VUG 7 is out .... nurbz & Co mentioned ;)

I know a lot of us have, or currently to, spend a lot of time doing corporate video work. A sizable portion of that work can be product demos, or presentations about a product or system.

Here in Southeast Louisiana, I'm in the heart of major oil refinement, chemical processing plants. Many of them develop methods and machinery to do new things, old things more efficiently, and have to 1- train their employees and contractors, 2- get other plants to purchase and use it.

I see 360VR as the next hit in that area. A presenter can be talking about something, walk around, or stand still, surrounded by several phases of a product working, or by a complex system. From that a VR immersive training experience could be produced, a flat screen demo could be produced (cutting angles from the 360VR video), advertising, etc, from one production session.

But I don't see 360VR coming to televisions any time soon. Maybe to online/computer delivered content, yes. YouTube is supporting it already. But they support 4K playback, and next to no one has a 4K TV yet.

We will have to see what develops. Just like 3D and 4K, will it flop, float around in limbo, or pay out?

BTW, it never occurred to me they had to do noise reduction for the FCPVUG video. Now that I listen to it again, yes, that is exactly what I'm hearing in the audio. Artifacts from noise reduction.

Don't need a 4K TV to experience VR. Check out Littlstar's app on the Apple TV4 - it's a decent proof of concept. I think for 360VR we're still in the very early stages, but unlike 3DTV I think it's a completely new art form. Much is different, the kinds of stories you tell are different.

I'm extremely passionate about it, and you'll probably see some more from me in the space shortly

360VR requires a bit of a hacked together solution for content creators and I've used FCPX and Dashwood and have gone to PPro for the moment until Apple decides to come to the party and update their equipment!

360 Video and VR both have several hurdles to overcome.

How does one light a scene and record sound when shooting 360Video? If I'm shooting even a simple corporate interview I'll have scrims over the windows, at least 3 point lighting and mic booms. I hear people saying, ah yes but you wouldn't use 360 for that! Why not, it's the brave new world? Production value is derived by lighting the scene and recording great sound but 360 Video would seem to mean dispensing with all that? Would my clients swap well lit and well recorded sound for the gimmick of a 360 video? Doubt it.

How does the camera operator move the camera to follow the talent or should the brave new world of 360 video settle for single POV globes? How does one edit a 360 video production? Editing skill would appear no longer necessary as one couldn't guarantee what the audience POV was at the time. Cutting from one scene to another would disorientate the audience very quickly.

Both 360 video and VR have a serious barrier to overcome and that's motion sickness, I don't think any of the vendors have got anywhere close to solving this and we're a million miles away from hollywood depictions of VR. The best they're able to do is come up with a load of joyless dos and don'ts which kinda misses the point especially in gaming.

I see a lot of blue sky thinking in this area but I have yet to see anything that doesn't scream gimmick. I'm not a luddite by any means I just don't see the profound next step (other than the huge price of doing it properly) that's going to make people sit up and put their feet through their oh so 2d TVs.

Of course the best gimmick, when you do light your scene and have a sound engineer with his boom and all the other production crew around, is that you can sell the behind-the-scenes-making-of-deleted-scenes-bonus-dvd all in one go

I think you guys should watch more VR content!

You absolutely can light a scene. You just shoot a plate and paint out the crew and the lights.

Sound? It's called a Lav mic - or you can paint out a boom. The presence of 3D sound is even more exciting.

You totally can edit, you just need to slow down your pace and pay attention to where the action and direction is. Good editing is essential in VR because bad pacing can ruin a film and distract from what the audience should look at.

You can move the camera. If you are designing for a headset, make sure you have either a platform or something to ground the viewer. But honestly most people are watching via facebook and youtube and for that, you don't need to keep the camera static. Although, with the ability to pan and tilt yourself, it rarely feels as static as you would think. And the camera operator doesn't need to follow the talent, the talent comes to the camera. It's a different medium with different ways of telling the story.

Yeah, we're in the early stages. Filmmaking in 1900 wasn't exactly the fast cutting crazy action movement it is today, ya know? But I've seen a lot of 360 content (including my own) with good production value.

The 360 videos on YT just confirm all my doubts.

"You absolutely can light a scene. You just shoot a plate and paint out the crew and the lights.

Sound? It's called a Lav mic - or you can paint out a boom. The presence of 3D sound is even more exciting."

You make filmmaking sound so easy, I've probably been doing it all wrong all these years...

Wow.

Not starting a 360 vs. 2D content debate! It's different. It's not going to replace anything. It's just a different way of telling stories.

Feel free to doubt all you want. Probably not going to affect your business anyway.