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John Carmack on Developing the Netflix App for Oculus

• Kapura 11y ago
  The depth of thought that Carmack is able to apply to every detail of a problem is astounding. Granted, he's been working on VR for years now and pioneering realtime graphics before that, but his perception about what the end user wants out of a product is second-to-none.
• Strom 11y ago
  It's a real shame that DRM once again stifles progress and limits the video resolution to 480p in this VR app.
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    • bonyt 11y ago
      > "The reasonable thing to do was just limit the streams to SD resolution – 720x480. That is slightly lower than I would have chosen if the need for a secure execution environment weren't an issue, but not too much" Looks like the need for a "secure execution environment" led to the limitation.
      • aianus 11y ago
        And yet all HD content is still easily available for pirating. When will content producers learn that they're losing money because of terrible distribution strategies and not because it's technically possible to pirate?
        • nemothekid 11y ago
          Content Producers everywhere pretty much realize DRM is a non starter. The reason its still in there is: 1.) There are old 5, 10, 15 year contracts that still stipulate that the content needs to delivered over some reasonably secure DRM system, and no one wants hire lawyers to renegotiate those contracts. 2.) For new contracts, content producers just reuse old contracts, and the side that wants to eschew DRM isn't usually the content producers. That said, when the other side brings up "how about we remove the DRM clause", the producers are pretty much "sure, for $100,000 more bucks". So its become a negotiating point the studios now hold to extort money from any platform that wants DRM-less content. You could wonder "why don't producers care about the UX" - for most big studios digital revenues are still nothing compared to physical sales and syndication rights - so they have no incentive to care.
          • aianus 11y ago
            > for most big studios digital revenues are still nothing compared to physical sales and syndication rights This begs the question. The revenues are nothing compared to physical sales and syndication because in many cases watching the content legally online is not an option at all.
            • TodPunk 11y ago
              Actually, the harsh reality is that we do not yet have a digital content ecosystem that makes consuming any digital media easy for the vast majority of the population (US or otherwise). This is why netflix can do what they do: they have a walled garden where the entire experience is driven purely by their interface and delivery mechanisms (see also: Steam in the PC games space). I've written specs for studio approved DRM schemes and done pre-dvd content on in-flight entertainment systems. Please believe me when I say that it is a nightmare even if you DO know what you're doing with all the tech involved, but even if it weren't a legal problem there's a good example that is pretty damning as a foundational assumption: we still don't know how to share a file. I mean that sincerely: try to get your average non-tech worker to send a file to your grandmother on their own. I can not overstate this enough. This does not work. We have a lot of distance to cover before the digital content world cares about our niche whims.
              • aianus 11y ago
                > we still don't know how to share a file I disagree. Without DRM it would be as simple as generating a temporary signed link to S3 upon clicking 'Buy'. I could implement it myself in an hour. Even grandma would be able to use it no problem (click buy -> double click file -> watch movie).
              • fr0styMatt2 11y ago
                I'm curious about this, because I read your response but think I'm missing something. Non-techy people routinely consume digital content on YouTube or on their Facebook feeds. Most new 'smart' TVs stream YouTube at least as a minimum. Which part is difficult? Are you talking more about the tech from the content distributor's side (as opposed to the consumer)?
    • acqq 11y ago
      It's in the Fine Article: "The reasonable thing to do was just limit the streams to SD resolution – 720x480. That is slightly lower than I would have chosen if the need for a secure execution environment weren't an issue"
    • Strom 11y ago
      How is it DRM that is limiting that? There are four rather lengthy paragraphs and a graph in the article that explains this.
  • MichaelGG 11y ago
    Yeah the moment I read about casting lighting based on screen contents, I was thinking "things you can't do with 'secure' output". Sad. This partially remains why other players are better than Netflix. If I ever need to really modify playback, I'm all set, no problem.
• nthitz 11y ago
  > Despite all the talk of hardcore gamers and abstract metaverses, a lot of people want to watch movies and shows in virtual reality. Source for that claim?? strapping on a headset doesn't seem like a great way to share a movie with friends, but that's just me.
  • MBCook 11y ago
    You could share it with a friend who wasn't physically there if they had a similar setup, but I"m guessing they're talking about the fact people who are by themselves like watching TV and movies in VR compared to on a standard TV screen in a real room.
    • TheGRS 11y ago
      At first I balked at the idea of watching a movie in VR, but the more I think about it the more I like it. I could easily watch it while lying down on a bed for instance. It would need to be very high resolution however.
