📽️Media Encoder

Looking Glass Media Encoder uses WebCodecs and WebGPU to deliver fast media encoding straight from your web browser!

Looking Glass Media Encoder is a web based application that leverages WebCodecs and WebGPU to render hardware-accelerated image and video content on your Looking Glass display.

Looking Glass Media Encoder is currently experimental, this means you could run into bugs or strange performance. If you do, please let us know!

Looking Glass Media Encoder currently supports Looking Glass Go and Looking Glass Portrait devices.

Playback support for the Looking Glass 16" and 32" Spatial Displays will be added in the future.

Requirements

Looking Glass Bridge

The connection between your computer and your Looking Glass.

Google Chrome

Media Encoder requires the latest version of Google Chrome.

Getting Started

To use Looking Glass Media Encoder you'll need the latest version of Google Chrome. This will allow you to leverage WebGPU as well as WebCodecs' H265 encoding, which is necessary in order to encode content for the Looking Glass Portrait and Looking Glass Go.

You'll also need your Looking Glass connected in desktop mode. If you haven't setup desktop mode before we have guides for Looking Glass Go and Looking Glass Portrait.

In the current alpha release Media Encoder does not have any persistent state, this means that changes you make will not be saved across page refreshes.

To start, import a hologram! Media Encoder currently supports PNG, JPEG, MP4 and WebM files in the following hologram types:

Type	Image	Video
RGBD	✅	✅
QUILT	✅	✅

In order to import a hologram you'll need to have Looking Glass Bridge running, along with your display connected in desktop mode. The first time you import a hologram you'll be prompted to allow Chrome to manage windows on your displays. Choose "Allow" to enable Chrome to open a window on your Looking Glass.

Once open, you can double click the new window to enter fullscreen mode.

Once your video is imported and playing, you can adjust some settings. These will vary based on the kind of hologram you're importing. Currently the following settings are supported.

Setting	Quilt	RGBD
Columns / Rows	✅	⚪
Aspect	🔴	✅
Zoom	🔴	✅
Depth	⚪	✅
Focus	✅	✅

Video Performance

Windows Users

On Windows computers, particularly on laptops with integrated and dedicated GPUs you will need to set Chrome to use your dedicated GPU. Otherwise you may run into performance issues. Media Encoder requires that everything is processed on a single GPU and not copied between the CPU/GPU or integrated/dedicated GPU.

Changes were recently made in Windows release 24h2 to improve this process, Windows versions prior to 24h2 may have trouble forcing Chrome to use the computer's dedicated GPU, which will result in slow performance.

Video Codecs

You may find that certain videos aren't performing well. This can be resolved by re-encoding the video to a format your computer can better handle. There are a variety of offline video conversion tools including handBrake and if you're comfortable with command line tools, FFmpeg.

While specific settings will vary based on the hardware decoders available on your computer, a general rule of thumb is that if the video is 4K or higher resolution, it should be using the H265 (HEVC) or VP9 codecs. For GPU based hardware acceleration we generally recommend using H265 (HEVC).

MacOS lacks hardware acceleration support for VP8 and VP9 video files. You should use H264 or H265 on MacOS systems.

If you're unsure what your GPU supports, you can check the following resources:

• Nvidia Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix

• AMD Video Core Next

• Intel Media Capabliities for Integrated GPUs

• Intel Media Capablilities for Dedicated GPUs

• Apple Silicon Media Capabilities

Encoding Media

To encode an image or video, select the video you want to encode, then click the download button. This will start an encoding process which will be reflected by the progress bar.

Generally this will take the same amount of time as the video, but in some cases can be faster or longer depending on the video's resolution and speed of hardware resources.

Once complete, an export hologram button will appear. This will give you the option to save your hologram to your preferred destination.

Transferring Media to Standalone mode

The Looking Glass Go uses a file transfer system called Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). This is the same protocol used by most media players, and prevents the device from simultaneously editing content that a connected computer is also editing. MTP makes accessing the Go's storage a bit different than a normal USB drive.

Looking Glass Go (Windows)

Clearing the Go's Playlist

If your Looking Glass Go is already connected to wifi and has a playlist synced to it from Blocks, it will prefer that playlist over any manual modifications to the display's playlist. To manually control which content is on the display you'll need to clear the playlist from the Go by using the Blocks website.

On Blocks, Go to the library page then click the ... menu on your Go and choose Clear playlist.

Accessing the Go's storage on Windows

Windows provides built in MTP support. To access your Go's storage open File Explorer, go to My PC and then choose Looking Glass Go.

On some versions of Windows you may need to double click "My PC" to get the Go's MTP drive to show up. Be sure to choose the Looking Glass Go drive, and not the smaller USB based drive.

Looking Glass Go (MacOS)

Looking Glass Go

Clearing the Go's Playlist

If your Looking Glass Go is already connected to wifi and has a playlist synced to it from Blocks, it will prefer that playlist over any manual modifications to the display's playlist. To manually control which content is on the display you'll need to clear the playlist from the Go by using the Blocks website.

First, create a new playlist on Blocks then assign it to your Go. After your Go reports that it has synced, delete the playlist.

Accessing the Go's storage directly

MacOS does not have a native MTP solution, this means that you'll need a secondary program to access the Go's storage. Currently we recommend using OpenMTP.

There are a number of programs that can interfere with OpenMTP, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Apple's own Preview and Photos apps. If you're having trouble accessing your Go's storage drive in MTP, try closing these applications first.

Once you have OpenMTP installed and running you should see your Go's storage drive appear like so:

The Go comes with a handful of demo content, you can keep these files or remove them, if you'd like to sync them again later you can grab the demo playlist via Blocks here.

To get your new files on the Go, drag and drop them onto the right side of OpenMTP, this will copy the file to the Go. From there all you'll have to do is switch the Go to stand alone mode by tapping the power button and you'll be all set!

Looking Glass Portrait

Looking Glass Portrait

The Looking Glass Portrait system uses a normal USB drive. This means you can copy files directly to it. If you've already synced your Looking Glass Portrait with Looking Glass Studio, you'll need to modify a few files to correctly register the new files. First, remove the playlist.m3u and playlist.json files present on the Portrait's storage drive, then copy the new video or image files over to the display.

You'll need your Looking Glass Portrait connected via USB-C in desktop mode in order to copy the files over.

Troubleshooting/FAQ

Playback Performance on the Looking Glass Go

The Looking Glass Go's MediaPlayer uses the device's GPU for video playback. While this is functional, it can cause a delay when the media keys are used to advance through to the next clip or content. We're currently looking into improvements in this area.

Will support for other browsers be coming in the future?

That's really up to the other browsers. Media Encoder uses very specific Web APIs that aren't fully available yet in Firefox or Safari. Firefox has stated they are unlikely to support H265 encoding, which means that encoding files in Firefox will likely not be available for the near future. Safari's latest Tech Preview does allow WebGPU and WebCodecs which is exciting but it also lacks some other nice APIs like the screen placement API.

Setting Chrome to use your dedicated GPU.

If you have a Windows computer with multiple GPUs, you'll need to set Chrome to use your dedicated GPU. We recommend using Windows 24H2 for the best performance. You can change the GPU preference by navigating to the Settings app, choosing Display then choosing Graphics. From there, click Add desktop app and navigate to the install directory for Google Chrome. Usually this will be located here: C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application