5 ms·

It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. You don’t need that much imagination or even a leap of faith. A court side seat

It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. You don’t need that much imagination or even a leap of faith. A court side seat to an NBA game is north of $1000. If this creates 20% of the experience it will easily pay for itself in 1 season.

pavlov 3y ago
You're certain you would wear a headset for 10 days based on a 10-second experience? That doesn't make any sense.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  I wear glasses daily. When I go on scuba or ski trips I wear heavy eyewear in tough conditions for multiple hours on end over several days. The form factor is not the problem, and it’s never been. It’s always been about the quality of the experience.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
silvestrov 3y ago
Why would NBA allow for this as they would lose an extreme amount of money if people can get the same experience at home? That would be economic suicide for them. They need to keep the seats being a special experience.
- shen 3y ago
  The people who are paying for those seats will still pay for those seats. The people paying for the headset experience would’ve never paid for the seats. Different audience.
- nkingsy 3y ago
  It may look and sound the same, but no one is accidentally spilling beer in merriment or telling their friends they were there. It builds the brand. Watching the game on tv is already a far superior way to actually see what’s happening. No different from any other live event, it’s a social experience.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > Watching the game on tv is already a far superior way to actually see what’s happening. Yes and no. Knowing the entire state of the game? Sure, TV's pretty good. But watching on TV doesn't give the strong impression of the sheer physicality of the game that sitting a row or two away from the court does. I used to sit baseline for Warriors games and it sure left an impression.
  - matwood 3y ago
    > Watching the game on tv is already a far superior way to actually see what’s happening. I agree with you for football, but the first 5 rows at an NBA game are amazing. And it's very easy to see what's going on.
- JoshTko 3y ago
  They can sell two orders more the number of court side seats for virtual season tickets
- stuff4ben 3y ago
  I'm more a pro hockey fan (go Canes!) and have paid thousands of dollars a year in tickets. I would still go to several games because that is an experience in itself (tailgating, etc). But I would much more gladly pay for a VisionPro than a Bally Sports subscription to watch the rest of the games at home. If they can get the local announcers to do the play-by-play on the VisionPro, I'd be throwing them my money just for this feature alone.
- kevstev 3y ago
  I think you could make the same claim about TV broadcasts, but pro sports seems to be doing just fine, some claim that live sports is what is keeping cable alive these days. Live sports and being at the event is always going to be a special thing that people want to pay for- you can't heckle the opposing team through a headset. If people want to pay even more to get a coach-eye view of the game, I can't imagine ticket sales would be impacted one iota. As it is, watching a game on TV is a better viewing experience than being their live for most sports. American Football, for example- the field is large, your seat is static so it can't follow the action. Its often played in cold, rainy conditions- I go to a game or two a year just for the excitement of it all, but come a dreary rainy late November day, I am happy to sit on the couch and enjoy the surround sound. All major US sports make most of their money off TV broadcast rights. This will be no different.
- jimlikeslimes 3y ago
  In the UK football broadcasting is regulated. The traditional top-flight league games kick off at 3pm on Saturday. None of those matches are allowed to be broadcast to maintain gate revenues for the clubs. Very roughly speaking only 3 matches on Sunday and one or two on weekday evenings are broadcast. Cup matches etc are allowed to be broadcast too. All these rules only govern what they can broadcast to UK citizens though. If you have a globally popular sport/product like the Premier League you can broadcast the Saturday 3pm matches to them, as they're unlikely to be able to attend a match anyway. All that aside I actually think cycling could be a wonderful sport to view in this format. Great screnery shots from helicopters and close up peleton shots captured on motorbikes. Also strap into your turbo trainer to ride along for an hour too!
  - l33tman 3y ago
    Unfortunately any case where the camera moves is not going to work, for a very large portion of the population (I don't know the percentages of people who get motion sickness in VR but they get that even from their own slow motion, imagine motion from a bouncing camera on a motorcycle)
- elzbardico 3y ago
  There's a limited number of seats in any stadium and the demand today is far bigger than the offer. Besides being very hard to find tickets, a lot of fans with money live far away from the cities where the game is being played, and some of them (lots of them, actually) live in other countries. People don't go to the game solely to watch the game. They go because of the atmosphere, the status of being able to afford the tickets, and the excitement. The VR experience even if a lot more immersive than watching on TV, would never be the same, people would still buy seats as they always did.
- bnj 3y ago
