Open a VR video in an ordinary player on a computer and you see not one picture but two, packed into one frame: one for each eye. SBS — side by side, also called left-right or LR — puts them next to each other. OU — over-under, also called top-bottom or TB — stacks them. Same pixel budget, different shape — and a player that guesses the wrong one causes most “this looks broken” moments in VR.
Every scene we shoot is 180° equirectangular and side by side. This page explains both layouts, how to tell which one a file uses, what a mismatch looks like, and how to fix it in DeoVR, HereSphere and SKYBOX.
What SBS and OU actually are
A stereoscopic camera records two images at once, from two lenses roughly a human eye-width apart. A video file has one picture track, so both images share one frame and the player splits them again, sending each half to the correct eye. The small difference between the halves is what your brain turns into depth.
- SBS, or left-right: the left-eye image fills the left half of the frame, the right-eye image the right half.
- OU, or top-bottom: the two images are stacked, in most files with the left eye on top.
- Mono, or 2D: one image only, shown to both eyes. It surrounds you, but nothing in it has depth.
Neither layout is higher quality in itself. Which one suits a file depends on the shape of the image each eye needs, and that comes down to 180° or 360°.
How to tell which one a file is
Play the file on a flat screen, or look at its thumbnail. Four tells:
- Where the second picture sits. Two near-identical pictures next to each other is SBS; one above the other is OU; a single picture is mono. In a true stereo file, things close to the camera sit at slightly different positions in the two copies.
- The shape of the whole frame. A 180° SBS file is about twice as wide as it is tall; our 8K masters are 8192 × 4096. A 360° OU file is usually square. A frame twice as wide as tall holding only one picture is typically mono 360°.
- The shape of each half. In a 180° file each eye’s image is roughly square, because it covers 180° across and 180° up and down. In a 360° file each eye’s image is twice as wide as tall.
- The file name. Tags such as _LR, _SBS or _3dh mean side by side; _TB, _OU or _3dv mean over-under; _180 and _360 give the field. More on those below.
Why a mismatch looks wrong
A player that misreads the layout cuts the frame in the wrong place, so each eye receives the wrong part of it. The symptoms are easy to read from inside the headset:
- Two copies side by side, stretched tall, no depth — an SBS file played as OU. Each eye is handed a horizontal strip containing half of both pictures.
- Two copies stacked, squashed narrow — an OU file played as SBS.
- Two copies, flat — either layout played as mono, so both eyes see the whole packed frame.
- Depth inside out — near things read as far and your eyes tire within a minute. Left and right are swapped.
- Everything oddly wide — a full-width variant of the right layout, meant for files that store two full-size frames. Ours are half-width; leave it off.
A world that stretches at the edges while the centre looks squeezed is a different fault: projection, not layout. Our 180° vs 360° guide covers that one.
The fix in each player
Every serious player has a manual layout override. For our files the answer never changes: 180°, side by side.
- DeoVR. Open the player menu while the video plays and set the format to 180° with the side-by-side layout. DeoVR’s own documentation names its three stereo modes side by side, top-bottom and off, for mono.
- HereSphere. Set the stereoscopic mode to left-right; top-bottom is for OU files and mono for 2D. If depth feels inside out, choose right-left. Our HereSphere settings guide covers the rest.
- SKYBOX. Change the video’s format to 180° with the left-right (LR) layout; TB is its name for over-under.
Started from a scene page, the “Watch in your VR headset” bar hands the scene to DeoVR, HereSphere or SKYBOX, which usually apply 180° side by side on their own. The override matters most for downloads. Our player comparison covers which app to choose.
The resolution arithmetic: same pixels, different shape
A VR resolution label describes the whole packed frame, not one eye — our VR resolution guide explains that convention. Split a frame that is twice as wide as tall, and the two layouts hand each eye very different shapes:
- 4K (3840 × 1920): SBS gives each eye 1920 × 1920; OU gives 3840 × 960.
- 5K (5120 × 2560): SBS 2560 × 2560; OU 5120 × 1280.
- 7K (6720 × 3360): SBS 3360 × 3360; OU 6720 × 1680.
- 8K (our masters, 8192 × 4096): SBS 4096 × 4096; OU 8192 × 2048.
Each eye gets exactly the same number of pixels either way. What changes is where they go. A 180° view is as tall as it is wide, so the square SBS half fits it evenly: at 4K, 1920 pixels across 180° is the 10.7 pixels per degree in our resolution guide, horizontally and vertically alike. The OU strip is the wrong shape for 180°. It has twice the pixels across and half the pixels up and down — about 5.3 per degree vertically at 4K — and the player stretches it to twice its stored height to fill the view.
For 360° the logic flips. Each eye needs a view twice as wide as it is tall. Stack two of those and the frame comes out square; put them side by side and it becomes four times as wide as it is tall, an awkward shape to encode and decode. So stereo 360° is usually OU and stereo 180° usually SBS: each layout keeps both views at their natural shape.
Why every scene here is side by side
Every scene we shoot is 180° and stereoscopic, so each eye needs a square view, and SBS stores two squares in a frame twice as wide as tall — the 8192 × 4096 of our 8K masters. Nothing is squeezed, and detail is equal in both directions. Every tier uses the same layout: 960p, 1440p, 4K in h264 and h265, 5K, 7K and 8K.
We publish no over-under files and no 360° files. The site says the same thing to the players: the scene-page player is told 180° left-right, and the library feed DeoVR reads marks every scene in it as 180° side by side. If one of our scenes looks doubled or squashed, the player has guessed — the file has not changed.
Filename hints players read
A downloaded file has no page behind it, so players read its name. The tags overlap but differ:
- DeoVR documents _LR, _3DH and _SBS for side by side, _TB, _3DV and _OverUnder for over-under, and _180 or _360 for the field.
- HereSphere documents _LR and _3D for left-right, _TB and _3DV for top-bottom, _2D for mono, and _180 or _360. A field tag with no stereo tag makes it choose mono.
- SKYBOX has published rules that accept 3dh, LR and SBS for side by side, 3dv, TB and OU for over-under, and 180x180 for the field.
Our current files end in _180_180x180_3dh: 180°, a field 180° by 180°, side by side. DeoVR and SKYBOX should read that as intended. HereSphere recognises the _180 but not the _3dh, so a downloaded file can open flat there: set left-right by hand, or add _LR to the end of the file name before copying it across. Our download guide covers the transfer.
FAQ
Is SBS or OU better quality?
Neither, on its own. From the same frame, both give each eye the same number of pixels. SBS suits 180° and OU suits 360°, because each keeps the eye’s view at its natural shape. Used for the wrong field, either one wastes detail.
Why does my VR video look cross-eyed or doubled?
The player has the layout wrong, or the eyes swapped. Two copies of the picture means the layout or mono setting is wrong; depth that feels inside out means left and right are reversed. For our files, set 180° and side by side.
What does _3dh mean in a file name?
It is generally read as 3D, horizontal: the two eye images sit side by side. Its partner _3dv means vertical, over-under. DeoVR and SKYBOX list both; HereSphere uses _LR and _TB instead.
Does my headset decide the layout?
No. The file decides it and the player reads it. Quest, PICO and Vision Pro all have players that handle both layouts, and so does a PC-connected PSVR2; what differs is the file and the setting.
Set it once, then watch
Layout is a setting you fix once. For the per-eye numbers behind every tier, read our resolution guide, and to see 4096 pixels per eye in a square 180° view, start with our 8K VR porn. SexBabesVR shoots over 700 exclusive scenes in native 8K, 180° equirectangular and side by side, with a “Watch in your VR headset” bar and downloads at every tier on every scene page.