What's in there - Next VR

Someone asked what was in Amaze and it struck me that it would be nice to document what was in the various video and photo collections in true stereoscopic 3D VR. So lets dive into NextVR which is one of the best collections of video out there.

Tribes of Papua New Guinea: This is a 12 minute documentary on a marriage and festival in New Guinea. It is nicely shot and narrated and the additional 8 minutes or so of behind the scenes type footage is a nice addition. This is an excellent free 20 minute educational travelogue package. These types of experiences really add to my enjoyment of VR and I congratulate NextVR on making this film. Note there is national geographic style toplessness so it is likely PG-13.

The technical work is excellent. I've seen so many travelogue type 'VR' videos that were poorly shot 2D that I was wondering if even NextVR could carry off a good VR experience. They did. In one of the little commentaries the director mentions that they had to stop the wedding many times to get the right shot and it took 3 hours to film that part of the video.

As with many NextVR films the scale seems a bit small. I actually thought it was much too small at first until realizing that the folks in New Guinea where a bit smaller than the football and basketball players I usually see in NextVR.

Overall this is one of the best non-sports films available on the Go right now. You really get a feel for the area and its people in a very short period of time. The immersion factor of VR really shows what can be done with an educational video. This and Space Explorers have really wet my appetite for more of these videos.  The fact that it free makes this even more amazing. The streaming works well and unless you are deeply offended by topless women, you should definitely watch this.

NFL: If you enjoy the football as I do, you will like love this collection of game highlights from five NFL games. They tend to run about ten minutes each with two hosts who guide you through the highlights and chat about the games and such. There are a few best of films.

The inherent problem of the Go is that you have a range of about 1 to 10 yards where things look sharp. After about 10 yards things just start getting fuzzy. A football field is what 53 by 120 yards when you include the endzone. So much of the action is in the fuzzy zone. The good news is that plays close to the endzone and by the sideline look really good. It can be odd to see a receiver running into focus. Also to me the players are a bit smaller than reallife. Even with these limitations, this is just fun to watch.

Preview Show will get you hyped for five highlight reels from the games.They actually show some highlights from the previous season and the odd thing is that the plays look about 2 feet tall. In the current season they might look about 5 feet tall, so they have really improved in scale.
Sideline to Sideline is a nice 3 minute highlight reel with music of the games NextVR covered.
Best of the NFL is a 7 minute hosted clip show with mascots, players dancing and having fun, fans and even some plays. Nicely done, it might be the best of the lot.
There is a 3 minute clip about the Atlanta Falcons new digs.

The heart of the NFL experience is 5 games with hosted highlight / recap shows that are 8 to 10 minutes. In addition to a little intro and the highlights there is a player interview. This wouldn't be particularly notable on TV, but in VR it is amazing to see the plays as if you were standing on the sidelines. The players can look a bit small and once the action gets say 15 yards or more from the camera it gets very blurry. Still along the sidelines or in the endzone the picture quality is very good and it does feel like you are watching in person. Again if you like Football this will be high on your list of VR tings to do.

NBA: Amazingly enough there are full game replays. Camera are above and below the backboards and on the sidelines. At first it was a bit jarring to look at a play from up high, but you quickly adjust. NextVR is treating this in the same way that TV broadcasters do with their own trucks, crew, producer and announce team and it really shows. I've tried other sports app and they all feel like afterthoughts and generally have terrible video. These NBA productions look like broadcast TV productions in VR.

There are lots of action packed 3 minuteish highlight reels, dozens of them is feel like. They do a good job dazzling you with players from your favorite team and showing off the technology. But it is the full game productions that are really impressive. I don't know if most of use are quite ready to sit through a 2+ hour game in the Go goggles, but the games are there if you want to try it.

As mentioned here and there, the Go camera doesn't do very well at less than a yard or more than maybe 10 yards out if that. Fortunately the NBA is played in a much smaller field that football and soccer so with half a dozen good VR cameras it is possible to have most of the plays and players in reasonable focus. Along with the WWE (more next), the NBA seems ideally suited to the demands and limitations of VR. With a younger audience than either the NFL or MLB and flush with cash, the NBA seems to the the sport embracing VR. Even if you aren't a big basketball fan, and I'm not, you owe it to yourself to checkout some of this content as it might be the best VR sports content in the world today. Actually it might be some of the best VR film content anywhere and there's roughly 50 hours of it free.

