
Google VR180 - ipsum2
https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it-vr180/
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jfoutz
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.

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rocky1138
It's a misnomer to call video VR.

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moolcool
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

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avaer
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.

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

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

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andreyk
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.

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Veratyr
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....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.vr.cyclops&hl=en)).
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).

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d0pp3lgang3r
Looks like it's the same as LucidCam (lucidcam.com)

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Hydraulix989
That probably puts LucidCam in a pretty tough spot.

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onion2k
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.

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apapli
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?

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

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

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ipsum2
There's limited 6-DoF from Google's Jump camera
([https://vr.google.com/jump/](https://vr.google.com/jump/)): "Assembled
videos are high resolution and come with depth data, ready to go for edits and
visual effects."

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

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

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

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dmead
yea. VR

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taneq
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

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JohnTHaller
You can do anything at Zombo-com

~~~
JohnTHaller
The original Flash version: [http://zombo.com/](http://zombo.com/)

The updated HTML5 version: [https://html5zombo.com/](https://html5zombo.com/)

~~~
taneq
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 )

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knodi
how long before they abandon this also?

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

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cornstalks
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...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLN_4SqVDVM7jCAt9RPKNrOzpa8FDhFxWp&v=xtjs5mUxpFk)

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...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/youtube-chops-360-video-in-half-with-
new-vr180-format/)

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

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prawn
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?

~~~
cornstalks
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/](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/](https://vr.google.com/vr180/))

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ipsum2
Here's some more information about Google VR 180:
[https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it-
vr18...](https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it-vr180/).

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.

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cromwellian
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.

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sdenton4
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.

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ninja_doodle
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...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrmedia.show)

