I had planned to write up the story about Intel and Samsung that we cover on the Front Page, but as I had to do an extra Display Daily, I covered it in a DD article. That column will be in next week’s pdf, but if you want to see it, check here.
This week, we include Chris and Aldo’s report from NAB. Rather than run it as a single special report, most of the stories fell naturally into the MDM or LDM issues, so we have included the reports in the main issues, although that has made them a bit longer than we really like! However, there is not much ‘fluff’ in the reports – clearly there was a lot of content at the event. NAB is the US equivalent of the IBC event in Europe, which I have covered for a number of years. However, judging by Chris’s report, there was a lot more coverage of VR and 360º video at NAB than we saw at IBC in September. One factor may be that NAB is more influenced by Hollywood and the cinema than IBC, which is dominated by broadcast, which is much more complex in Europe, although there is some cinema interest at IBC.
I have mentioned a couple of times a demonstration of 360º video that I saw at MWC in Barcelona in February and that has been developed in Korea by a partner of SK Telecom and that really opened my eyes to the potential of the medium. In the demonstration, which was of a baseball game, the 360º video covered the whole ground, from the perspective of a spectator in the stands. You could look all around and get the whole scene. Views from other locations in the stadium were available.
On the opposite side of the field was a scoreboard. The VR headset had gaze recognition and when you looked at the scoreboard for more than a couple of seconds, the scoreboard was scaled up to carry more and more data. Looking away from the scoreboard made it just ‘part of the scenery’ again.
Elsewhere in the stand was, apparently, a large LED screen with a close up view of the action. As with the scoreboard, when you let your gaze rest on the close up view, the LED screen grew and showed more views, while still showing the scene behind.
The experience was very good and immersive and I could imagine getting pleasure from the experience of watching a sports event this way, although I would miss the sociability of watching with others as the headset was somewhat isolating. However, this was the first time I really can say that I could really understand how VR could be a good experience (although I had no doubts about AR or mixed reality). I was just disappointed that I couldn’t get a good image to share with readers!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this week’s issues.
Bob
