VR Super Bowl

[UbeRationale]

So I am trying to get everyone hyped about VR. And the 2 billion dollar acquisition is a good segway. When they don't seem to be grasping the significance, I tell them this:

The facebook acquisition has made this a real possibility in the next 2 - 4 years.

You will be able to put on a VR headset and be virtually transported to the Super Bowl. You will be able to look wherever you want to look and it will be like you are there, sitting in the stadium, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans. And guess what, you hear someone saying your name to the right of you, you turn and it's your buddy sitting in the stadium seat next to you. He's actually sitting in his living room on the other side of the country.

Then they ask how that would be possible. Everyone would need their own camera at the game and they really don't know how they could possibly see and hear their buddy. I give this rough explanation:

You and everyone else virtually attending the game will be receiving a 360 degree data feed of the game, then you decide what you want to do with that feed. You can look wherever you want to in that feed. And as far as your buddy sitting in the stadium seat next to you, he is being scanned by the "Xbox kinect" sensor in his living room and the 3D laser scan, tracking and audio of him are being downloaded along with your Super Bowl feed!

At this point, they look a little confused but cautiously excited. Then I say, just imagine being able to virtually attend pretty much any type of sporting event, performance etc. Then they are hooked and start asking questions.

So I guess my question is this. Am I lying to all of these people, or is this a real possibility?

[hellary]

Yes, this is not unreasonable at all. 3D 360 camera setups are starting to become available and it's just a matter of time until streaming solutions for this kind of video are possible. 3D scanning of people using Kinects has been possible since hackers first connected the original Kinect to a PC. It doesn't use lasers though, just clever camera trickery. What you're suggesting could probably be hacked together using a gen 1 Rift and a gen 1 Kinect by the right person.

The current issues are with things such as resolution (for a 'real' experience the resolution will have to go up more than the gen 2 kit although within 2 years I'm sure we'll be there) and also the 3d data for the scanned 'buddy' will be noisy and low resolution. Again most of that can be sorted out. Right now it would look more like one of the hologram thingies in the old Star Wars - the live 3d streams have errors and look a bit messy. The biggest issue I can see though is that if you use a setup like the Kinect sending 3d info, your friends will all have rift headsets stuck to their heads!! A better solution would likely be to have an avatar of yourself 'scanned in' using the Kinect pre-game without the headset on and then the Kinect would read movement data and transfer that to the 3d model you scanned earlier.

[UbeRationale]

"hellary" wrote:
A better solution would likely be to have an avatar of yourself 'scanned in' using the kinect pre-game without the headset on and then the kinect would read movement data and transfer that to the 3d model you scanned earlier.

I totally agree. That's what I had in mind as well. If you have seen the 3D laser scan of the models, that's what i had in mind as far as creating an avatar for yourself. And then the Kinect Sensor would just provide the movement data. And to overcome any issues with linking your buddies speech to the movement of his avatar's mouth. Until the technology is there, you could just have your avatar be your team's mascot or something cool like that.

Do you agree that this FB acquisition has made this type of content possible in the near future as opposed to the distant future?

[DeadlyJoe]

We've discussed this at length in other threads. It's absolutely possible, but the technological challenges are daunting.

You need high resolution, probably at least 2560x1440 (QuadHD), to resolve sufficient detail to match television quality. Higher would be better, of course. The bandwidth required to transmit video to VR displays would likely be 3 or 4 times more than a 1080p television broadcast, because VR video cannot be compressed as much as television video is compressed. Video compression artifacts are extremely easy to see in stereo. New video codecs will need to be written that can transmit just the video that the user is supposed to see, in order to save bandwidth. Also, the VR video player needs to not only compensate for orientation but also position to a certain degree, to prevent viewers from becoming motion sick.

I think all of this is possible, but I don't think it's is going to happen any time soon. People are already starting to experiment with live VR broadcasts, but it will be rough technology for a few years. I don't think that major sports networks will jump on the idea until the technology has matured enough to minimize R&D. Maybe 5 years down the road.

[apphands]

At 2 to 4 years, I'd say you are being a bit optimistic. I'd say something closer to 10 years. But, yes, that type of experience is bound to happen.

[leetphelps]

Forget sitting in the stands man. Go one step further and place the 360 camera above the field with the zip line system they already use. This would allow you to actually sit above the players and watch the plays from a madden type view.