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Google VR180

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88 pointsipsum242 comments

I can't tell if it's the headband to slip a phone into, the tools for content creation, or the dual channel cameras. Perhaps it's all three.

kind of a shame they used up the 180 name though. it's not a wide view of vr. it's not really a 180 from the cardboard either.

From the few words about it, i have a generally positive vibe about whatever vaguely defined thing they made. Neat. Not neat enough for me act on. I'm probably not in the targeted demographic. But good luck with whatever that winds up being.

It's a misnomer to call video VR.

If it's got a 180 degree field of view and it's 3d video, I don't think it's much of a stretch

Depends on the aspect ratio of the video, really. /rimshot

If you're the kind of person that never moves and faces one direction then yes, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to call this a form of reality.

I'm lucky enough to not be in that situation, so this is more like portable 3D video to me. But that doesn't brand as well.

Is it really virtual if it is recorded actual reality?

shouldn't the 180 actually be 2 pi steradians? Or is it 2-D VR?

pretty sure its 2D, yes. just a single line of pixels.

I recently got a Gear 360 (affordable 360 camera from Samsung) and it's easy to see why Google would focus on 180 instead: the quality of the image is seriously weak in 360 and cannot be much better in 180 due to the device having only one camera facing either way, there is no way to preview photos without the phone, and a lot of the time (concerts, sports hyperlapse, landscape shots) you only want the front view anyway. That being said, I still like the idea of 360 for being able to capture the full scope of a place (like a studio apartment I shall soon move out of) easily - though maybe Google's could just do panorama easily.

You can capture (in my opinion) better experiences of static scenes with Cardboard Camera (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.vr....). It's higher resolution than most 360 cameras I think and comes with depth (!!) and sound. It's been a while since I used it though and I think it might have holes in the top (it's not a full sphere).

Looks like it's the same as LucidCam (lucidcam.com)

That probably puts LucidCam in a pretty tough spot.

Managing what happens in front of a camera is hard enough when you're making a video using a single fixed position camera on a static set. Making a video where everything in a 180 degree arc around the camera has to be choreographed is going to be a lot more work. I wonder if Google (or a third party) have any ideas how to make that part of the film-making experience better.

Looks awesome, albeit there isn't much to read about it.

So to the big question in my mind: is this something everyone can rely on? Or will this be another google experiment that doesn't go anywhere?

Anybody knows how/if the camera/player pair support 6-dof?

No because there's no damn information on the linked page.

I'm guessing it doesn't.

i doubt it -- if they're getting 6-dof out of a stereo pair then they have invented some magical tech

There's limited 6-DoF from Google's Jump camera (https://vr.google.com/jump/): "Assembled videos are high resolution and come with depth data, ready to go for edits and visual effects."

Yeah Jump is a cool rig but that's 16 cameras in a circle, not a stereo pair.

It's not 6-dof. This playlist[1] shows VR 180, and the videos are stereoscopic videos with a wide (180ish degree) field of view, but no 6-dof. I don't know if that might change in the future.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLN_4SqVDVM7jCAt9RPKNrOzp...

(edit: again, obvious disclaimer that I do not represent my employer at all, and this is just a personal post of mine)

I don't care what anyone thinks, that is friggin awesome.

So it's a new video format, but without specs or code ?

yea. VR

Maybe I'm old, but didn't it used to be customary to include some text actually describing the product on a product introduction website? Like so many other such sites, this has a signup link and a flashy-yet-uninformative video. It might as well be advertising Jabberwocky.

I mean, it looks like they're adding stereo video to youtube (didn't it already have that?) that you can view on your Cardboard or Daydream headset (couldn't you already?) so... it's a rebranding of that? The only 'new' thing is that they're partnering with a couple of hardware companies to make stereo cameras exactly like someone (Samsung?) was selling five years ago.

(Edit: Except that the example VR180 youtube video seem to have been shot at 5-10fps for some reason - is that just me or is this part of the charm?)