    • iwillreply 11y ago
      I did this on a flight. It was much more pleasant than inflight entertainment. * 360 film doesn't work well, with not being able to move around.
  • Kapura 11y ago
    The virtual theater (or TV screen) was one of the first things I thought about when I heard about the power of new VR technologies. People don't want to switch devices if they don't have to and projecting output to a single rectangle in a virtual space makes a lot of sense on paper. I would be the first to say that of course seeing people in real life would be superior, but with the internet I'm finding that some of my closest friends are sometimes thousands of miles away. This is a way to keep in contact that's as good or better than something like facetime and far, far superior to buying a plane ticket just to hang out.
  • jkaunisv1 11y ago
    You may be underestimating the number of people with few/no friends. Or people like me who have friends, but prefer watching movies alone.
• corysama 11y ago
  Here's a great conference hallway conversation with Carmack from yesterday. He covers a lot of fun topics with the random folks in the hall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUyg6cUfcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUyg6cUfcw for those who prefer text summaries: http://uploadvr.com/john-carmack-talks-difficulty-mobile-position-tracking-relationship-google/ http://uploadvr.com/john-carmack-talks-difficulty-mobile-pos...
  • Turbots 11y ago
    John Carmack is just a super down-to-earth kind of guy, it seems... Just super excited about what he's doing and totally not afraid to just talk with random fans about his work. Lots of respect!
• Arjuna 11y ago
  In case you're interested, John's scheduled to speak at Oculus Connect 2 at 13:00 PDT / 16:00 EDT / 20:00 UTC today. http://www.twitch.tv/oculus http://www.twitch.tv/oculus
• stusmall 11y ago
  Am I missing something? This lets you watch a movie in a virtual living room on a virtual TV? Why would I want that?
  • shostack 11y ago
    Not everyone lives in a great movie theater environment. I saw a demo of the GearVR which was pretty believable, and if this thing is higher resolution, more immersive, etc., I might honestly find myself questioning why I need to decorate my living room if I have VR goggles on all the time at some point in the not to far future. When VR becomes ubiquitous, and you can have shared experiences, expect that to be a very real thing.
  • Strom 11y ago
    Maybe because you're on a cramped public transport like a plane?
  • tlrobinson 11y ago
    Replace "virtual living room" with "virtual IMAX theater" and you might have your answer. EDIT: But the real answer is that the question isn't that different from "why would you want to play a video game on a VR headset?" The answer, of course, is immersiveness. Existing video games (and film/TV) may not be optimized for VR, but future content might be. Imagine being able to look around 360 degrees in a film. It will be a totally different experience from a traditional film where the director precisely frames every shot, and may or may not be more enjoyable for certain types of content.
    • Zikes 11y ago
      It would also require a lot more thought put into scene changes. In VR video games, suddenly moving the player from one location to the other was found to be too disorienting and broke immersion.
    • mtgx 11y ago
      A pretty low quality IMAX. I don't disagree with the concept. I love it. But I think we'll need at least a 4k helmet and even then you would probably only be able to watch videos at 1080p or so, with the rest of the pixels being dedicated to the "cinema" or other spaces outside of the "screen".
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• concernedctzn 11y ago
  John Carmack overcame all of these technical issues and wrote up this blogpost in the past month with all of his other responsibilities at the same time. Humbling.
• jerf 11y ago
  It's your living room, but on a computer! http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916 http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916 (Expect to see the Virtual World idea that prompted that post pop up again for VR, too. Expect it not to work any better this time.) It's cute but it's just demoware. Once the novelty wears off, the usual thing to do will be the "void theater". That's our subjective perception of a good movie anyhow, that the entire rest of the room is gone.
  • tracker1 11y ago
    I'm not sure how much I agree with that... I'd much rather have headphones listening to music on a plane/train/bus than trying to listen to something in the open... likewise for watching video... watching on my phone isn't too bad, but being able to get a "big screen" view with a similar experience to headphones for your eyes, I'm happy to see it. To me, it doesn't need to be so "VR" but that could lead to some cool UI/UX for interaction. I think that this could be something that takes off first for heavy commuters, and second for gamers... It will just come down to marketing this appropriately. If they can get a version for iOS and advertise in the airline magazines, for example, I think it could sell very well.