  Really? We're talking about a transformation from a fixed and time-bound asset, the live experience of being physically present, into an entirely digital experience which can be replayed. Doesn't this change the potential customer pool from people within traveling distance at the right time with enough money, into a global market? Consider this: Sell the live courtside seat for the same 1000+; Open up sales for the virtual experience for 20% and sell it to anyone you like -- and, the next day, put the same no-longer-live experience available to pass-holders at $x/season and on-demand for $50 -- Haven't you just transformed your $1000 seat into some hugely increased figure?
  - silvestrov 3y ago
    20% is $200 for a "movie ticket". Is the "virtual experience" $200 better than watching the game on 2D screen?
    - bnj 3y ago
      I wouldn't know, but doesn't the point still hold if I can sell (let's say) 1000 tickets at movie ticket prices, which I wouldn't otherwise have been able to sell? Call it $15 * 1000 people ... ? I think the made up hypothetical figures distracted from the main idea, I was questioning the position that NBA would lose value when it seems like technology like this would open up a new audience of consumers who might now be willing to spend some money that they wouldn't otherwise have spent.
- ZacharyPitts 3y ago
  The worst will be blackouts for NBA games for this. I had NBA TV for one season, but because I live in the Portland area, I can not watch Portland trailblazers games. It was ridiculous, so I did not subscribe this year.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  Like others have said, I would never pay thousands of dollars to sit court side unless I'm a multi-millionaire. However, I would certainly pay $10 to watch the NBA Finals courtside in Vision Pro.
fortyseven 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Yikes, you can't attack other users like that or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35879004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35879004. We ban accounts that do this. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
satysin 3y ago
> It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. A 10 second clip that will have been tuned to perfection by the very best editors for the demo is one thing. A live, un/rough-edited capture of a game broadcast in real time is quite different. I've seen some truly amazing sports coverage to show off my OLED TV when I bought it. I still have the USB drive the TV came with and it does indeed look gorgeous. You know what doesn't look quite so good? Live broadcasts of those same sports. They are pixelated with some macroblocking and judder and posterization as the cameras quickly pan around the field and cut randomly. It still looks pretty good but no way near as good as the minute long demo video LG used to show off how good their TV can look. Obviously I've not used a Vision Pro so my comment isn't about the Vision Pro specifically, just that it is quite easy to make things look very good in a highly tuned demo for something vs real world broadcast quality.
Aperocky 3y ago
Make no sense to sit courtside, the spectator should be able to be wherever they wanted, either in the air, on the nosebleeds, on the court itself, or under the court. Having a courtside seat is a physical constraint that does not need to be respected in VR.
- moralestapia 3y ago
  That's the pragmatic approach, not the marketing one.
- pyth0 3y ago
  Surely the physical constraint still exists as they need to set up the equipment to capture the video feed.
  - Aperocky 3y ago
    Indeed, but even in this case, the spectator could still be at any location outside of the 3D area being filmed (in this case, the game itself) for complete experience, or inside for a incomplete (potential blindspots) presentation.
wussboy 3y ago
Is "an unrestricted view of the game from close up" the only appeal to court-side seats? I think it's perhaps the least interesting aspect, since you can achieve this for free at almost any non-NBA level basketball game. Or perhaps the appeal of court-side seats is the atmosphere, experience and social signaling, none of which are provided by these glasses. Our desire for "cheap" court-side seats is understandable from an evolutionary sense. But it's almost like these glasses (and VR in general) are designed to provide the "feeling" of evolutionary benefit while carefully and completely removing any actual benefit.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  > Or perhaps the appeal of court-side seats is the atmosphere, experience and social signaling, none of which are provided by these glasses. The author's entire point was that the demo did recreate the atmosphere and experience he had while courtside at an NBA game. Maybe it doesn't provide the social clout, but that's not the point for tons who wish they could sit courtside.
  - wussboy 3y ago
    > Maybe it doesn't provide the social clout, that's not the point for tons who wish they could sit courtside There is no maybe about it. Tell me another reason why people would want court side, that wouldn’t also apply to a high school game (where people could sit court side for free but absolutely don’t)
Levitz 3y ago
>It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. Have you ever watched the announcement of a new videogame console? Or even new videogames? 10 seconds of marketing don't extrapolate well to 10 days of actual usage.
lolinder 3y ago
Your value calculations are off. * You can't do the math from a baseline of "not watching the game at all". If this creates 20% of the experience but a $1000 TV creates a different 20% of the experience (watching with other people next to you, for example), you haven't gained any value over the cheaper device. * Unless you're regularly buying NBA tickets, this isn't going to "pay for itself". Solar panels can (in theory) pay for themselves because they cut back on a bill you'd have either way. A product like this can only pay for itself if it causes you to spend less money on NBA tickets than you otherwise would have.

