Rouvy has introduced 'Group Rides'

ms6073 · Tue Feb 25, 2020 2:22 pm

Looks like Rouvy has added 'Group Rides' functionality with the new AR BETA.

Tue Feb 25, 2020 9:47 pm

Worth trying, I like the idea a lot. real world meets zwift/TTS VR

Tue May 19, 2020 12:03 am

I went ahead and signed up for a free 2 week trial of Rouvy and installed both regular Rouvy Workout program and the Rouvy AR on my W10 PC. Install was fine and it all seems to work. We have only done a couple of downloaded video rides with Rouvy AR to get a feel for the immersive effect. The video quality is pretty good with only relatively minor video distortions from the animated overlay. Yesterday, we just did a ride with our own avatar. Today, we did a group ride of about 8 additional cyclists, most of whom were to fast for us.

I would say that if you are riding alone, putting your avatar on the screen in front of you gets boring fairly quickly. It reminds me of the TTS VR program where I ended up removing the image or using the handlebars only view. If you are riding alone, having yourself in front of you gets in the way of the scenery. But that is easy to turn off.

For the group ride, we had our avatar turned off, so it does give you a riding-together effect if you can keep up with group members. But most of the time, we were alone. What we really need are pacers with comparable power output. I did not see that feature, but it might be there. The software has comprehensive timed splits and when you are approaching a split, there is a bunch of split data for all the riders that pops up on the screen, so data junkies will love this.

One negative for the Rouvy AR is you cannot specify the folder for storage of the downloaded video. It is somewhere on the C Drive which is not ideal as I have a SSD with limited storage capacity. The regular Rouvy Workout software allows the user to change the download folder. I am assuming that will be changed in later releases as most people do not want to fill up a smaller SSD with video files.

ms6073 · Tue May 19, 2020 1:04 pm

I am pretty sure Rouvy AR went mainstream last month when they split out workout functionality from AR app into the dedicated workout app. When we started with Rouvy, we used the default video/view but did not like it so I changed the perspective 'me' thus we see the full view. Curious why you are downloading the videos as we have only had to do that once last month due to what I can only assume was a period of peak Rouvy utilization resulting in a lot of artifacts in while streaming the video. We are riding with 50" Smart HD TV's and find the fidelity of the videos to be reasonably good but not as good as TTS RLV's as Rouvy pixelates at lower left and right periphery making it hard to read road signage and the like. With a morning of rain on Saturday, we road the 15-ish mile Mont Ventoux Ride, albeit with the wife riding with the reality level setting turned down to 30% while I was still at 100%. I was riding way over my limits trying to keep up with her with my 36x28, so I ended up reducing the reality level to 80% after 8-miles, yet she kept spinning away and finished nearly 5-miles ahead of me.

Tue May 19, 2020 1:46 pm

I have not tried streaming yet. By habit, I choose to download to maximize video quality. I, too, noticed some video distortions, etc., but maybe not as much as you. A streamed video is likely to have a lot more quality issues compared to downloaded, so I will do a comparison.

And I have not used Reality Mode (same as Difficulty setting in TDA and similar to Power Mode in TTS). Many of the Rouvy rides are quite difficult, so I would need this. However, you can only use Reality Mode in Training Mode and not Race Mode.

And this Reality Mode setting does not appear to be available for Rouvy AR - only for Rouvy Workouts (regular Rouvy).

ms6073 · Tue May 19, 2020 10:50 pm

mcorn wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2020 1:46 pmAnd this Reality Mode setting does not appear to be available for Rouvy AR - only for Rouvy Workouts (regular Rouvy).

Curious, I am using Rouvy AR for Windows and I am able to edit the setting in training mode both before and during rides by clicking on the 'Settings' link button in the upper right corner. Next time you have the app open, you might want to check for updates as Rouvy has released two in the last 4-weeks. Might also take a look at the Race and Training mode – see the differences support article for more information and screen shots of the interface for Windows, Android, and Ipad.

Wed May 20, 2020 12:03 am

I will look again, but I could not find it in AR. I have the latest version as I just downloaded it a day or so ago. I am not getting an update message. It looks like you actually have an older version. I will try again.

I did a flat ride in Germany in Rouvy Workout today using a streamed video. I have only tried a very small number of videos, but this one was pretty mediocre quality. The streaming itself had some minor pauses and stutters, not a big deal. But the quality of the video itself was a long ways from what Phil does. It looked like a Go-Pro effort. The picture was not well-stabilized and exposure and color balance were not very good. It looks like it might have been 720P rather than full HD. There was also not a good match between frame rate used during capture and my 20 mph playback, so playback was not that smooth. I'm not saying this is representative of the library, so I will just have to try a few more. I did not see a filter or sort for video resolution in the software. This was not an AR video, just normal, so there were no cyclist overlays. I see that Rouvy is strongly recommending that AR's be played with the new AR software and not the Workout software due to potential bugs.

