Google has just announced something that’s a step in the right direction as far as future of technology is concerned. Virtual reality is something that wasn’t ventured into seriously by tier one brands till a couple of years back. But with Samsung and HTC launching virtual reality hardware and then Google quite literally making those expensive hardware a mere joke by coming up with Google Cardboard, it was clear that this is what people are interested in investing for the future. But as it’s been with numerous future-proof technology launches, like UHD resolution TVs, the hardware didn’t have enough content to utilize and show it’s full potential. Google got it covered with launching YouTube support for UHD video upload and viewing, and now they have got the virtual reality part covered by launching 360-degree video support for YouTube.
This ensures that YouTube users can share something more with the viewers, and show them how exactly it feels while filming their videos. This also means that practically nothing can be hidden from the camera while filming and viewers can watch what they wish to and not just what the cameraman wants to show them. If you get a video of F1 car driver’s point of view, like the one below, you can have a look at whatever you wish, be it the rear part of the F1 car or just how it breezes past the audience stand on either side.
If you wish to watch videos like these, ensure that you have an updated Google Chrome on your desktop or an updated YouTube app on your Android device running Android 4.1 or higher. You get a navigation button on the top-left corner if you are watching it on desktop. For Android devices, it’s a lot simpler. Just play the video on YouTube app and pan around to look at what you wish. Support for other browsers and OS will be out soon.
If you want to share such videos, click on this link which provides relevant information regarding the upload process. As of now, very few cameras are compatible for filming 360-degree videos. And before uploading, you need to input certain metadata so that 360-degree playback is enabled.
While the quality of the few available 360-degree videos is not that great, we can rest assured that the quality and experience will get better once more and more hardware becomes compatible. And as of now, only videos up to 30 fps are supported and higher frame rate support is expected soon. With companies getting aggressive with respect to display technologies for providing a more immersive experience for the viewers, like curved displays which debuted last year, virtual reality is an inevitable thing and as of now, we have got reasons to be optimistic!
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