Bigscreen Beta News

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Hey everyone,

Bigscreen partners with Cargo Film & Releasing to host INSERT COIN for FREE on Friday, February 26, at 7 PM PT (10 PM ET), along with a Q&A with director, JOSH TSUI, and Ready Player One author, ERNEST CLINE!

INSERT COIN is a Midway Games documentary showcasing the amazing behind-the-scenes story of one of the greatest video game studios of all time! It’s a great opportunity to dive deep into one of the most interesting contributors to modern arcade with massive hits like Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam. Eugene Jarvis, the “Godfather of Video Games,” and the small, tight-knit group of friends reveal the roller coaster ride of handling success.

On Friday, February 26, we’ll begin with a free 30-minute Q&A session at 7 PM PT (10 PM ET) with Josh Tsui (director), Ernest Cline (author of Ready Player One and Two), and our host, Dan Amrich!

Ernest Cline chatted with us in Bigscreen about his sequel, Ready Player Two, not too long ago (the Q&A is available under the "Bigscreen Exclusive" movie category), so we're super excited to have him back again! It's truly a coincidence that he happens to star in the INSERT COIN documentary as well!

After the Q&A, a free screening of the documentary will begin at 7:30 PM PT (10:30 PM ET). Make sure to charge your Quests because the full event will be two hours long!



INSERT COIN will be available in 12 countries, including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

This is a “Bigscreen Event” - a live, social experience for people to watch this fun documentary with other arcade game fans. You may grab a free event ticket directly from our app by tapping on the Insert Coin movie poster under the “Live Movie Events” category. Be sure to show up on time to attend the event!

If people miss our live event, no problem! The Q&A and documentary will be available as a VOD in the Bigscreen Movies rental catalog for free for one week. After that, INSERT COIN will be $4.99* under the "Bigscreen Exclusive" movie category, so don’t miss your chance to watch it for free!

As a reminder, the Bigscreen Movies rental catalog is different from Bigscreen Events. Bigscreen Movies are on-demand rentals, which can be watched privately at any time, with play/pause playback controls, in any Bigscreen environment like our new Drive-In Movie Theater. Bigscreen Events are live, social experiences and have specific showtimes like a real movie theater.

*Prices vary according to the regions they’re available in.

Hey everyone,

Based on your feedback, we have updated the menu layout:

• Desktop/Remote Desktop buttons return to the “My Room” left pane navigation
  
• Geo-filtering for movie rentals to only show movies available in a specific region
  
• “Movies” button is disabled in regions that we aren’t able to support yet
  
• Improved the Room preview pop-up layout
  

We still have more work to do, so stay tuned! Please continue to share your feedback, features you’re looking for, and issues/bugs you experience! Let us know in our 18,000-person Bigscreen Community Discord or email us directly at [email protected].

#️⃣ Version: `0.107.0.437cc3-beta-ui-2020`

Hey everyone,

Planning to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday? Come watch the free CBS Sports livestream in VR in Bigscreen!

Super Bowl LV, the 55th Super Bowl and the 51st modern-era National Football League (NFL) championship game, will decide the league champion for the 2020 NFL season! The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Kansas City Chiefs will play the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

It won’t be a lonely night, with Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, headlining the halftime show and he totally earned it! Warning: there might be blinding lights during the performance often, but it shouldn’t stop you from rockin’ all night long! Tell your friends to join you!

The CBS Sports livestream will be featured on the home page, so anyone can jump in and watch the event without needing to link up their headsets to a PC. These are public, social rooms allowing people to meet new friends, hang out, and watch football together. This works on all supported headsets, including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, all Windows Mixed Reality, and all SteamVR headsets.

If you use Bigscreen on a Windows PC, you can also host your own room to watch this livestream privately with friends in VR. The Super Bowl livestream is available for free at . As a reminder, the more people in the room, the more upload bandwidth the host will need to ensure guests are seeing a good quality video in their headset.

Let’s enjoy the show this Sunday, February 7th, at 3:30PM PT / 6:30PM ET! Be sure to charge up your headsets, battery packs, or leave them plugged in. See you there!

Hey everyone,

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In honor of Black History Month, we’ve added a new Bigscreen Movie category called Black Cinema with titles such as Night Catches Us, The Long Walk Home, St. Louis Superman, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, and more to commemorate the accomplishments of African Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.

These are ad-supported free movies on Pluto.tv, and can be watched on-demand at any time in any of our environments including our new Drive-In Movie Theater!



Check out 13 more amazing films in the Free to Watch with Ads category such as The King’s Speech, Memento, and more.



We’re also hosting a live event tonight on Monday, February 1st at 7PM PT/10PM ET, broadcasting Selma, Ava DuVernay’s critically acclaimed film. This is a live, social experience, offering – a unique way for VR users to watch a thought-provoking film with people around the country.

Nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2014, Selma is the story of how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a three month march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965, fighting for equal voting rights for all Black Americans.

Can't make it to the live event? We'll have more Selma events scheduled throughout the month. You are also able to rent Selma on-demand at any time at https://bigscreenvr.com/movies/catalog for $3.99 in the US/$4.99 in Canada.

To contribute and make a difference, please visit https://blacklivesmatter.com/

As always, we’re still working on some major updates for this year, including a new video/audio streaming technology, larger room sizes, ultra-low latency Remote Desktop streaming for Quest users, support for YouTube and streaming services, and a Friends System.

Share your feedback with us on these new changes, features you’re looking for, and issues/bugs you experience! Let us know in our 17,000-person Bigscreen Community Discord or if email us directly at [email protected].

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Hey everyone,

Over the past few years, we have added many “Screens” into Bigscreen for you to choose from: Desktop Screensharing, Videoplayer, live TV Channels, and 3D Movie Rentals.

In this update, we are launching a new feature: ad-supported, free-to-watch movies. Unlike Bigscreen’s paid movie rentals, which are partnerships with major movie studios like Paramount Pictures, these free movies are hosted on Pluto.TV and include ads from PlutoTV. These free movies can be watched on-demand at any time in any of our environments, such as the recently launched Drive-in Movie Theater.

Currently, the movies are available in the United States and include Arrival, Seabiscuit, Clueless, Nacho Libre, Adventureland, Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity 4, It Follows, and more. More movies will be added each month.

We’re working hard on licensing more 3D movies in the UK and other regions. This has been incredibly difficult because VR is such a small industry. Please bear with us while we try to sign more deals; in the meantime, the best way to help us grow the platform is to rent a movie from our website!

These free-to-watch movies are in 2D, unlike our paid movie service which has 3D movies for rent. 3D movies are incredible to watch in VR. If you haven’t experienced it, try watching our 3D movie trailers in VR and rent a 3D movie from our website if you like it!

Next, we’re actively working on built-in YouTube support and we plan to integrate more streaming services in the future. As previously announced, we are also developing a Friends System and a new technology to enable large groups of people to stream ultra-low latency video in VR.

Share your feedback with us on these new changes, features you’re looking for, and issues/bugs you experience! Let us know in our 17,000-person Bigscreen Community Discord or if email us directly at [email protected].