Navigating the World of Virtual Reality
Update (2024/03/28)
Apple Vision Pro has been out for more than two months now and Apple allows customers to reserve a 30-minute session to demo with a Specialist. I was excited to get a hands on experience for myself.
Coming from iterations of VR, the concept remains the same that Apple Vision Pro has the option for blocking out the world around you and bringing you into a beautiful crisp experience. Where the Android and iPhone have less than 1,000 pixels-per-inch (PPI), the Apple Vision Pro maintains over 3,000 PPI. It’s the difference of being able to see the individual pixels in front of you versus being so small they go unnoticed, an important feature that I believe helps improve against uncanny valley. It’s one giant step towards immersing the brain into a digital realm.
While the demo was rolling and I was being shown 180-degree 8K videos, like a sunrise over a tropical beach, I couldn’t help but look down at the closest parts of the video in the foreground to look at the detail and the focus. I was searching for the seams of this technology that would suspend the experience, or at least jostle it. To my surprise, it exceeded my expectations. When it came to personal photos, it’s the difference of seeing a photo the size of your iPhone screen versus seeing it the size of a room, which brings attention to even the smallest of details; noticing the nuances of the environment and objects within the surrounding for context that tells a larger story. Also, if you ever took a panoramic, now is the time to view that as it wraps around you just like when you were there.
The exciting part of Apple Vision Pro that I didn’t have experience with is the Spatial Computing. Instead of withdrawing from the real world, the cameras on the device allow for a pass-through to see the world around you, but now with a digital interface. A real life example that somebody had done with their Apple Vision Pro was to pin a Youtube screen over their stove for when they’re cooking a new recipe and need help with instructions, a note from the Notes app above their refrigerator for making a grocery list, several different windows in their office for computing and work, and the Apple TV app on display in the living room for movies and media.
It’s just the beginning for this kind of technology and it’ll only become more affordable over time and with more content from app developers to make practical uses for everyday life. For now, I’ll rock my 4’ x 8’ white poster board with dry-erase markers to plan my calendar and take notes and maybe one day get an Apple Vision Pro.
Update (2023/11/19)
At the time of the writing the article, a notable VR headset that I didn’t discuss was the Oculus Quest 2, a VR headset from a notable company bought out by what is now known as Meta. As the acquisition took way, a few of us were concerned with the growing concern with privacy and how companies were using our data. I wanted to take the plunge, but ultimately held off.
During the WWDC in June of 2023, Apple officially announced their Apple Vision Pro that offers ~3200-3500 PPI, which is astronomical when compared to the iPhone and the Sony phone’s written about below. I’m so thrilled to see how this technology starts to merge with everything else and become incorporated into the ecosystem.
2021/01/07
It's the year 2021 and the amount of entertainment we have at our disposal is vast. In this article, I'll explore the realm of Virtual Reality (VR), sharing my personal experiences and insights. Despite our advanced technology, VR can still be clunky and the immersion has many iterations of improvement to go, but it's still impressive nonetheless.
At the most luxurious, one could spend a few thousand on a gaming PC, then connect a VR headset and play incredibly immersive games like this year’s Star Wars, Squadrons, that puts you right into the cockpit of a star fighter facing down the enemy. Fans online have shown such creativity and commitment by building actual cockpits for their VR immersion. However, VR can run as simply as a smartphone paired with a headset the phone locks into and you can watch movies or look through your photo albums.
My draw into VR was the immersion for photo and video. As somebody with a degree in Film Production, I’ve learned over the years to pay attention to the subtleties of light and color in the visual art form and can only say that VR takes your images and makes them as big as a room from your perspective, and it’s jarring just how much detail is in a single photograph; you notice everything happening in the image.
Some chief complaints against VR are motion sickness, and dry eyes. While I don’t experience those symptoms, I do agree with others that the weight of the headset with limited support puts pressure on the bridge of one’s nose. If I’m watching a movie, I’ll position a hand to take some of the weight off it.
