Welcome @chronuss!
Lots of useful info has already been provided by @defucilis. But I recently took the plunge in upgrading from my Launch to a Handy myself (which I am still extremely happy about), and I have spent a lot of time with the same concerns and questions, so I figured it would still be worth sharing more info to save you and others from having to dig up the info from various sources.
So my apologies for the lengthy post, but I would have loved to have this info at the time I was doing research for myself…
Does the handy use Bluetooth or how would it connect to ScriptPlayer?
The short answer: No Bluetooth at the moment.
Currently the handy gets connected through WiFi and uses your internet connection (HTTP).
There are basically three entities involved in this setup:
- Your PC, with an active internet connection. This will be used to play your video files in some interactive video player (like ScriptPlayer) that will communicate with the handy server.
- The handy server, which will receive updates about the script and timestamp from your PC and forwards this in an appropriate format to your Handy device (identified by the connection key, specific for your handy device).
- Your handy device (with active WiFi connection), which will receive the script data and time-sync commands from the handy server to make things move.
It is worth noting that firmware updates for the handy are still being developed, and the newest beta firmware also includes some form of Bluetooth support (https://www.reddit.com/r/theHandy/comments/m0h756/handy_firmware_300beta4_released/), which can be leveraged by interactive video players like ScriptPlayer to communicate with your handy device directly, without requiring an internet connection or uploading anything to the handy servers. To my knowledge, there are no players available that use this feature yet, but my guess is you can expect this to be available quite soon.
From a less technical user-perspective, the latest versions of ScriptPlayer already have a “Devices > Connect to Handy directly” option. As long as you set your handy connection key in the ScriptPlayer settings, ScriptPlayer will take care of all the technical stuff (uploading script & syncing video) for you, and will allow you to start playing interactive videos right away.
Would the handy work with whirligig VR player in the same way the launch does?
Yes, it will.
Whirligig does not have anything to do with funscripts by itself, but allows for remote playback control (which has to be enabled inside the Whirligig settings). This can then be used by ScriptPlayer to track what video Whirligig is playing (file path) and where the playback currently is (timestamp). ScriptPlayer will use that for script playback that is in sync with the video playback.
The way this is done is to have ScriptPlayer running at the same time as you’re using Whirligig to play videos. Inside the ScriptPlayer settings, make sure the ip address and port are set for Whirligig (Settings > Players > Whirligig). Usually the default settings suffice. In ScriptPlayer’s main window, open the “Video Player” dropdown, and select Whirligig. This should tell ScriptPlayer to obtain information of what you are playing inside Whirligig and start syncing the script file that has the same name as the video.
Are the funscripts or videos uploaded to anywhere when using ScriptPlayer?
Technically, yes.
You won’t have to upload scripts anywhere yourself, as ScriptPlayer will already handle this for you when you start playing a video automatically. But it still means that your script data gets sent to the handy servers.
Are either the video or funscript uploaded anywhere when using the handy?
Only the script will be uploaded to the Handy servers, which is then sent/forwarded to your handy device. Video files are way too big too upload/store on the handy servers, and more importantly don’t contain any useful information for script syncing, so these won’t get uploaded and will only be on your PC.
If I was to watch a video I have in Scriptplayer or the SLR VR app, it would still have to upload the funscript I have locally somehow?
Yes.
As mentioned, ScriptPlayer will upload the script for you when you start playing the video and you have entered your handy connection key in ScriptPlayer’s settings.
SLR VR app supports two options to play your scripts on the handy.
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Either by using the same setup as described for Whirligig.
In this case you’ll have to enable the Remote Playback setting inside the SLR VR app settings, and select “DeoVR” as your external video player from the dropdown in ScriptPlayer. Also make sure the DeoVR ip address and port are set (use default) in the ScriptPlayer settings. This will once again let ScriptPlayer handle all script related tasks by looking at what you’re playing in the SLR VR app. -
Alternatively, in SLR VR you can set your handy connection key in the settings, which will make SLR VR take care of communication with the handy server for script playback directly. For local video files this will behave very similar to ScriptPlayer (upload & play script with same name and folder as the video file).
However, when streaming videos from the SLR platform, you’ll have to put any local scripts in the “My Documents/Interactive” directory, with the id of the video as the filename for your script (e.g. “My Documents/Interactive/12393.funscript”).
How does the ScriptPlayer or SLR VR app upload the Funscript for the handy to download and use?
Both ScriptPlayer and SLR VR need your connection key to upload the script file to the handy server. When you start playing a video, the script that is found for that video (usually script file with same name and location as the video) will be uploaded and get sent to your device, which will then sync with the actions on screen.
Does the upload and download take much time to accomplish?
Of course this depends a bit on your internet bandwidth and the size of the script file. But from my experience with a rather slow connection, this shouldn’t take more than 5 seconds.
Since the handy is downloading it, will that cause problems with video playback with the handy active if I skip around in the video a lot?
No, it won’t. As mentioned, it will only upload the script once. That gets sent to your handy, after which skipping around will only resync by sending the the current time of the video/script playback, which is extremely little data and will barely be noticeable.
Will it have to keep redownloading and resyncing if I skip around?
It will only resync the timestamp. In my experience, skipping around might take a second or so to update the current time for the script, but that will hardly impact your session.