    • jerf 11y ago
      I'm not saying movies in VR is a bad idea. There's a lot of good optical reasons for that. I'm saying simulating a living room, but on a computer!, is silly. Just watch the movie.
      • tracker1 11y ago
        Yeah, I would think a big screen kind of floating in space, or perhaps simulating the backdrop glow that some higher end tv's have against a simple wall... Sorry, I thought you were calling out the whole thing, not just the implementation details.
      • reilly3000 11y ago
        Might be nice to watch a movie in a comfy room if you are stuck on a long flight. I think headsets out to at least ship with a noise cancelling headphone option built in. Plus, the room scene is easily interchangeable. With a decent room scanner it could be your own home, or a Hollywood screening room, or the Acropolis.
• pazimzadeh 11y ago
  This is an interesting proof of concept, and it's cool to know that you can carry a "pocket living room" around with you. That said, shouldn't virtual reality free us to do more than replicate real life environments? It looks like VR will have its own period of skeuomorphism until better UI is invented. I'd love to be a designer at Facebook right now.
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  • EStudley 11y ago
    That's exactly what I was thinking when I read this. It's cool and all, but who is asking for this? No one..
  • davnicwil 11y ago
    I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think there's necessarily a concept of skeuomorphism in VR. Skeuomorphism is a mapping of real world 3D physical objects to a more constrained space, like a 2D phone screen, ostensibly to aid usability in an otherwise unfamiliar space by invoking recognition and instinct. In theory at least no mapping like this is necessary at all for VR, things just look and act however they do, in a recreated 3D space. Of course there will be 'skeuomorphism' insofar as objects from the real world will be copied 1:1 into the VR environment, but it's kind of a redundant term at that point. It's indeed an interesting question if we'll discover better 'UX' for virtual 3D environments than the physical ones we've built for ourselves in the real world. I'd venture yes, including but not limited to discovering tweaks that break the laws of Physics to allow greater convenience. Like wormholes that act as hyperlinks for 3D space, or something. It'll be fascinating to see if things like this are experimented with and accepted from the get-go, or if there will be a 'skeuomorphism-like' era of VR where we play it safe and just copy our existing world for a while, until we collectively 'find our feet' in VR and learn to make tweaks that expand the possibilities. I'd hope and actually somewhat expect the former.
    • ctdonath 11y ago
      Of course there's a concept of skeuomorphism. Everyone expects their POV about 2m off the "ground". Objects are of a common range of sizes, 3D space is even & regular in each direction, etc. "Floating" is kinda nifty but likewise just an extension of our real-world 3D experience. People in general aren't ready for scaleable space (sizes changing orders of magnitude instantly), varying measurements (say: X is normal, Y is logarithmic, Z is sinusoidal), warping space (various Einstein's Dreams scenarios here like consequences of "speed of light is 15 MPH", or Interstellar scenarios), varying or nonexistent notions of "up" (see Ender's Game arena), absence of normal gravitational phenomena, etc. Early on in the 3D game realm, game writers explored lots of variations on non-skeuomorphic scenarios (Descent II comes to mind, a 3D flying maze game devoid of any sense of "down"). Many years later, with endless technology & imagination available, 3D games are dominated by soldiers running around battlefields little different from reality. People will have enough trouble with entering/exiting VR. Having seen other technologies bloom, I assure you it will be years before advancing beyond paradigms based in the real world.
• hyperion2010 11y ago
  > This gives the somewhat surprising result that subtitles cause a noticeable increase in power consumption. These are the Carmack gems I was looking for.
  • ferongr 11y ago
    It's not actually all that surprising for people that use styled subtitles with antialiased edges. In extreme cases (lots of glyphs on the screen) you can end up with a noticeable framerate reduction.
    • omouse 11y ago
      Which is why you bake the subtitles into the video! Subtitles for everyone, blurry subtitles for everyone!
    • BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
      It shouldn't need to hurt your framerate too much, considering that the font rendering only needs to happen once every few seconds. A new subtitle can be rendered, kept in memory as a texture, and then just blended by the GPU as pixels. The titles are also known ahead of time, so it's possible to set up a pipeline with no sudden increases in processing load.
  • TillE 11y ago
    For a moment I thought that said "decrease", which would have been really surprising. But yeah, more power to do more work.
    • Splines 11y ago
      "noticeable" is probably the surprising part. I'm sure it also uses more power on a normal Android phone too, but not to the degree that it does in VR.
