NAB 2015: The Future of VR
In the newer devices they use OLED displays which eliminates this issue, because it can turn the pixels on and off very rapidly so they don’t smear, they are on when they are in the right position. One of the other things Arthur mentioned that came out of the advancements in mobile technology is gyroscopes and accelerometers. These allow for very accurate head tracking, and enables it so you can create an image that appears to stand still in space, but it’s actually being redrawn in different places as you move your head.
Arthur went into further detail on the importance of resolution, “Today it’s practical to deliver 4K resolution. So if you want to do stereo you’ll end up at 2K per eye. But it needs to be at a high framerate, if the framerate is too low you lose that realism. At Jaunt we use 4K at 60 frames per second as the delivery format.”
When working with VR you also need to decide what the field of view is going to be. Is it going to be 360 degrees, or just 180 degrees? Of course, if you do 180 degrees there is going to be a loss of realism.
The Future of VR
“I think the only constant in VR is change. It’s crazy to see how quickly things are changing. Every week there are new devices and new ideas immerging. Clearly we are going for increased quality, realism, and comfort. The headsets today are really not ready for watching a three hour movie, so that is something that needs to be resolved. And I think it is starting to get resolved, the headsets are getting better and the quality is improving.”
Arthur also talked about how the content needs to be right for the headset. For example, with something like Google Cardboard these are shared experiences.
“You try it on, look around for a few minutes and pass it on to your friend. It’s really a shared social experience. I think that’s going to broad adoption of VR in many different fields, and everyone is sort of trying to jump on the bandwagon.”
“I think there is going to be an explosion of cinematic VR. Today there is a lot of emphasis on hardware, devices, pixels framerate, but in the end it’s really going to be about the content. That’s where we can play a big role by creating a library of really compelling content.
Augmented Reality is also an area that Arthur believes VR will begin to move toward, because that is clearly the next step and where VR wants to go in the long run.
Scott Broock of Jaunt VR said this, “The most important thing that people can take away from this sessions is that mobile will be the way that most people get VR in the next 12 months to 18 months as these other things develop.” He continued, “The other key point of that is there are systems out there right now, like Gear VR which are fantastic, but it requires one of two phones from a particular vendor to get that experience.” Of course, this means that many people are excluded from cinematic VR because they haven’t upgraded, which is why Jaunt VR’s goal is to focus on frames of video and not pushing polygons.