pavlov 3y ago

You're certain you would wear a headset for 10 days based on a 10-second experience? That doesn't make any sense.

flappyeagle 3y ago
I wear glasses daily. When I go on scuba or ski trips I wear heavy eyewear in tough conditions for multiple hours on end over several days. The form factor is not the problem, and it’s never been. It’s always been about the quality of the experience.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

silvestrov 3y ago

Why would NBA allow for this as they would lose an extreme amount of money if people can get the same experience at home? That would be economic suicide for them. They need to keep the seats being a special experience.

shen 3y ago
The people who are paying for those seats will still pay for those seats. The people paying for the headset experience would’ve never paid for the seats. Different audience.
nkingsy 3y ago
It may look and sound the same, but no one is accidentally spilling beer in merriment or telling their friends they were there. It builds the brand. Watching the game on tv is already a far superior way to actually see what’s happening. No different from any other live event, it’s a social experience.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > Watching the game on tv is already a far superior way to actually see what’s happening. Yes and no. Knowing the entire state of the game? Sure, TV's pretty good. But watching on TV doesn't give the strong impression of the sheer physicality of the game that sitting a row or two away from the court does. I used to sit baseline for Warriors games and it sure left an impression.
- matwood 3y ago
  > Watching the game on tv is already a far superior way to actually see what’s happening. I agree with you for football, but the first 5 rows at an NBA game are amazing. And it's very easy to see what's going on.
JoshTko 3y ago
They can sell two orders more the number of court side seats for virtual season tickets
stuff4ben 3y ago
I'm more a pro hockey fan (go Canes!) and have paid thousands of dollars a year in tickets. I would still go to several games because that is an experience in itself (tailgating, etc). But I would much more gladly pay for a VisionPro than a Bally Sports subscription to watch the rest of the games at home. If they can get the local announcers to do the play-by-play on the VisionPro, I'd be throwing them my money just for this feature alone.
kevstev 3y ago
I think you could make the same claim about TV broadcasts, but pro sports seems to be doing just fine, some claim that live sports is what is keeping cable alive these days. Live sports and being at the event is always going to be a special thing that people want to pay for- you can't heckle the opposing team through a headset. If people want to pay even more to get a coach-eye view of the game, I can't imagine ticket sales would be impacted one iota. As it is, watching a game on TV is a better viewing experience than being their live for most sports. American Football, for example- the field is large, your seat is static so it can't follow the action. Its often played in cold, rainy conditions- I go to a game or two a year just for the excitement of it all, but come a dreary rainy late November day, I am happy to sit on the couch and enjoy the surround sound. All major US sports make most of their money off TV broadcast rights. This will be no different.
jimlikeslimes 3y ago
In the UK football broadcasting is regulated. The traditional top-flight league games kick off at 3pm on Saturday. None of those matches are allowed to be broadcast to maintain gate revenues for the clubs. Very roughly speaking only 3 matches on Sunday and one or two on weekday evenings are broadcast. Cup matches etc are allowed to be broadcast too. All these rules only govern what they can broadcast to UK citizens though. If you have a globally popular sport/product like the Premier League you can broadcast the Saturday 3pm matches to them, as they're unlikely to be able to attend a match anyway. All that aside I actually think cycling could be a wonderful sport to view in this format. Great screnery shots from helicopters and close up peleton shots captured on motorbikes. Also strap into your turbo trainer to ride along for an hour too!
- l33tman 3y ago
  Unfortunately any case where the camera moves is not going to work, for a very large portion of the population (I don't know the percentages of people who get motion sickness in VR but they get that even from their own slow motion, imagine motion from a bouncing camera on a motorcycle)
elzbardico 3y ago
There's a limited number of seats in any stadium and the demand today is far bigger than the offer. Besides being very hard to find tickets, a lot of fans with money live far away from the cities where the game is being played, and some of them (lots of them, actually) live in other countries. People don't go to the game solely to watch the game. They go because of the atmosphere, the status of being able to afford the tickets, and the excitement. The VR experience even if a lot more immersive than watching on TV, would never be the same, people would still buy seats as they always did.
bnj 3y ago
Really? We're talking about a transformation from a fixed and time-bound asset, the live experience of being physically present, into an entirely digital experience which can be replayed. Doesn't this change the potential customer pool from people within traveling distance at the right time with enough money, into a global market? Consider this: Sell the live courtside seat for the same 1000+; Open up sales for the virtual experience for 20% and sell it to anyone you like -- and, the next day, put the same no-longer-live experience available to pass-holders at $x/season and on-demand for $50 -- Haven't you just transformed your $1000 seat into some hugely increased figure?
- silvestrov 3y ago
  20% is $200 for a "movie ticket". Is the "virtual experience" $200 better than watching the game on 2D screen?
  - bnj 3y ago
    I wouldn't know, but doesn't the point still hold if I can sell (let's say) 1000 tickets at movie ticket prices, which I wouldn't otherwise have been able to sell? Call it $15 * 1000 people ... ? I think the made up hypothetical figures distracted from the main idea, I was questioning the position that NBA would lose value when it seems like technology like this would open up a new audience of consumers who might now be willing to spend some money that they wouldn't otherwise have spent.
ZacharyPitts 3y ago
The worst will be blackouts for NBA games for this. I had NBA TV for one season, but because I live in the Portland area, I can not watch Portland trailblazers games. It was ridiculous, so I did not subscribe this year.
senttoschool 3y ago
Like others have said, I would never pay thousands of dollars to sit court side unless I'm a multi-millionaire. However, I would certainly pay $10 to watch the NBA Finals courtside in Vision Pro.