  • derefr 11y ago
    The context of that is that the Netflix GUI and the video are being composited together before 3D rendering happens. That's a surprising place to find subtitles, to me. Why are you putting them on the virtual screen? Why not let them float in space in front of your eye? They should be where the sound is, not where the picture is.
• chaostheory 11y ago
  When I think about it, I feel that this would mainly appeal to people like factory workers who live in horrible dorms (windowless closets), prisoners, parapalegics, the homeless; in other words people who are trapped in a specific environment. The problem is that most of them can't afford this setup... yet. When I think about it, even low income individuals in the US have access to cheap enough flat screen TVs to have a nicer real life living room than a virtual one afforded by Oculus
  • shostack 11y ago
    All I can think of... http://h.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2014/03/3027921-inline-cyberpunk.jpg http://h.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imageca...
    • 36erhefg 11y ago
      That state is caused by addiction, that, and not VR, is the problem in the picture. The enabler can be whatever: hard drugs, nicotine, coffee, TV, VR, video games,...
      • shostack 11y ago
        Perhaps, but I also see it as a visualization of a future where the masses cannot afford a nice home, and spend the majority of their time in a VR world where they can imagine they live in a nice home.
        • 36erhefg 11y ago
          Are you suggesting those people will literally forget they are living in the real world? I don't see this happening, since they will have to occasionally take the headset off to work, eat, use toilet. What they will do is ignore the state they live in, and that is already happening today, mostly along with prescription pills, hard drugs and video games. This is what VR is capable of doing, nothing worst that we already have. Therefore VR is not a concern by itself.
• zach 11y ago
  Oculus: "Hey Netflix, how about we work together on getting your service on our platform?" Netflix: "Gee, we're pretty busy, maybe next year..." Oculus: "We would have John Carmack work on it..." Netflix: "YES! Yes, yes, yes. Okay, now is good. Can we have him write a guest post on our tech blog when it launches?"
  • Namrog84 11y ago
    That first gee from Netflix made me read the rest as mortys voice. Gee rick!, were pretty busy here ya know? I mean like uhm maybe next year?
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• 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Reading John Carmack's thought processes to approaching, addressing, and moving on from individual challenges is so fun and refreshing to me. Granted, the matter-of-fact tone is inherently humble, but it does seem like a tone of making the complex sound simple, intrinsically for the audience's benefit. Just a line like "unfortunate waste of memory...but it gives me the timing control I need" is a succinct demonstration of trade-offs and explanation without, well, seeming to have many outside constraints - well, I mean there's the pursuit of the functioning program, sure, but I get the sense freedom in this environment is used studiously.
• omouse 11y ago
  John Carmack is a good role model for any techies that move up to management. If you want to keep in touch with the base tech that your devs are using, you have to dive into a project like this where all your tech knowledge is brought to bear on a problem and you learn lots of new things. None of this "well I guess I knew a bit of C++, let me find another engineer to work on this Netflix app and offer micromanaging style tips and tricks" which is what I've seen from a lot of managers who used to be technical. He's also an amazing role model for regular programmers; figure out the requirements, take a crack at it with a prototype and then iterate. The iteration doesn't have to be an overtime week affair.
  • Kenji 11y ago
    The problem is that most techies who move up to management don't have Carmack's brain. This guy is a machine! For a normal person, it is almost impossible to get a workload done that's comparable to Carmack's.
    • tluyben2 11y ago
      Especially combined with management tasks; I find coding and management hard to combine. At least in my brain they feel very different and as a CTO I feel I must do both. I do not want to end up like a CTO that is out of touch or has his current tech knowledge from buzz words in management magazines like so many tech management people I know who are my age.
      • fr0styMatt2 11y ago
        I wonder if part of it is that some techies who aspire to management do so because they don't actually like developing software. As an individual contributor I can't imagine giving up my day-to-day coding for a management position. Management responsibilities, sure. I'd wager that most software developers who are given enough autonomy are doing a lot of micro-project management anyway. Giving up on researching new technology and playing around with stuff? Not a chance.
        • 11y ago
• acquihired 11y ago
  I would really love to be able to watch a movie and look around the scene. Even if the camera was at a stationary point. Imagine watching Batman while perched up on a ledge in Gotham... when the Joker comes flying down the street to the right and you look right to watch, while someone else viewing the movie looks left to see Batman flying down. Awesome.
• kbenson 11y ago
  Does this make anyone else really crave a VR "man cave" (for lack of a better, less polarizing term)?
