Adoption of 8K and 12K 360° VR Videos

Even though High-end VR headsets have been available for more than a year, we still face many problems with virtual reality experience. One of the biggest problem is the poor video quality.

Most of the VR videos today are 1080p resolution. As you watch them with a Gear VR or cardboard, the streamed content is almost unrecognizable due to pixelation and its low resolution. Because of this quality issue, most publishers recommend that users download to watch the VR videos smoothly. This leads to a long wait time and additional efforts to manage phone storage and can be frustrating for users.

The three major reasons why most existing 360º videos appear to be in such poor quality are:

1. Low-quality VR Cameras

Until recently, it was extremely difficult to create content to a high enough quality that could be viewed on the first generation of VR goggles. The necessary equipment — cameras and editing software for recording high-quality VR ready content — was not readily available.

4K is actually the lowest quality acceptable for 360º videos. 6K, 8K, or 12K will be viewed as the best quality. Capturing high resolution is a big challenge with VR cameras. Normally it can be a group of cameras on one rig, but this runs into other problems like:

• Adjusting focus on all cameras simultaneously.
• Stitching is hard to do correctly.
• If compression is too heavy, there will be a huge loss of information.

2. VR videos need to be a HIGHER resolution than regular videos:

A normal human eye with 20/20 acuity is able to distinguish a maximum~60 pixels in one degree of sight. For example, a regular 48in 1080p monitor at a 6-foot distance or an iPhone 6 screen at 15in distance yields 60 pixels per degree.

A common 360º video format of 1080s has ~6 pixels per degree, which is equivalent to human eye vision of 20/200, which is terrible. This is why 1080p VR videos are seen so blurry.

3. Outdated streaming solutions

360° VR videos can be big. For example, a 10 minute 4K video can be as big as 1GB in size, which might take half an hour to an hour to download. Streaming these videos on the current internet speeds can be a tough task. Also, the compressed videos won’t be able to deliver the best quality experience.

Keeping the above mentioned issues in mind, IIO technologies is one the first companies in India offering 8K and 12K 360° VR videos. Being the early adopters, we are confident we can deliver the best in class VR video viewing experience to the audience and are investing our time and efforts in improving the overall system. Let’s look forward to the world of 8K and 12K VR videos!