360 video could become the next big medium
We’re on the cusp of a revolution in virtual reality (VR). And I’m not talking about headsets like the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR — I’m talking about simple, accessible 360-degree video that anyone can watch just by holding up their smartphone and moving it around. Call it “minimum viable VR” — it’s an immersive, engaging, and a powerful storytelling medium that anyone with a smartphone can view, no special headsets required.
With Pokémon Go, we’ve seen how augmented reality (AR) can take the world by storm using nothing more complicated than a GPS- and camera-enabled smartphone. The same thing could happen with 360 video, which provides a “window” into another world via your smartphone.
But for 360 video to realize its potential, we need more cooperation. Currently, the companies enabling 360 video are too busy trying to own it and not spending enough time creating common standards. That could wind up killing this promising medium before it has a chance to take off.
I know about this because my company, Adtile Technologies, has spent the past year working on 360 video. We’ve run into roadblock after roadblock, technical challenge after technical challenge. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Format confusion reigns
Right now within the industry, a variety of formats are being used for VR — and within those formats, several different codecs are used for transmitting, storing and playing the data. For example, the built-in formats of 360 degree videos on YouTube are mostly MP4 and Webm, and those on Facebook are MP4 videos in MP4 codecs.
Image quality is also a big part of VR. Eventually everyone is going to want to create their video in ultra-high definition (4K) to give the best quality on any given device. But no standard exists for how apps deal with different resolutions. Oculus Rift and Samsung VR both do 4K, but what file formats will ultimately support, say, 12K resolution?
360 video brings another twist to the standards battle: sensors and controls. Because moving your smartphone changes the viewing angle of a video (as opposed to your mouse, if you are viewing on a desktop), the format has to interact consistently with the different sensor implementations on different devices.
Distribution options are limited
As with any content, distribution is your key to reaching the masses. Standards open the door to wider distribution, because when everyone is using the same standards, your video plays on any app. But as it stands now, if you’re a consumer, and you want to upload a 360 video onto the Internet and share it with the masses, only one platform will do that for you: YouTube.
With over 1 billion users, YouTube is your greatest chance at reaching critical mass. But right now YouTube is limited to certain browsers. If you want to watch it on mobile, you’ll need to download the native Android or iOS YouTube app for that.
If you are looking for cheap options for hosting your VR video, you’ll find several free sites to do that. But bear in mind these services rely on advertising to keep them afloat, so you’ll likely have to contend someone else’s branding on your stuff.
Camera manufacturers offer their own shoot-and-share apps. But in most cases, you can only upload your 360 videos on a dedicated app owned by the manufacturer of your particular video camera. The notable exception is Samsung VR, which will let you upload any VR video.
Another option is to build your own player using WebGL to give users access to the content you create without being limited to a certain platform. But that gets expensive, and then where do you post your video when done? Once again, you can only upload on Youtube.
Cooperation is better than a standards war
Hardware vendors simply aren’t motivated to settle on a standard, because, obviously, when the content only works on their app or device, that gives them competitive advantage. But this view is painfully short-sighted.
Industry players need to work together to create and support common standards. If they don’t, expect a standards battle to ensue in the not too distant future. If you’re not sure what that can entail, just look at what happened in the war over high-definition DVD standards, where Sony’s Blu-ray (backed by Warner Bros.) triumphed over Toshiba’s HD-DVD. The price of that battle was years of uncertainty, and a delay in widespread acceptance of high-definition video.
Instead of an adversarial battle like that, I hope that eventually content creators (the people who make games, educational content, entertainment videos, and the like) will get together with hardware leaders (like Samsung and Oculus) to hash out their differences in a friendly and mutually beneficial way.
If they do, 360 video has a chance to take off as explosively as Pokémon Go — as a creative medium for storytelling, branding, creativity, and education. And it could happen right now, with inexpensive, currently available hardware.
If they don’t, you’ll just have to wait several years to enjoy VR — and by then, it’ll probably be through an Oculus headset, not a smartphone.