  • serkanyersen 11y ago
    it reminds me of Aech's basement chatroom from Ready player one
  • ctdonath 11y ago
    I assume this would simply be a dark empty room.
• jameshart 11y ago
  Why on earth simulate a living room with a TV on the wall? Why not simulate being in the best seat in a concert-hall sized movie theater with a massive screen? How about a little old fashioned movie theater, or a 50s drive-in? I'm sure all these kinds of things can come later, it just seems odd to me that simulating being on a couch is the first take...
  • Splines 11y ago
    Simplicity? People are used to watching netflix on a couch with a TV in front of them. Maybe they had a virtual living room ready to go too.
  • jlas 11y ago
    The skeuomorphic living room design immediately reminded me of the Packard Bell Navigator: http://toastytech.com/guis/pbnav35.html http://toastytech.com/guis/pbnav35.html
    • joshkpeterson 11y ago
      Came here to say this! First thought was "Why god why return to this interface??"
• qzervaas 11y ago
  Half-baked semi-serious idea: An iOS content blocker that prevents scroll-jacking.
• azinman2 11y ago
  As others have mentioned a bit, while being a cute demo this really isn't advantageous. The constant brightness gets irritating with lights 3" in front of your face beaming directly into your eyes, and good luck trying to eat pizza and drink something while doing this. On the pro side, well, um.... not very clear what that would be over having an actual TV. If you don't have a TV and all you have is the oculus, then why try to re-create such an environment at all? You loose the immersive qualities of the oculus to begin with. To me the point of oculus is having content made directly for it... where it is 180-360 degrees, and you can't see it all without looking around. Repurposing standard Netflix movies doesn't give much an advantage.
  • kitcar 11y ago
    I believe the use case is when you don't have the alternative of a TV, i.e. Airplane, Train, etc... not ideal for streaming content though.
  • bluthru 11y ago
    Have you tried it?
    • azinman2 11y ago
      I own the occulus and have tried various bits of movie playing already. While I haven't tried this netflix implementation, it is not difficult to imagine. VR has some limited cool potential uses, but it's utility is being overblown by the community similar to the 90s.
• tonydiv 11y ago
  What I was hoping for from the Carmack speech: http://i.imgur.com/ofChTKt.png http://i.imgur.com/ofChTKt.png I wanted more from Carmack.
• justifier 11y ago
  i wonder if john watched daredevil one episode at a time or if he binged on it i was intrigued by the virtual theatre concept, but i found watching a film was too much for comfort's sake ignoring resolution issues, or strain, the goggles pressing against my face was the source of the most discomfort when i took off the goggles my face was hot and sweaty and my eyes had white circles around them where the blood had been kept out these current vr headsets are goggles with elastic and as long as that is the case i think they will fail to attract a consistent, returning, user base your eyes are unable to breathe or receive blood imagine watching a movie while wearing ski goggles, then have those goggles shine bright lights into your eyes it is an uncomfortable experience MSFT's holo lens are glasses that sit off your face, allowing circulation below the lens,this sort of design is certainly the way forward
• joshkpeterson 11y ago
  There's a lot of focus in this thread on 'Why would you want a fake living room environment?' but he makes this statement: "You could even go all the way to a face-locked screen with no distortion correction, which would be essentially the same power draw as the normal Netflix application, but it would be ugly and uncomfortable." This is what his post is about - the work to accomplish a screen surface that exists in 3d space independent from your head. What goes around the screen is a secondary issue.
  • guelo 11y ago
    I don't get it. Why would you want your head forced to point in one direction when you could, for example, lie down and point your head in the most comfortable position.
    • reilly3000 11y ago
      You can. Just start the app in a comfortable position and the image will me from and center.
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• libraryatnight 11y ago
  Next up, World of World of Warcraft http://www.theonion.com/video/warcraft-sequel-lets-gamers-play-a-character-playi-14240 http://www.theonion.com/video/warcraft-sequel-lets-gamers-pl...
• Animats 11y ago
  720x480 on a virtual TV set, and a "virtual couch". Is that worth wearing a headset for two hours? Coming next, in-app popcorn and pizza ordering?
• fezz 11y ago
  Bringing back skeuomorphism in full force like it's 2005...
• deevus 11y ago
  I tried this out and watched some Supernatural. My only gripe would be that I wish I could move further back from the virtual screen. At least I think that's what the problem is.