Stop the Skepticism: VR Video Makes a Believer Out of Anyone
八年前, 我的父亲, 一个历史学家, was working on the second draft of his biography of an escaped slave. As he was responding to his editor’s directive to add more narrative drama to the book, 我寄给他一本大卫·利斯的历史小说 威士忌叛军.
When he called to thank me for the book, I told him, “Read the first two pages. By the third paragraph, you’ll know exactly how it smelled along the Philadelphia waterfront in 1792. 你的书开始于几个街区之外，60年后. 那是什么味道?”
“花园和马粪，”他说.
“I think you’ll grab your readers a lot sooner if they know that,” I replied.
Streaming video—compared to the written word—better conveys what it smells like where the action is happening, 因为我们总是可以依靠视觉和音频. But as the technology to deliver increasingly sophisticated and immersive live-streamed experiences becomes more accessible to producers working at different budget levels and scales, 预期的变化.
Catching a live event as it happens online has evolved from being marginally better than watching courtroom sketches on the 6 o’clock news to the next-best thing to being there to a crafted experience that offers elements that those experiencing the event onsite often don’t get, 例如与在线观众中的其他人进行现场互动. 这些互动增强了用户粘性, and can go a long way to compensate for a viewing experience that, 然而，通过使用多个摄像头馈送而丰富, is both limited and restricted by the switches and choices the crew makes onsite. The advent of 360-degree virtual reality streaming and on-demand online video—discussed in Jan Ozer的制作指南 在这个问题上，以及 马克·阿拉马斯十一月号的封面故事—brings a new dimension to the remote viewing experience that won’t be appropriate to all types of streams (as Ozer notes in his tutorial) but suggests enticing possibilities for others.
当然, virtual reality presents unique challenges on the production end, 考虑到它与敬业的传统联系, 繁琐的头饰, 可能看起来很复杂，递送起来也不方便. And thus it might seem incompatible with one of live and on-demand online video’s greatest selling points to date: the ability for action happening just about anywhere you aren’t to reach you exactly where you are, 无论你走到哪里，这些设备或多或少都会陪伴着你.
Recently I had my first impromptu, casual experience with virtual reality online video. It practically snuck up on me as I was checking Facebook on a two-block walk back to my car. 在这种情况下, the content was nothing to write a column about—a videographer friend testing the low-light capability his Ricoh Theta 360 camera as he and his daughter ambled through the food court of a South Carolina mall. But no sooner had I clicked on the player than I was scanning the mall’s full range of dining options, and noting scuff marks on the tiled floor and smudges on the skylight. 我都快闻到蛋卷的味道了.
I got the full 360-degree experience using nothing but the touchscreen of my Android smartphone. 甚至在最近, I read that the next phone likely to land in my pocket when my current service contract runs out—the Samsung Galaxy S7—pairs with a compact VR-capture device called Gear 360 and boasts built-in 360-degree video editing capability. 等我用那部手机的时候, Facebook 360 and YouTube 360 will most likely be as familiar as Facebook and YouTube.
当我第一次听说VR流媒体和在线视频时, 我很怀疑, convinced that the inherent obstacles to a VR experience that comes to you—like everything else in online video—were too unwieldy to make it viable. But now that 360-degree VR has found me, I find myself doing a 180.
本文发表于2016年4月/ 5月号 流媒体杂志 “跨越360度”."
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