YouTube has a ton of videos created for immersive viewing, but without an official YouTube app on Vision Pro, it’s a bit of a song and dance to get them to play. Moon Player however launched a Vision Pro app that, with significantly less hassle, not only unlocks YouTube’s library of VR video, but lets you play basically any video format regardless of origin. Yes. Even those.

Admittedly, the paid Moon Player app isn’t exactly a one-click solution, since pulling up a VR video from YouTube requires you to select the correct format first, i.e. VR180, VR360, cubemap, top/bottom or side-by-side, etc.

Still, it delivers what it says on the tin: in addition to unlocking YouTube’s library of immersive video content, you can also play virtually every video format and every codec, which includes support for UHD, 4K, 8K and 12K playback.

Image courtesy Innovision Inc

Beyond YouTube, Moon Player’s other headlining feature is its ability to let you play downloaded files, thanks to integration with Vision Pro’s built-in Files and Photos apps. Users can directly drag and drop videos from Files and open in Moon Player, or long-press the video in Files and select to open with Moon Player, the studio says. Essentially, this lets you access content in a way Apple doesn’t allow out of the box, including content on iCloud, SMB servers, AirDrop, etc.

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Granted, Moon Player is missing some functionality we hope to see in the future. For now, it doesn’t let you browse arbitrary video URLs for direct viewing, which means you’ll still need to somehow download the video in question and play locally. That’s a sight better than Vision Pro’s native video viewer though, which was primarily designed to view spatial videos captured on the headset or iPhone 15, and standard video content.

You can grab Moon Player now on the App Store, priced at $5. Created by Innovision, you’ll also find the app available across a host of VR devices, including Quest, SteamVR, Pico, and more.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Hussain X

    Moon Player’s Home Theatre environment is one of my if not the favourite environment across all video player app environments. The screen size, the distance and height level, all seem perfect. Only question is the sofa in front of you. Not sure if it’ll be better with or without it. Having it maybe gives a bit of perspective to the screen. Maybe give us a toggle to have an option to remove or keep it just in case the sofa does make things better. Also I hope it supports 3D MVC codec some day. Only 4XVR supports 3D MVC natively on Quest (along with some of the best in house video clarity tech I’ve seen on Quest 3), but 4XVR costs a lot more too to unlock some of the features.