3 ms·

There's a lot of fluff here, but the comments I've seen on the subject from people who actually know what the heck they're talking about (for example, preexisti

There's a lot of fluff here, but the comments I've seen on the subject from people who actually know what the heck they're talking about (for example, preexisting MR/VR enthusiasts) suggest that the "special" format here is just basic stereoscopic photography of the kind that already exists in about a million YouTube videos that anybody with a Quest 3 can already record and view, rather than anything new like actually encoding real depth info along with the image capture.

gpm 3y ago
Mistaking the sophistication of the technology for it's relevance to people's lives is a classic HN error. Sure, dropbox is just a bash script that rsyncs files or whatever, but the presentation and interface surrounding that bash script can still be absolutely revolutionary in terms of how regular people interact with it. I don't have the experience to agree or disagree with the article's claims about the feelings evoked by Vision Pro's presentation of spatial video being a leap forward from what we are used to - but I feel pretty confident in saying that whether or not that is true doesn't depend on how novel the underlying image data is.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  It's not the sophistocation vs. relevance part that bothers me... it's that the people writing these puff pieces clearly have no idea what already exists in the field of 3D media or any of the uses that people have already made of it. Or to put it another way, imagine articles about the original iPod written by people who obviously didn't even know that other MP3 players existed.
  - azinman2 3y ago
    And yet the other ones never had the same impact because the execution wasn’t as good. The Diamond Rio has no brand value today and no current iteration. If you haven’t experienced what the phone can now capture and what playback on the Vision Pro is actually like, then I’d suggest reserving judgement.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  I don't think this kind of issue applies to media in the same way that it applies to apps and devices. You can take existing niche technology and make it mega successful by improving UX, price, discoverability, and applying marketing. But I don't think you can fundamentally change how impactul media is in the same way. If a stereoscopic fixed perspective picture or movie is just not that impressive (beyond the technical marvels) when demoed in some back room on some wonky device, I don't think it can be made impressive by some marketing genius. And I general, 3D movies of exceptionally high quality already exist in cinemas, and... They're just not that much more impressive than 2D movies. We have quite an amazing capacity to create a 3D scene in our minds from a 2D image. Being able to easily and quickly capture photo and video+audio from your phone and share that to anyone in your friend group is magical, and has built the social media empires. But adding a third dimension to them, one that can only be viewed on special, unpleasant to wear hardware, is very unlikely to be a leap forward. My prediction is that we are already at the peak of what people want in terms of capturing and sharing their experiences for a long time (the next level will be to add smells, but that likely requires direct brain/computer interfaces which are a looooong way off). Of course, IF VR/AR glasses get extremely popular for other reasons (I don't expect them to, but I am far less confident here) and IF capturing this type of image is as easy as photo and 3D, these pictures will end up dominating, since there is no reason to take lower fidelity photos than the best you can get. But I don't think this type of photo can be the reason the device becomes popular.
  - relativ575 3y ago
    > My prediction is that we are already at the peak of what people want in terms of capturing and sharing their experiences for a long time (the next level will be to add smells, but that likely requires direct brain/computer interfaces which are a looooong way off). We are very far from the peak, as long as we still have to be concerned with device, network, format, latency. Imagine one day you can just put on a pair of glasses, not thicker than your standard reading glasses, and say "Capture what I'm seeing with all details, in the most realistic way, and share it with my wife". Nothing further. Then we'd be close to the peak. And may still not be there.
    - 3y ago
MrScruff 3y ago
As far as I’m aware these do encode depth information and are not just stereoscopic movies. You will get parallax by moving your head.

gpm 3y ago

Mistaking the sophistication of the technology for it's relevance to people's lives is a classic HN error. Sure, dropbox is just a bash script that rsyncs files or whatever, but the presentation and interface surrounding that bash script can still be absolutely revolutionary in terms of how regular people interact with it. I don't have the experience to agree or disagree with the article's claims about the feelings evoked by Vision Pro's presentation of spatial video being a leap forward from what we are used to - but I feel pretty confident in saying that whether or not that is true doesn't depend on how novel the underlying image data is.

crooked-v 3y ago
It's not the sophistocation vs. relevance part that bothers me... it's that the people writing these puff pieces clearly have no idea what already exists in the field of 3D media or any of the uses that people have already made of it. Or to put it another way, imagine articles about the original iPod written by people who obviously didn't even know that other MP3 players existed.
- azinman2 3y ago
  And yet the other ones never had the same impact because the execution wasn’t as good. The Diamond Rio has no brand value today and no current iteration. If you haven’t experienced what the phone can now capture and what playback on the Vision Pro is actually like, then I’d suggest reserving judgement.
tsimionescu 3y ago
I don't think this kind of issue applies to media in the same way that it applies to apps and devices. You can take existing niche technology and make it mega successful by improving UX, price, discoverability, and applying marketing. But I don't think you can fundamentally change how impactul media is in the same way. If a stereoscopic fixed perspective picture or movie is just not that impressive (beyond the technical marvels) when demoed in some back room on some wonky device, I don't think it can be made impressive by some marketing genius. And I general, 3D movies of exceptionally high quality already exist in cinemas, and... They're just not that much more impressive than 2D movies. We have quite an amazing capacity to create a 3D scene in our minds from a 2D image. Being able to easily and quickly capture photo and video+audio from your phone and share that to anyone in your friend group is magical, and has built the social media empires. But adding a third dimension to them, one that can only be viewed on special, unpleasant to wear hardware, is very unlikely to be a leap forward. My prediction is that we are already at the peak of what people want in terms of capturing and sharing their experiences for a long time (the next level will be to add smells, but that likely requires direct brain/computer interfaces which are a looooong way off). Of course, IF VR/AR glasses get extremely popular for other reasons (I don't expect them to, but I am far less confident here) and IF capturing this type of image is as easy as photo and 3D, these pictures will end up dominating, since there is no reason to take lower fidelity photos than the best you can get. But I don't think this type of photo can be the reason the device becomes popular.
- relativ575 3y ago
  > My prediction is that we are already at the peak of what people want in terms of capturing and sharing their experiences for a long time (the next level will be to add smells, but that likely requires direct brain/computer interfaces which are a looooong way off). We are very far from the peak, as long as we still have to be concerned with device, network, format, latency. Imagine one day you can just put on a pair of glasses, not thicker than your standard reading glasses, and say "Capture what I'm seeing with all details, in the most realistic way, and share it with my wife". Nothing further. Then we'd be close to the peak. And may still not be there.
  - 3y ago

MrScruff 3y ago

As far as I’m aware these do encode depth information and are not just stereoscopic movies. You will get parallax by moving your head.