That is terribly false, the Quest and Go owner market DWARFS all other VR hardware ownership. It's the cheapest and easily available kits there are and have sold in the 10s of millions of units. As far as the public knows, there are only about 4 million PC-VR owners alone (figures from nvidia GDC conference march 2019).
I’ve noticed several commenters saying “this would be great for leading you through a virtual tour of a space!” like a real-estate property tour. Unfortunately, no; not with today’s state of the art. VR video on this sort of budget can only give you the “you are there” immersion if you don’t mind being strapped into a five-point harness with a helmet restraint. If you wanted to do something like a real estate tour, you’d want to use photogrammetry techniques, often called “virtual volumetric video” or “6DOF video” (for having six-degrees of freedom of movement, like a high-end VR headset experience). To do that, you’d place the rig, stationary, in key places in the property to achieve enough coverage that can be later stitched together. For a rig like the one shown that can capture stereoscopic 180° video, you’d probably want a minimum of two shoots for each room (more in large rooms or where you want extra detail for features), with the camera carefully rotated about its focal plane so that it gets total coverage; but to achieve better stitching, with a 180° stereoscopic rig you should really do three shoots at 120° angles, both to give yourself leeway (it’s nearly impossible without special gear to pixel-perfectly rotate a rig about 180°) and to allow stitching to take place closer to the center-line where optical distortion is lessened. The choice of a 180° stereoscopic camera is key to immersiveness, though; 360° cameras can reduce the workflow considerably (you have to paint out the camera rigging/tripod and any crew on set, but can otherwise skip the stitching) but they lack stereoscopic vision, which makes it impossible to generate a virtual space that one can move around in; instead you have to present “head-locked” video where only the viewer’s head attitude is used, but they can’t shift their heads forward/back or left/right. (These three degrees of rotational freedom rather than the full six degrees including translational freedom are all phone-based VR systems give you, though, so it’s unsurprising you see a lot of video like this.) The other advantage of 180° stereoscopic systems is the stereo vision itself, but this is surprisingly less important than you might think-people get used to non-stereoscopic depth perception with 3DOF systems surprisingly quickly, which is why non-stereoscopic “photo spheres” are so popular. The main advantage of having stereoscopic footage is the ability to derive depth information and thus build convincing volumetric maps. A shoot like this, with three shoots from three angles from each scene, and a minimum of one scene per room, works very well to build up photogrammetry scenes that are fairly immersive. They have one big limitation, however: distortion builds up quickly if the viewer’s head translates far from the position of the camera; for a camera like the Z Cam K1 Pro, the viewer can only move within a sphere about half a meter in diameter (basically, they must sit or stand still, though they can lean and bob their heads). Many first-time VR producers react to this with “What? You just said avoiding head-lock was the reason to go to all this three-angle nonsense!” Until they try it, that is; it doesn’t seem like it, but the ability to move one’s head about and see natural-looking parallax and depth changes bring an enormous increase in immersion and less disorientation than truly head-locked photo-sphere-like experiences. In the case of a real-estate property shoot, you’d need to consider this carefully; you could get away with a single shooting location in an airy great room of a property with minimal furnishings, but you’d probably want to do multiple shoots in kitchens and bathrooms where people will naturally want to check out the details of fixtures, etc. This should be obvious, but I’ll just point it out explicitly: a scene shot from a single location, no matter how many angles and lenses are used, can’t see around corners or even tell what color the far edge of that light switch is! So these techniques never allow the viewer to move around “holodeck”-style. But to go in that direction, at least there are various steps up from here; Google’s been experimenting with light field cameras (best known from Lytro) to allow for larger head movements, better parallax, and a more natural effect of overall lighting changing as your head moves (for instance, the glint of the sun against a metal surface when you move your head just so). The next step up is to so-called “true” volumetric video (though that’s a bit of a misnomer since it’s impossible to capture all the light rays in a volume), where LIDAR, infrared mesh captures, and other techniques are used in combination with a location tracked camera that’s moved throughout the space you want the viewer to be able to “walk” through. _Significant_ post-processing is required, with a common method being creating a 3D computer model of the space just as in a video game and then projecting the video onto it. When this is done, room-scale experiences rather than just head movements become possible. If you have access to a SteamVR-capable headset, I encourage you to try Valve’s photogrammetry available via its demo The Lab; they’re accessed via a map with a water spigot (yes, really) very near the entry point to the main experience selection area. Rather than simply enjoying them, study how they work by moving your head, walking around, etc. Several of them are organized such that small sections have been volumetrically recreated (when you touch the teleport controls, these areas appear as ground planes where you can move around arbitrarily), but other views around those sections are just standing/sitting-only points. The stitching together of these two types of experiences into a unified whole is ingenious, but noticing the differences between them in a single setting is very useful to better-understand the state of VR video production. (And note that I haven’t even mentioned the issues you get into if you have _movement_ in the space! Once you need to track an actor or any non-CG element moving through the scene, the difficulties go up enormously.)
