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Something I've noticed in the past few years is the number of homes I've been in without a TV and the use of smart speakers placed throughout instead of a fixed

Something I've noticed in the past few years is the number of homes I've been in without a TV and the use of smart speakers placed throughout instead of a fixed stereo/surround system. Seems quite a few folks are opting to randomly binge-stream on their laptop as vegging out on the TV is a thing of the past for them, so no need to have their living space dominated by these types of electronics.

kllrnohj 3y ago
Are those folks going to suddenly find it appealing to strap on a headset with a battery pack for $3,500 but don't want to try that out today for $500? The appeal of the laptop/tablet/phone veg is the speed at which you can plop and start watching. Futzing with VR headset is kinda not that. The "personal home theater!" angle has been tried, and failed, so many times now. It doesn't seem like the Vision Pro changes anything to suddenly make it a motivating feature on its own. Which I think is the more telling thing about Netflix's response here. They've been pushing VR movie watching since day 1. And yet now they aren't doing so for the AVP. That seems less likely to be a snub of Apple and more likely to be an admission of "this just isn't something people do or want currently"
- pwthornton 3y ago
  The $500 headset can't really do this well. They may have demoed one in a store and realized this isn't a great experience. You will also not find a lot of people online recommending it either. I have a Quest 3, and I would much rather watch movies on a laptop or iPad than it. The screen quality is not great. You can see the pixels due to the low-ish resolution. The contrast ratio is not great. The screen quality is generally good enough for VR games and other VR-specific experiences, however.
- brandall10 3y ago
  It's too early right now and I feel the device needs to make strides for it to be viable for most. The various youtubers pointing out neck strain issues underscore this. We can't gauge much from early gripes on a low production device that hasn't launched yet. Netflix's engineering staff is expensive and I imagine they learned some interesting lessons from experiments like Bandersnatch. No need to make bets for the sake of innovation, let things play out first. I'm sure there is some signaling involved for the sake of investors showing they're prudent here. All I'm saying is - to your point - the market may be shifting to where personal consumption devices like this make sense. It's not replacing a TV so much as a laptop. For some early adopters the experience may be far superior, and if so, a next generation device that cuts the cost and size in half may be the thing that launches things forward. Like the iPhone 3G. Or it could be sort of a wash and go the way of the 3d TV craze from 15 years ago.

kllrnohj 3y ago

Are those folks going to suddenly find it appealing to strap on a headset with a battery pack for $3,500 but don't want to try that out today for $500? The appeal of the laptop/tablet/phone veg is the speed at which you can plop and start watching. Futzing with VR headset is kinda not that. The "personal home theater!" angle has been tried, and failed, so many times now. It doesn't seem like the Vision Pro changes anything to suddenly make it a motivating feature on its own. Which I think is the more telling thing about Netflix's response here. They've been pushing VR movie watching since day 1. And yet now they aren't doing so for the AVP. That seems less likely to be a snub of Apple and more likely to be an admission of "this just isn't something people do or want currently"

pwthornton 3y ago
The $500 headset can't really do this well. They may have demoed one in a store and realized this isn't a great experience. You will also not find a lot of people online recommending it either. I have a Quest 3, and I would much rather watch movies on a laptop or iPad than it. The screen quality is not great. You can see the pixels due to the low-ish resolution. The contrast ratio is not great. The screen quality is generally good enough for VR games and other VR-specific experiences, however.
brandall10 3y ago
It's too early right now and I feel the device needs to make strides for it to be viable for most. The various youtubers pointing out neck strain issues underscore this. We can't gauge much from early gripes on a low production device that hasn't launched yet. Netflix's engineering staff is expensive and I imagine they learned some interesting lessons from experiments like Bandersnatch. No need to make bets for the sake of innovation, let things play out first. I'm sure there is some signaling involved for the sake of investors showing they're prudent here. All I'm saying is - to your point - the market may be shifting to where personal consumption devices like this make sense. It's not replacing a TV so much as a laptop. For some early adopters the experience may be far superior, and if so, a next generation device that cuts the cost and size in half may be the thing that launches things forward. Like the iPhone 3G. Or it could be sort of a wash and go the way of the 3d TV craze from 15 years ago.