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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

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".
- BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
  The resolution cap in the article is due to Netflix's DRM, but current VR movie theater/media playback applications let you load your own media. When you do this with HD content, it actually looks quite good in spite of the resolution of the actual HMD due to the subtle movements of your POV. The in-game camera tracked by your head is always barely moving, so the pixels you actually see in the source media are always being transposed and blended differently.
  - thescriptkiddie 11y ago
    Even without the DRM resolution cap, you need somewhere greater than 4096x4096 pixels per eye to adequately represent a 1920x1080 display. VR is not going to be as crisp as a normal monitor for quite a long time.
  - mtgx 11y ago
    What I meant is that you need a certain amount of pixels just to be able to fully represent the 1080p video pixels, and if you see "extra space" in the VR world around the screen, then you need 1080p video + extra space in pixels, so it probably should be at least 4k.
    - BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
      You need a certain amount of pixels to represent the 1080p video in one particular frame. When the next frame comes along, your head has moved enough that you'll be seeing a different subset of those total pixels. At sufficient framerates (and motion capture rates), this actually does a pretty good job of approximating the full resolution of the imagery (especially when this is happening 2 or 3 times per source video frame, as the case might be with NTSC/PAL 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".

BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
The resolution cap in the article is due to Netflix's DRM, but current VR movie theater/media playback applications let you load your own media. When you do this with HD content, it actually looks quite good in spite of the resolution of the actual HMD due to the subtle movements of your POV. The in-game camera tracked by your head is always barely moving, so the pixels you actually see in the source media are always being transposed and blended differently.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  Even without the DRM resolution cap, you need somewhere greater than 4096x4096 pixels per eye to adequately represent a 1920x1080 display. VR is not going to be as crisp as a normal monitor for quite a long time.
- mtgx 11y ago
  What I meant is that you need a certain amount of pixels just to be able to fully represent the 1080p video pixels, and if you see "extra space" in the VR world around the screen, then you need 1080p video + extra space in pixels, so it probably should be at least 4k.
  - BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
    You need a certain amount of pixels to represent the 1080p video in one particular frame. When the next frame comes along, your head has moved enough that you'll be seeing a different subset of those total pixels. At sufficient framerates (and motion capture rates), this actually does a pretty good job of approximating the full resolution of the imagery (especially when this is happening 2 or 3 times per source video frame, as the case might be with NTSC/PAL content).