@@TreyHarris I saw you mentioned google lightfields, have you downloaded "Welcome to lightfields"? (download from steam) It's the best photogrammerty you can get, HANDS DOWN, truly bleeding edge! You can even move around in 6DOF and get real depth and changes in lights/reflections as if you are really there! They have tons of photos of the Space Shuttle and ones inside of it too, it's the best we'll ever get to actually getting to go inside of it. Lightfields is some seriously ahead-of-it's-time technology, the Lab and all the other photogrammetry stuff just looks terrible in comparison!
EVOLICIOUS Yes-as far as I know, Google hasn’t released any other light-field photogrammetry demos. The particular demos are interesting and show some ways the technology can be stretched beyond faithful recreations (for instance, in one example, as you turn your head and body around the time changes, in another a person’s facial expression naturally animates as you move your head side to side, and in a third, someone’s eyes seem to follow you around-creepy!). But to use that particular technology to implement seamless room-scale 3D recreations, I think you’d need a drone with enough payload capacity to carry around two or three light field cameras that’s still small and light enough to be flown indoors (not sure that even exists off-the-shelf, especially one that could navigate a typical home!), and then you’d need a wireless link speedy enough to ingest raw data from all those cameras and fine-enough location sensing that everything could be auto-stitched. This is all eminently _possible,_ but practically it’s at least a few years off.
There used to be days when camera systems were wooden boxes with ca. two or three separate manageable functions. Then there were metal boxes. Small ones for handheld operation, serious ones with rolls because they simply had to be heavy. And today you get modular stands and handles with so many possibilities to use. Private people buy flying cameras, people with some budget buy slow mo utility, technicians can increasingly often be seen using thermo cams... Many cars and trucks have an additional "electronic mirror", most people can effort a camera door bell, practically every phone has two cameras (one of these, meaning millions of them, are rarely used), and a great number of youtubers etc. makes money with good or very good cameras. Cool stuff.
Just downloaded the TESTED VR app on Oculus Quest. I am blown away by both the co tent and quality of TESTED VR. For those that have a VR headset run, dont walk to download TESTED VR.
The Tested VR App is a complete joy! This is how I want to learn everything, especially when being in front of a physical mentor isn't an option. Thank you for showing us the way VR can be used to inspire and enlighten.
You could point the Ambeo mic forward, to get it just above the camera. It supports endfire mode, and you can rotate the A-format recording afterwards by 90 degrees when converting to B format.
This will be really cool to see how other craft people have there work area set up. I would love to get my stuff really organized so I know where everything is at and have my tools all together.
That would be fantastic for real estate. Imagine. It on a shoulder rig doing a walk through of a house with a real estate agent in the shot basically giving you a guide tour of the home.
Not a really good alternative to be walking in VR, if you move the camera it causes motion sickness because your eyes tell your brain that you are moving and your ears tell that you are stationary. This causes dizziness on most people almost immediately.
Christ, I had no clue AV equipment could be so complicated! No wonder Tested hired this guy. He's like some kind of crazy filming sorcerer or something.
Great rig! I appreciate the included feild recorder setup. This style of rig will help me set up a better mobile rig. I made a "bull pup" steady cam rig, that you can out on a plate, or just pop onto a c stand with a 1/4 20 threaded baby spud, but does not have room for a full recorder like that... but if I made a "rifle stock" I could mount it on the side and have a "sight rail" for my mic(s)...
It would be helpful and cool if you showed your shooting and editing process as well. I'm interested in how you edit the spacial audio and LAV. Also would be cool to see the stitching process for the camera. You mentioned having to tape measure as well? Very cool video. I'll be sure to check out your oculus quest app when ever i get back to work.
@@tested Oh thank you! I'll be sure to look out for it. If your company is sending anyone to be at Occulus Connect coming up. I'd love to buy you a coffee. Great VR content and keep up the awesome work! Howdy from ATX!