WWE: Well produced segments that feel like TV broadcasts come to life. I watched all three 10 minute or so segments after typing that first sentence (I'd watched about 5 minutes before) and yes they are well done. WWE knows how to put on a show and the highlights from Fastlane and Wrestlemania are among the best I've seen up there with the NBA VR.

There seemed to be cameras on two ring posts and a couple outside the ring to bring all the action to you. It did feel like being inside a telecast as you felt closer than being in the arena crowd. The only odd thing was they didn't show any actual finishes. I don't know if that was contractual or if the finishes might have looked fake in VR. Anyway odd. That aside this was a lot of fun and that from someone who hasn't watched wrestling in decades.

With all the scripting and planning that goes into wrestling and with the performers in a tight area, Wrestling would seem perfect for VR to broadcast live. giving the new huge contract with FOX, WWE can certainly afford it. It would be ironic if Wrestling helped drive live VR as it once drove live (and taped) TV back when TVs had 10 inch black and white screens. Technology has come quite a ways.

Soccer:  Like American football there tends to be too much ground for the camera to focus on. As a result everything not right in front of the goal tends to be fuzzy. Also the size of the players seems to be an issue. In the Manchester highlights at least everyone seemed about half size in some shots. Watching some more highlights the players generally seem a bit small but not half sized.

I'm not a soccer guy so forgive my ignorance of the sport. There was a big pre-season tournament with many of the best teams in the world playing in America. There are lots of highlight shows here, maybe 20, that range from 3 to 5 minutes usually and a longer tournament wrap-up show. The highlights are generally shots of all the goals made and miss from a camera near the net.

Fox Sports VR:  Boxing fans will rejoice at three full half hour bouts along with some highlights and there is even some fun monster truck footage. The only negative is that these definitely seem to be scaled too small. The production isn't up there with the WWE, with I'm thinking only two cameras, one on the ringpost and one on the floor. Still scaling aside it is a decent, if fairly static, VR experience. I just previewed the fights, but I suspect I'll nuke some popcorn and start watching them at some point. Boxing from the edge of the ring is pretty entertaining.

NextVR Boxing:  Basically two 'fight experiences' of about 5 minutes each which are highlight packages. The scale is maybe a touch small, but better than the Fox fights. Ignore the rest of the stuff as it is just the usual boxing hype, but take 10 minutes and enjoy the well produced highlight reels of two good fights.

Wimbledon: This is one of the few areas where NextVR didn't impress me. There are two highlight clips totaling 9 minutes and the footage is shot from behind a distracting green barrier. The barrier is too close and the action is too far away.

Paranormal: I don't do horror. Just for this blog post I did watch a couple trailers and such for this. It is well filmed, though the scale to me looks about a third too small. If you like horror and spooky stuff you will like the two 30 minuteish shows here.

LiveNation:  Sadly there are no concerts here, just backstage passes that are primarily promos for concerts held last year. If you happen to see an artist you like, check out that 4 minute or so clip. Otherwise not much here, except they show, without the concert sound, bits of the concert and the video looks amazing.

I've slammed MelodyVR repeatedly for terrible monoscopic graphics and to me this proves everything I've written. The limited concert footage is superb VR quality unlike the horrible quality I see on MelodyVR. Just watch a couple backstage passes and then a couple MelodyVR previews to see what I mean. NexrVR really is miles ahead. I hope they offer more concerts, though I see no evidence that they will.

There are the occasional scaling issues and some categories without a lot of real content, but there is lots of very good VR content in this free app. The NBA really stands out as the does the documentary. Hopefully they add lots more content and do live events. The NBA already seems to be doing live games with the soon to be played finals on Gear VR for TNT subscribers but not on Go. I suspect that will change next year. Sports might be the huge breakout for VR, at least the one you can show your Mama, and I suspect NextVR will be in the vanguard. 'Stay tuned' I say in my best announcer voice, the best is yet to come.