Below I outline my journey into a basic VR experience
Hardware
Simple and affordable VR headsets are online ranging from $25-$50. I got lucky and really liked my first purchase of a Destek V4, a headset that perfectly fit my iPhone 8 Plus at the time. Since then, Destek V5 was released with a wider field-of-view (FOV) and better design. My favorite improvement was the diopter, the adjustment for an individual’s eyesight.
I am reluctant to suggest a specific controller for the headset because my experience is far from ideal. However, it’s worth finding a controller that works for you because they increase efficiency while using the headset ten-fold. Without it you’ll be using the hover feature requiring near-precise eye lock on areas of the VR interface.
For the smartphone, I started with an iPhone 8 Plus, but found an affordable Sony Xperia XZ Premium online.
iPhone 8 Plus
Release: 2017
Display: 5.5”
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
PPI: ~400
Sony Xperia XZ Premium
Release: 2017
Display: 5.5”
Resolution: 3840 x 2160
PPI: ~800
With a digital screen as close to the face as it is for VR, it’s important that we get a higher PPI (Pixels Per Inch). As it sounds, it’s the amount of pixels in a given inch of the screen. When I’m practically doubling my PPI from the iPhone 8 Plus to the Sony Xperia XZ, I’m making the display twice as crisp by getting double the amount of pixels. I definitely noticed the pixels in the iPhone 8 Plus, but even then it was still tolerable enough to enjoy the experience.
Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) are the top shelf of displays these days. Unlike LCD screens that are backlit by panels that make even the color black get washed out, OLED screens use pixels that generate their own light, which leads to true black tones and a high contrast ratio. The moral of the story is to go OLED when you can.
Software
While using Apple’s iOS, I strictly used the app Mobile VR Station. I got lucky on my first download and it worked best for what I had an what I needed. However, the same app on an Android device has limited features. This experiment was my first foray into the Android world and I was not impressed. It confirmed all I had read about the Google Play store and felt like I was in a 90s public chatroom. The one thing I did appreciate was the ease at which you could return or refund a recent purchase pretty easily.
Some of the many complexities for VR are all the features an app is going to offer. For different viewing modes alone, there is Side-by-Side (SBS), Top-bottom, 360 panorama, 180, and 3D. Side-by-side is the easiest to use for my situation and that means it takes my phone screen and cuts it into two screens next to one another. This would be most noticed by a 3D camera making a 3D movie like Avatar by James Cameron.
Content
Think of media file extensions like .mp4, .mkv, and .flac as containers for your songs or videos. Much like how different people understand different languages, various programs can only read specific file formats. Imagine receiving a box with labels in Korean — if you don't understand Korean, you won't know what's inside, just like how certain software can't 'open' or 'read' a file in an unfamiliar format.
My workflow would often consist of taking a movie file that could range from 10GB to 90GB and run it through HandBrake to convert it from an .mkv to an .m4v format with as little compression as I could get away with. This took anywhere from 5-15 hours. From there I’d transfer the movie in its new format to the smartphone which would take anywhere from 5-45 minutes. This was definitely not an impulsive hobby.
Eventually my workflow meant using Homebrew to install FFmpeg and run the following command line:
ffmpeg -i /Users/MacBook/Documents/videotitle.mkv -c copy -c:a aac videotitle.mp4Getting to the final bit of code above took a lot of trial and error. After reading through several articles, people are experiencing a loss of audio during the conversion process. The -c:a aac part specifically asks the audio track to convert to an .aac container. This brought the wait time down from 5-15 hours to only 3-5 minutes; a huge breakthrough.
Conclusion
VR is an immersive and fun experience. While I’m not sure it will survive the popular vote against AR (Augmented Reality), there is a time and place for it and time will only make it even more immersive and affordable. I’m here for it as much as I can immerse myself and fit within my means, and fascinated to watch it merge with our daily lives.