This is awesome!!! Looking forward to checking out these videos in the Quest. That camera setup is awesome, slightly more advanced then my Vuze XR camera lol
I actually like building rigs and trying them out. Plus I love my gear lol But since I'm a smaller build guy, I try to make my rigs as light as possible with as much consolidation as I can. I wish there were carbon fiber cheese plates sometimes.
@@NathanCarterVids The playback footage can, it's just a single image from one of the sensors. The rendering is extremely processor intensive. You'll need top-shelf hardware to even render it into a VR video.
Adam does a great job on camera - was he able to do this all from his head or did you use some kind of teleprompter or cue cards? Also did you use the Z Cam K1 Pro on Season 1 & 2?
You don't have to pretend like you didn't already assemble it before-hand! Nice video. I'd love to see homemade versions of the camera rig modular pieces. Or would that get you in trouble with the camera manufacturers?
@@grumbel45 RU-vid Supports VR180 Content, so they could make it avaiable to CardBoard/Daydream users (and Desktop VR...sorta) with out issue. Seems like it might be a Oculus Sponsored thing, frustratingly.
@@albinobluesheep That is not even the same technology we are talking about here. This hardware is built for emulated depth, there are no real VR videos on youtube, just 360-2d content and a few shitty 3d videos. The only other real VR 180 content besides what Tested put out with these cameras that exist is porn right now (which are filmed with much higher quality sensors). Which is freakishly cool and very realistic.
loved the video! it's super cool to hear Joey talk (it's so rare :( ) and also super cool rig! Will the content be available outside of the Oculus / non-VR version for those of us that don't have access? It sounds like amazing content but very unlikely I'll be able to get my hands on a headset in the foreseeable future :(
The film industry uses inches, feet, metres and millimetres. Inches and feet for guesswork "I think that actors about 12 feet away" and mm for precision "Last shot camera was 1654mm from the ground, we need to replicate that".
While watching and contemplating your setting, I noticed Adam was wearing a lapel mic, and I was trying to figure out how that was being used. Was it just backup, or were you also recording a regular 2d video at the same time with it's own separate audio source?
Cool video. I'm not a videographer but I was asking myself: Why not putting the battery and audio converter/recorder in a shoulder bag and running cables to a smaller rig with only camera und microphone? Or is this rig going to be stationary only on a tripod or something?
The rig is for a tripod (2:25). Doing 180° VR video with a moving camera tends to make people motion sick, so it's best to either avoid camera motion completely or just doing them in very deliberate and well stabilized ways.
I've got to say videos in that tested app are superb. Resolution is great lighting is well done. I really like 2d closeups. The only complaint from me is the framerate. And Adam Savage trying to poke my eye out in VR! Is there a chance for you to capture at higher framerate as the steppiness of it is annoying. Even some frame interpolation would be great! Keep up the good work.Also I'd love to see Projections in that format!
If it's bandwidth of internet connection then it's a bad trade-off to make. If it's hardware decoding this stuff then it's a bummer. Wonder how all that NSFW stuff manages it. I mean a friend told me that it can have great quality ;]
@Zwenk Wiel everything shown in vr is an uncompressed full resolution stream of 2 viewports. Displayport doesnt matter here. Even if the video is 30fps viewports still render and display at their native resolution and refredh rate.
@Zwenk Wiel I can understadnd bandwidth limits could be an issue wgen interfacing eith the camera or decoding stuff on quest. It's just that you've mentioned Displayport in your previous comment and that cannot be the issue as it always gets the same datarate as the viewport resolotion (thats transferred) and refresh rate is consyant regsrdless of the wuality of the content being rendered.
Joey-- very much enjoy the tech side of Tested's production. I do think you need to have a less lengthy, cumbersome rig. There must be a better central gadget-- especially if you aren't using the shoulder part. Norm-- sorry, I just don't think-- despite the visual look, appeal of VR, that nothing is better than a roving camera that can walk up to a point of focus. "Zooming in" in VR does not maintain the high res of the un-zoomed image.
I saw those placed absolutely everywhere at OC5 last year. Never saw the footage come to fruition unfortunately. Must have been the Zuck's private viewing only to observe us humans, lol.
Just take a Insta360 Evo and run with it. I sadly don't have bins of rigging equipment. I do find that your rig is not very compact. It's light so you don't need the heavy tripods.
