Higher quality 180º VR video chosen by porn industry dominate Facebook 360º
When it comes to video technology, there’s no better early adopter than the porn industry. While some analysts suggest VR is in decline, the VR porn industry is actually booming. The huge success of VR porn videos might be due to the fact that 180º VR is a superior storytelling medium and much better quality technically, than the 360º field of view pushed by mainstream corporations like Facebook and Youtube.
VR is a storytelling challenge for content creators and making it work on customers headsets is a challenge for tech companies. It appears that people working in porn were the first to figure things out. Affordable custom DIY camera rigs with two modified GoPro cameras provide much better VR videos, than manufactured 360 VR cameras that cost in the region of five figures. The whole situation represents the complexity of VR video tech.
Alex Novak, SexLikeReal CEO says: “There are not many things in real life that would keep us rotating all over the place. We would rather enjoy things in front of us.” The 180º format provides just enough space to effectively tell the story using the maximum tech specs of the current generation of VR. VR videos provide the rare opportunity to enjoy things as you naturally see them, with a sense of depth - near things look near, and far things appear far away, in a way that isn’t possible with a flat view of the world.
These DIY camera rigs get improved every time new feature is discovered, so recent videos look much better in every aspect than scenes produced in 2015 by the same studio. The porn industry is the first to enter into VR production on a regular basis, with around 10 new high quality videos released every day. And it was porn companies who really created the rulebook of VR storytelling, constantly improving the plot and filming angles on a shoot to shoot basis.
With the 360º format the entire space is barely used and it’s hard to capture things further than 3 meters away, while current methods struggle with images of nearby moving objects due to flaws in stitching algorithms. And it’s much harder to make those videos engaging. Visual cues are required, which are yet to be learned by users, to navigate in such a vast space. 360º 6K videos are hard to play on customers headsets due to hardware limitations, whether that’s GPU or smartphone chipsets. In these cases, 60FPS is not even an option.
There are a few hundred 360º videos out of almost 10,000 scenes produced by porn studios, but they did not get much traction. SexLikeReal is currently re-mastering the whole library of 360º movies by cutting out the part from behind the viewer’s field of view, and making it 180º to provide the best possible quality while effectively halving the amount of disk space required. The wider angle videos will still remain an option for users, but 180º will be the default.
Here’s a quick rundown on the whole 180 vs 360 issue.
180º
- Replicates human sight with a camera for each eye
- Stereoscopic is default. Provides sense of depth and presence
- 60 or 90 FPS make movements smooth and natural
- 180º provides the amount of space normally seen in front of the viewer, with the best clarity and focus on the action
- 4K videos are compatible with every popular VR headset. 5K videos are compatible with 70% of headsets
360º
- A complex set-up involving six or more cameras, and requiring stitching algorithms which currently distort the video
- Mostly monoscopic. You can see things, but can’t feel a sense of depth
- 30 FPS. Less stable, reduced immersion, provides eye strain, can cause dizziness or nausea.
- 360º offers a vast space which is currently hard to fully utilise for the benefit of the user
- 6K resolution is only compatible with tethered VR headsets running high-end PCs
*Note: VR headset screen and video resolution are not the same thing. Video in the given resolution is projected onto a sphere and the headset’s visuals you see are part of this sphere. This means the better the total video resolution the better detail you get in the footage you see in your headset.
---
Did you enjoy reading this blog post? Do you have a good understanding of how it all works? Apply for a job with SexLikeReal and help bring the world of VR to life!
SLR fans who have joined the company have turned out to be our best employees. We’re a positive, happy company and we all enjoy the work we do.
Mail us at careers@sexlikereal.com with your CV and a few lines about what motivates you when it comes to joining SLR. We are greatly expanding into the VR ecosystem and we’re excited about getting talented people to come and work hand-in-hand with us.
