OK, Christmas, I open a present, and in the box there is a Galaxy S7. People in the TV ads put it on right out of the boxs, and have orgasms of hilarity. So when I open my box, and slip the goofy goggles over my head, just what the hell am I supposed to see in there that is so mind-boggling? I google it, I look it up on Wiki, and all I get is specs and shipping weight.
It’s a phone that has VR capability.
A Samsung Galaxy X7 is an Android smartphone. It can be used with a Gear VR virtual reality headset.
Twenty-something years ago, I was working for companies trying to develop virtual reality systems. At the time, most of the VR headsets had integrated lenses and displays, and had a cable running to an external computer. So you were tethered. Turning around could mean getting wrapped up in the cable.
Now, most people have a computer in their pockets that’s more powerful than the expensive ones we were using then. Probably more powerful than the $400,000 Silicon Graphics supercomputer we had in the office.
Cheap virtual reality (without the danger of tripping on the cable) is possible today. A year ago or so, I received a free Google Cardboard viewer in the mail, from The New York Times, to promote their VR content.
Never would have imagined that.
The whole point of the ad is that you will see something you have never experienced before. I tried it with my Note 7 and my eyes literally burst into flames. Wow!
My phone is a Galaxy S7 (upgraded from a S4 Mini about three months ago).
Nice phone so far, it is doing everything I need a smart phone for and it is doing it rather well. I do not play games (except for Trivia Crack) and have no interest in any VR capability. Looks gimmicky.
Gear VR is a virtual reality viewer & software developed jointly by Samsung and Oculus. Which is why it only works on Samsung phones.
I’ve had the older version for a while and it’s pretty neat technology. It’s a great way to view panoramic photos, including the ones you’ve taken yourself. But I haven’t found a lot of actual use for it.
You don’t really need this setup just to try out VR. There are lots of third-party VR headsets available which work with most smartphones, including Google Cardboard.
Of course these pale in comparison to a VR system with motion tracking, like the HTC Vive. But these need to be connected to a powerful gaming PC.
Not just Samsung phones but just a couple of models in particular. From looking at the commercials, it appears that the headset is designed that the phone can just snap in. Other headsets may be designed to accommodate any phone, perhaps by using a strap or other generic attachment.
Yes, but what do you SEE in there?
I made the same complaint in the “annoying commercials” thread. What exactly is this orgasmic VR showing? Is it altered reality (using the phone camera to project images on the real world)? Is it a fantasy gaming land? Outer space images? Images of people throwing stuff at your head? What?
Their ad campaign seems to be playing the “tease people and get them to go in and check it out and they’ll buy it!” school, but I find that incredibly annoying. Makes me think the R in their VR isn’t very accurate. Even video game commercials pretend to show what the game looks like, even if it is cutscenes and not real game play. But the S7? Who knows what they are looking at?
Maybe it is a mind control program that alters your thinking rather than actually showing something, like John Varley’s “Press Enter”, or STTNG “The Game”.
“It’s much better than Cats.” All Hail HypnoToad!
What it’s showing you is a stereoscopic display. What that means is the view to each eye is slightly offset, so there is some perception of depth. The images can be a filmed tour of a real-world place, or more likely, a world built in a computer. If you remember first-person video games like Doom, that’s the kind of thing you might seen in a VR headset, because games like that allow you to turn around or look up and down and see something different.
You really can’t convey a stereoscopic display on a television screen, so they don’t usually show this to you.
Just imagine that all the people in the commercials are watching porn.
Yeah, Samsung’s VR headset actually plugs into the phone and is integrated. You can control things from the headset, for instance, rather than fumbling with the phones controls.
Most other phone-VR viewers are just headpieces with a couple lenses that you can slide a phone into for stereoscopic viewing. Only differences between that type are build quality and comfort.
I’ve played with it a little (on the second kind of headset) and it was pretty neat though nothing I couldn’t live without. My experience was marred a little by using an older phone that didn’t quite fit so I had light bleeding in from the sides. It was just a 3D courtyard in some foreign city I could move around in.
I already do! It makes the other people’s reactions funnier.
Last night, at the end of The Walking Dead, they hyped some VR content that you can download to your phone. One bit is where you are surrounded by Walkers (Zombies) and they are closing in on you. The other is a scene where the Walkers are feasting on a human body, and that body is you. I don’t know why anyone would download this content, but it exists for someone.
Also, in one of the commercials, there is a Middle Aged Hispanic man, and he points and syas something that sounds like “ooh, the moon”. One of the VR demos that I have seen is a tour of the Solar System.
Hope this actually answers what the OP is looking for.
That’s like asking “but what can I watch on this TV set you are advertising?” The VR viewer is just hardware + drivers. It’s a stereoscopic viewer with gyroscopic sensors, so you can “look around” in a virtual or recorded world.
The actual content is developed by third-party app developers. It can be actual footage recorded with a panoramic camera, or it can be computer-generated. If it’s computer-generated, it’s generally 3D and interactive to some extent. If it’s camera footage, it will of course be passive, and it’s not always 3D. I don’t think Gear VR supports augmented reality (mixed reality, i.e. taking the real-time camera input and adding stuff to it).
I have a cheap VR holder for my S7 as well as the app to take videos with my phone. I can take 360 degree panoramas which can then be viewed with the headset. There is no controller so I can’t really play games. But the headset was less than $10 so I can’t complain.
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To me the best thing about the S7 is the ultra battery saving mode. Right now I have it on while I’m at work. At 97% battery, it’s estimated to last 3.8 days. Basically, you’ve got a phone, texts, internet and three apps of your choice with a black background. I put it in Ultra when I’m at work, on the road, or asleep.
Unfortunately, if you put a shell on the phone, you have to take it out of the shell to put it in the goggles, which were a deal sweetener that came with the phone. Any phone I buy gets an impact resistant shell immediately (I like Tech21’s). Thus far I’ve decided I can’t really be arsed to take it off to experience the tiny screen equivalent of an IMAX movie.
So how well does this technology work now? I have literally never had any experience with it all, but it has intrigued me for years. Assuming that the footage I’m looking at was shot with a photographic camera as opposed to being computer-generated, what does it look like? Is it blow-your-hair-back awesome, as if I’m actually standing in the location where the footage was shot, or does it just look like a high-definition TV set?
If the footage was shot with a camera, then you don’t have the freedom to turn around or look at what you want. You’re stuck on whatever path the camera operator took. VR environments should allow you the freedom to look where you want and get closer to objects when you want. The problem, of course, is that this requires that the world be rendered in a computer, and that requires processing power, particularly if you don’t want it to look cartoonish.
My S7 with a shell fits my cheap VR headset just fine. It’s made to fit many different phones, so maybe that’s the reason.