@@sqlevolicious you are even further off. The Insta360 Evo is both. 360° with almost all the features of the Insta 360 One but the whole "Evo" thing means that it also converts into a stereoscopic 180° camera. It is not opposite technologies it's just a difference in setup.
The central unit was a Zoom audio recorder. He mentioned it was for recording multiple channels, like four for the spatial mic (ambisonic) and two more for subject mics like lavaliers (the receiver on top was for those).
I liked this video about putting the gear together, but I'm not the slightest interested in VR. Hope you had a normal camera running as well, so we can still see the content. 😁
@@sqlevolicious I've tried it alright. I work with troubleshooting computers all day, I just want to relax with old, simple and mature technology at home. VR is just too much hassle.
Stark's Reality Only because Oculus gets exclusivity deals which they confusingly apply not only to their products vs. the competitions’ (though that’s bad enough), but to one segment of the products vs. another. There are no technical limitations.
@Zwenk Wiel Nope, they own slightly more than half the market share of vive owners. They sold more PCVR kits than anyone else, that's a fact, but to think it's a dominating kit as you say, is delusional, and goes against all the statistical data.
StereoPi is available as well for a lower cost option. This is 360 External Capture what everyone calls 360 capture. I want MoCap Camera System which to me is Inverted 360 or Selfie 360. No One makes a street or personal MoCap Camera System at this time that I am aware of. I have seen the Pi Setups using 40+ cameras. Jetson TX2 can use up to 6 cameras and I think they can be 4k so that might be 'possible' Thanks for all the awesome content!!!
@@sqlevolicious Yep I read it wrong this is 180 meaning 2 eye stereo not 360 2 camera to 6 camera surround, d'oh!!! I still want my 360 inverted system, heheh!!!
The 4 channel tetrahedral mic is used for a first order ambisonic sound field, which can be arbitrarily rotated and focused. The video player then applies a head related transfer function for an approximation of binaural audio following your movement.
This stuff has been used for years in porn now and the porn industry uses way better sensors for the VR 180 porn these days. It's freakishly realistic, even if you are not comfortable with porn, it's very technically fascinating.
@@sommelierofstench Not when I am stationary... actually just no. I would not be moving around without a camera man tracking focus. I cannot count how many times his camera lost focus during this video. No need for autofocus when shooting a vid like this. Half the time your camera back focuses.
It's 180° video with a human IPD (~64mm). Your average old school stereoscopic 3D movie does neither use a human IPD nor does it provide a 180° view. Furthermore the average VR headset has a FOV of 90°, so you can 2DOF look around with your head inside the 180° video quite a bit. Stereo vision goes a little wobbly on the edges and you can't 6DOF move around, but it's still far closer to reality (thus VR) than any normal stereoscopic 3D movie. The technology for real 6DOF video just isn't here, even Google's "Welcome to Light Fields" demo, which was just static images not video, was really underwhelming compared to proper 180° video, as the resolution was quite low and the 6DOF freedom was still extremely limited to like 30cm or so, which was pretty useless in the end.
Because it captures 180' and the FOV of the headset is less (say 90' or so for the Rift) you can move your head around. It would look like the front half of the world was real and the back half was black or a 180 semisphere of Tested logos or whatever they decide to edit in. Not really an issue if you're focused on the subject as you wouldn't see the edge of the footage unless you wanted to.
@@grumbel45 If you move your head at all, even just rotation, your eye balls are no longer in the same position as the camera sensors so surely the 3d breaks, I guess maybe you get away with it if you're not moving you head too much, I'd have to try it. I assume looking up and down is better that left and right.
@@terpsmcgerps I'm not convinced that works that well, but I've not tried it so might be wrong. Here's an video about it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DustblCzdhM.html
From your comments your audience is not told about the camera and what you are attempting to accomplish with this demo. What is unique about it? What are the considerations you have to take into account in order to get to your desired endpoint? What do you have to work around? Adaptations? What does this camera do and is it important enough to have to build a special rig for it? For that matter, what is a rig for a "normal" camera like - we need some basis by which we can draw comparisons and therefore understand the point of all this rigging. Basically, I think you needed to start with a premise, show some examples and why each thing you add improves the setup over your "normal" output. Then maybe it all might make sense. As it is, something got started in the middle and never quite reached an ending. Result: dead in the water.
It's a 180° VR camera and it makes 180° video. That's the point of it. it's not meant to replace the normal setup, it's just what they used to film that upcoming multi-part 180° VR series. To see what they normally shoot with you can watch their older videos like this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_PZxFAav0bI.html
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