/old-man-shouts-at-cloud

You can do anything at Zombo-com

Ref: https://youtu.be/qxWwEPeUuAg

wow new favorite site http://www.zombo.com/

The original Flash version: http://zombo.com/

The updated HTML5 version: https://html5zombo.com/

Wait, there's a new HTML5 version? What's next, a new version of that stupid web game where you click on the soccer ball to stop it hitting the ground and it counts the clicks?

(If there is one of those, please tell me now or not at all, and especially not Monday morning when I have documentation to write. :P )

Felt exactly the same way looking at the page. Can't tell what is new and the video barely moved...

It's a bluetooth confetti cannon. Isn't that obvious?

how long before they abandon this also?

what do you mean, they just updated google glass...lol

It's a shame there's so little info on this page. There are several articles about this from various tech news sites[1][2] (there are a bunch more, but I'm not gonna link to all of them).

If you want to try it out yourself, here's a playlist of videos on YouTube that are all "3D 180": https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLN_4SqVDVM7jCAt9RPKNrOzp...

One of the general ideas of this "VR 180" format is that it gives you a lot of the immersion of 360 video, but it's a lot easier for creators to use (you can still put all your equipment (lighting, sound, etc.) behind the camera and not worry about it being in the shot). The cameras capture 180(ish) degrees of view. When played on the web or iOS or Android, it will play/look like a normal video (with maybe a bit of a wide lense). But if you use a headset, then you can look around a little more and get the "VR immersion" experience.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/youtube-chops-360-video-in...

[2]: https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-vr180-virtual-reality/

Disclaimer: I work at YouTube and did some of the iOS work for this. I do not represent my employer in any way, and this post is just a personal note of mine.

But what's the product? Is it that headmount thing they slide the phone into? Or is that Daydream? The cameras seem to be a separate thing arriving later, so it's not those. Or is it just the idea of trying to build a standard for 180 degree videos as opposed to static or 360?

I'm often quite surprised that a massive company with such competent staff can overlook detail on a public announcement site. Surely the very first bit should be a statement about what's on offer?

That "headmount thing they slide the phone into" is actually a Daydream[1], I'm pretty sure.

The VR 180 "product" (that you can purchase) is, as far as I know, the cameras that are in development. However, there are a few other things that the VR 180 announcement covers:

- Ingest support for VR 180 to YouTube's servers. The servers can now ingest, process, and serve VR 180 videos.

- Player support for VR 180. YouTube clients now know how to handle (and play) 180-degree content.

In the past you could just take a 360 equirectangular video and chop it in half and call it 180. But you couldn't upload it to YouTube and play it back, since it would try wrapping it to 360 still, and it would look wrong. So this announcement covers a few things: server support, client support, and new dedicated cameras for 180-degree content.

[1]: https://vr.google.com/daydream/

(Edit: my comment about about the lack of content is now outdated, since the URL for this submission has now been changed to the Google blog post. The original URL was https://vr.google.com/vr180/)

Here's some more information about Google VR 180: https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it-vr18....

It seems to me that Google has scaled back efforts on 360 video. There are lots of difficulties with 360:

- Large file sizes (hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes of data)

- Inadequate camera quality (even 8k video looks low-quality)

- Bandwidth limitations (in streaming and processing)

- Film-making and making use of all 360 degrees

These problems aren't going to be solved within the next year, so Google decided to go 180 as a stopgap for now.

More like >90% of the time, no one ever looks more than 180 behind them, so much of the extra information is wasted, but costs more to produce.

Half the bandwidth to serve, creators can have their lighting and equipment out-of-frame, and no one looks over there anyway. Win, win, and meh, which adds up to win.

Also, 360 3D video is impossible with the current software, so 360 videos are always a bit flat.

There is 360 3D, it's just hard (and expensive) to get access to. Examples:

- https://vr.google.com/jump/

- https://facebook360.fb.com/facebook-surround-360/

- https://ozo.nokia.com/vr/

- https://www.lytro.com/immerge

We have realized the same function, also we developed a app providing the live broadcast. Although it's not 360 degree, users can still get immersive experience. download the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrmedia.sh...

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