Wed May 20, 2020 8:05 pm

I have the latest version of the dedicated Rouvy AR program and there does not seem to be any Reality (slope setting). Here are a couple of screen shots:

: Rouvy AR In Ride Settings.jpg (13.98 KiB) Viewed 24154 times

: Rouvy AR Version.jpg (12.05 KiB) Viewed 24154 times

ms6073 · Wed May 20, 2020 10:15 pm

mcorn wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 8:05 pm I have the latest version of the dedicated Rouvy AR program and there does not seem to be any Reality (slope setting).

That is curious. I know that if you ride in Race mode, the Reality Level control is not present, but it should be in that settings menu in Training mode.

Thu May 21, 2020 12:01 am

ms6073 wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 10:15 pm
mcorn wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 8:05 pm I have the latest version of the dedicated Rouvy AR program and there does not seem to be any Reality (slope setting).
That is curious. I know that if you ride in Race mode, the Reality Level control is not present, but it should be in that settings menu in Training mode.

There are two programs that are separately installed. Today, I found that if I accessed the AR function embedded in the main Rouvy Workout program, the Reality Level control is available. But if I open the standalone Rouvy AR program that is available by separate download, it is not (those are the screen shots I posted above). So, I am assuming that these are distinct programs with somewhat different features.

I have to say that the programs as well as the Rouvy website have a somewhat huge array of settings and information which are a bit overdone and confusing. It some ways, there is just too much in the way of options and information. You can spend hours in the help and support webpages getting whipsawed between various links and bits of advice, some of which is not very current. So far, I would not be giving Rouvy high usability scores, but I also appreciate that there is always a learning curve, so I will see how I feel in another week.

Mon May 25, 2020 5:46 pm

Still finding that although interesting, Rouvy is a somewhat disorganized program. This basically two programs - the older workout application and the newer Augmented Reality (available as both a standalone as an a function within the the older workout application). There is a fairly irritating grade popup street sign that appears each time there is a grade change and it cannot be turned off. It is a bit pointless as there is already a slope and grade widget on the screen already. I also find that the videos are not anywhere near as well done as Phil's. The newer videos are higher quality compared to the old, but all of them tend to suffer from poor exposure and color balance. Still, there are some nice features and having someone to ride with (and against) on the screen is fun diversion, at least at times. My free intro subscription is about to expire, so I will probably do a month to month for a while.

Rouvy does play a lot of other videos. Apparently, it used to play TTS coded videos and use the Tacx server to authorize, but that no longer functions. It will play older non-coded vides as well. The process for selecting these third-party videos is a bit awkward and slow, however. I did not find any way to save the selection, so you have to do some navigating each time you do it.

P.S. I had to install the dreaded K-lite codec pack to get the older non-AR videos to work in Rouvy Workouts. Hoping this will not mess up the PC's ability to use other programs. K-lite codecs were always an issue for TTS compatability.

ms6073 · Wed May 27, 2020 1:03 pm

mcorn wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 5:46 pm
mcorn wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 8:05 pm I have the latest version of the dedicated Rouvy AR program and there does not seem to be any Reality (slope setting). Here are a couple of screen shots:

There is a fairly irritating grade popup street sign that appears each time there is a grade change and it cannot be turned off.

That is very curious as I stopped seeing that popup late last year. IN fact, I just installed an update last night, bringing AR version 0.12.5.33. Also, on my box, when I open the Settings view, I have to scroll down to the end to get to Reality Level.

Wed May 27, 2020 3:56 pm

We seem to be talking about different programs!! Not sure why. I contacted Rouvy support to ask if the popup road grade sign could be turned off and this was the response:

"But, unfortunately, you can't turn it off. We are sorry about it. I'm sending your message to our Dev team. It could be helpful to them for the next development of the app."

So, I am surprised you are not seeing it. Regarding the reality level setting, I will check today to confirm I have the latest standalone AR version.

Update: I think we are getting on the same wavelength. First, thank you for referring to scrolling the settings box. I did not see any scroll bars, so did not realize there were more settings in the box that could be accessed by scrolling down. So, I found the Reality Level setting in the standalone Rouvy AR program.

I also see that the standalone AR program does not have the popup grade sign. That is only in the AR module that is part of the full Rouvy Workouts program.

I did do an update to my standalone AR program today. Seem to be relatively minor changes. I may switch over to mostly using the standalone AR program. As mentioned before, for downloaded videos and unlike the the Rouvy Workouts program, you cannot select a different storage location other than the C Drive, which is a disadvantage.