They never block playback. Nothing else on this tab phones home. A one-time notice after install explains this and enables nothing by itself. |
Per-file choices — projection, stereo, rotation, screen shape, picture, black bars, skip times, A-B marks, audio track, resume position — stay with that file until you set them back to Auto or neutral. Auto-detection never locks a file.
13. Good to know
- Wrong shape? Projection and stereo on the Video or Photo tab are manual overrides. They survive reopen. Pick Auto to trust detection again.
- Washed out or too strong? Color range, Color look, and the picture preset are live. You do not reopen the file.
- Black bars. Turn on Detect black bars if you want an offer. Crop applies it for that file; Off never asks again for that file.
- Rename or move a file and its watch state still matches the content, not only the old path.
- Storage. Conversions live in a cache you can clear in one tap. A saved copy is the way to keep one permanently.
- Long sessions. Thermal derating and battery saver are both Auto. Eco is the coolest render preset, and it is already the Quest 2 start value.
- Lip sync on Bluetooth. Playback → Bluetooth audio delay, per device, once the headphones are connected.
- Language in the header changes this app only. System follows the headset.
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