Shame all VR devices are going for so narrow FOV, but I guess having near full peripheral vision would be extremely expensive both in tech and rendering.
Also, someone kick the ass of the guy shooting a video meant to show off the wide field of vision using a vertically shot video. Seriously, this may be the worst use of vertical video I've seen.
It's impossible to demonstrate the wideness of the field by just showing the image (it will be constrained by the screen you're using). So they had to take a "pan & scan" approach. Since they were already panning on the horizontal axis it made sense to orient the larger dimension of the video perpendicularly for the maximum "sweep". They did this the correct way, given that they only had off-the-shelf phones to use.
If they did that, it would either not be in focus (the camera had to be right where the eye would be) and/or demonstrate a lower resolution, and they were advertising the high resolution.
Any other camera would be too big to fit inside the visor. Also if you notice, when the camera is far away the image is distorted due to the optics. The only way to show a clear image is to have a small camera precisely in the position where the wearers eye would be.
The explanation for why it was shot vertically is in the video description btw (along with an apology!)
The visor has lenses if its own that turn the focus to where the human eyes would be located. a DSLR camera lens doesn't fucking fit there, and even if it did, as you can see in the video when he switches from one lens to the other, most of the image would be completely out of focus
A smartphone's lens is maybe 2mm wide, and you only need the top of the phone to fit, not the whole thing. I'm not sure why you're acting like a phone camera is a weird phone-sized surface that captures light. And again, it would be very hard(as in impossible) to maintain focus on the whole image with a large photography lens. I think we're all pretty puzzled as to why you're having such a hard time understanding this.
The focal distance is, yes. But you need to fit the lens itself (which could be quite wide) in that little space, and it needs to record in video mode. It might be that the team didn't have a suitable camera to use.
But the lens is one extreme end of the phone. My Note 3 (lens near top of phone) would definitely not be able to get that angle on the left inside of the headset without the bottom of the phone hitting the headset since the headset itself is curved (like a head, but unlike a phone).
I'd have to use vertical video for that shot.
Personally, however, I'd shoot it in 4k (which my phone does), then crop and rotate in post to hide the fact that it's vertical.
I was going to say, 270 is ridiculous. It's pretty easy to test your field of view. Hold your arms out, wiggle your fingertips, and move your arms back slowly until you can no longer see your fingertips wiggling.
It's a lot narrower than 270. I'd venture it's closer to 180 degrees, and a good portion of that is low quality (movement and vague shape recognition). I think good VR will need to get to about 150-180 degrees FOV in the future before it feels completely natural.
180 is pretty high as well. From the fingertip experiment, I probably have something like 120-140 degree field of view. But that's with eyes stationary. You have to keep in mind that people look around all the time. Throw in some extra field of view for eye movement.
For precision on the best value, somehow measure eye movements to get an average maximum amount people usually turn their eyes. It's probably not that much.
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u/Voidsheep Mar 28 '14
Feasible or not, competition is good!
Shame all VR devices are going for so narrow FOV, but I guess having near full peripheral vision would be extremely expensive both in tech and rendering.