fortyseven 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Yikes, you can't attack other users like that or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35879004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35879004. We ban accounts that do this. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

satysin 3y ago

> It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. A 10 second clip that will have been tuned to perfection by the very best editors for the demo is one thing. A live, un/rough-edited capture of a game broadcast in real time is quite different. I've seen some truly amazing sports coverage to show off my OLED TV when I bought it. I still have the USB drive the TV came with and it does indeed look gorgeous. You know what doesn't look quite so good? Live broadcasts of those same sports. They are pixelated with some macroblocking and judder and posterization as the cameras quickly pan around the field and cut randomly. It still looks pretty good but no way near as good as the minute long demo video LG used to show off how good their TV can look. Obviously I've not used a Vision Pro so my comment isn't about the Vision Pro specifically, just that it is quite easy to make things look very good in a highly tuned demo for something vs real world broadcast quality.

Aperocky 3y ago

Make no sense to sit courtside, the spectator should be able to be wherever they wanted, either in the air, on the nosebleeds, on the court itself, or under the court. Having a courtside seat is a physical constraint that does not need to be respected in VR.

moralestapia 3y ago
That's the pragmatic approach, not the marketing one.
pyth0 3y ago
Surely the physical constraint still exists as they need to set up the equipment to capture the video feed.
- Aperocky 3y ago
  Indeed, but even in this case, the spectator could still be at any location outside of the 3D area being filmed (in this case, the game itself) for complete experience, or inside for a incomplete (potential blindspots) presentation.

wussboy 3y ago

Is "an unrestricted view of the game from close up" the only appeal to court-side seats? I think it's perhaps the least interesting aspect, since you can achieve this for free at almost any non-NBA level basketball game. Or perhaps the appeal of court-side seats is the atmosphere, experience and social signaling, none of which are provided by these glasses. Our desire for "cheap" court-side seats is understandable from an evolutionary sense. But it's almost like these glasses (and VR in general) are designed to provide the "feeling" of evolutionary benefit while carefully and completely removing any actual benefit.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
> Or perhaps the appeal of court-side seats is the atmosphere, experience and social signaling, none of which are provided by these glasses. The author's entire point was that the demo did recreate the atmosphere and experience he had while courtside at an NBA game. Maybe it doesn't provide the social clout, but that's not the point for tons who wish they could sit courtside.
- wussboy 3y ago
  > Maybe it doesn't provide the social clout, that's not the point for tons who wish they could sit courtside There is no maybe about it. Tell me another reason why people would want court side, that wouldn’t also apply to a high school game (where people could sit court side for free but absolutely don’t)

Levitz 3y ago

>It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. Have you ever watched the announcement of a new videogame console? Or even new videogames? 10 seconds of marketing don't extrapolate well to 10 days of actual usage.

lolinder 3y ago

Your value calculations are off. * You can't do the math from a baseline of "not watching the game at all". If this creates 20% of the experience but a $1000 TV creates a different 20% of the experience (watching with other people next to you, for example), you haven't gained any value over the cheaper device. * Unless you're regularly buying NBA tickets, this isn't going to "pay for itself". Solar panels can (in theory) pay for themselves because they cut back on a bill you'd have either way. A product like this can only pay for itself if it causes you to spend less money on NBA tickets than you otherwise would have.