FrameCinema

FrameCinema plays the video files and photos on your Steam Frame. Send them from your phone, put them on a microSD card or play them from a shared folder on your PC or NAS or from your Jellyfin or Emby server, pick one from the Library, and it fills a big screen by a night lake under the night stars, or in pure darkness. Everything runs on the headset itself: no PC to keep on, no streaming, no account.

Opens almost anything

Video files : MP4, MKV, WebM, MOV, AVI, MPEG-TS and AVCHD camcorder files (.mts), DVD files (.vob), MPEG, WMV, FLV, Ogg, 3GP and GIF.

Codecs : H.264 and HEVC in hardware up to 8K, 10-bit HEVC and VP9 with HDR10 in hardware too; AV1, VP8, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV, VC-1, Theora and ProRes in software.

Interlaced video from DVDs, TV recordings and camcorders is deinterlaced, so moving edges stay clean.

Photos : JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC and AVIF, 3D photos (MPO, JPS, PNS and stereo HEIC) and 360 panoramas, one at a time or as a slideshow.

File names in any script : Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai and Hindi names show in the headset's own fonts.

Dolby Vision profile 5 files, and profile 7 files with a minimal enhancement layer, play as HDR through open-source metadata mapping; other profile 7 files show their HDR10 base layer (FrameCinema is not certified by or affiliated with Dolby).

Every kind of video

2D cinema : a big screen you place where you like, nearer or farther, by pointing and holding the grip. Black bars in the picture are found and cropped, so a widescreen film fills a widescreen screen; or pick 16:9, 4:3, 1.85 or 2.39 yourself.

3D : side-by-side and over-under, half and full, with eye swap.

VR180 and VR360 : equirectangular and fisheye, mono and stereo.

Spatial video from an iPhone (MV-HEVC), both eyes, in 3D.

Automatic mode : FrameCinema reads the file's 3D and 360 tags and the usual filename conventions (_SBS, _TB, _180, _360, fisheye names and more), and can tell a side-by-side 3D film by its picture, so most files open in the right mode on their own. You can always change it.

Smooth and sharp

SmartFocus 3D follows what you look at, so close-ups stop doubling and distant scenes stay comfortable.

Runs the headset at 120 Hz, a whole multiple of 24, 30 and 60 fps, so films play without judder; 25 fps films play at 24, with the pitch kept, for the same smooth motion.

HDR10 and HLG videos are tone-mapped for the headset's display.

Your films, wherever they are

Receive files : open the page the headset shows on your phone or computer, type the code, and send films straight to the headset over your Wi-Fi.

microSD cards show up in the Library on their own.

Network shares : play straight from a shared folder on a Windows PC or a NAS (SMB), with a read-ahead buffer so Wi-Fi hiccups don't stop the film.

Jellyfin and Emby : add your media server and browse its libraries with their own titles and pictures. Films play straight from the server as they are, nothing transcoded, and the server keeps your place and what you have watched.

Download for offline : download a film from your server to the headset and watch it anywhere, even with the server off.

Sound and subtitles

Stereo, 5.1 and 7.1 tracks, with SteamOS's own spatial sound on the built-in speakers. Pick the audio track, set the delay, change speed with the pitch kept.

Subtitles from the file or beside it: SRT, ASS/SSA, WebVTT, PGS (Blu-ray), DVD and DVB. In 3D and 360 they float at a comfortable depth.

A Library that remembers

Thumbnails, sorting, search, folders, Continue watching.

When nothing is playing, the screen shows what you were watching, ready to carry on with one click.

Star ratings and favorites, with filters to find them again.

Every file resumes where you stopped, with its own mode, screen position, picture, comfort, audio and subtitle choices.

Playlists and folder play, with next and previous, shuffle and repeat.

Tags : give any film your own tags and filter by them; a Tags place lists them all.

Smart playlists : save a filter (tags, stars, favorites, watched or not, a folder) as a playlist that keeps itself up to date.

Copy to... : copy a film from a share or a card into the headset with a progress bar, and watch it offline.

Made for one hand

Everything works with a single controller and its laser: play, pause, seek, skip, volume, mode, screen size and distance. Your Steam Frame controllers are drawn as they are, buttons and all. While you find your way, small labels beside your controller say what each button does. The menu is large and sharp, with icons and labels; the laser is steadied so buttons are easy to hit, and the menu can be moved wherever it is comfortable. The menu is in English or Latin American Spanish.

Choose your surroundings

Watch on the shore of a night lake under the stars, with a ringed planet in the sky and mirrored in the water, by the same lake under an empty black sky, or in darkness. By the lake, the film's light falls on the water. Or passthrough showing your own room around the screen, or a 360 photo of your own.

Private by design

No account, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash upload, no update check: nothing goes to the internet. On your own network it does only what you ask of it: plays from the shares and media servers you add, and takes files you send to it from a phone. Your settings, watch history and logs stay on the headset.

Help and support

The user guide is at

Questions and problems: [email protected]

Every screenshot and every second of the trailer was recorded in the headset, on a Steam Frame running FrameCinema.