Come with us as we unpack our experience with the much-anticipated Apple Vision Pro VR headset, alongside the insights of Adam Kontras from Virtual Presence Productions. We didn't hold back on our initial excitement turned to dismay, facing a slew of technical issues like pixel smearing that led us to question if this device is truly market-ready. It was an unexpected twist to find ourselves tipping our hats to the Quest 3 for its versatility and comfort, making it a surprisingly practical tool for everyday work in virtual environments.
Creating immersive content isn't just about having the right tools; it's about resonating with your audience and turning your vision into reality. This episode isn't just a tech review; it's a deep dive into the creative process and the hustle of making it in VR content production while juggling day jobs. We discuss the absence of a dedicated platform for VR content creators and ponder how VR could be the frontier for video sharing, drawing parallels to the success stories of YouTube and Vimeo.
Our conversation doesn't shy away from the gritty details of VR cinematography—the challenges of storytelling, the art of guiding viewers in a 360-degree world, and the tough lessons learned from setbacks like a derailed Super Bowl production. We share the resilience required to keep pushing boundaries in this innovative yet demanding industry. Join us for an honest look at the trials, errors, and triumphs of bringing virtual reality to life, all through the experienced lens of our guest Adam.
Come with us as we unpack our experience with the much-anticipated Apple Vision Pro VR headset, alongside the insights of Adam Kontras from Virtual Presence Productions. We didn't hold back on our initial excitement turned to dismay, facing a slew of technical issues like pixel smearing that led us to question if this device is truly market-ready. It was an unexpected twist to find ourselves tipping our hats to the Quest 3 for its versatility and comfort, making it a surprisingly practical tool for everyday work in virtual environments.
Creating immersive content isn't just about having the right tools; it's about resonating with your audience and turning your vision into reality. This episode isn't just a tech review; it's a deep dive into the creative process and the hustle of making it in VR content production while juggling day jobs. We discuss the absence of a dedicated platform for VR content creators and ponder how VR could be the frontier for video sharing, drawing parallels to the success stories of YouTube and Vimeo.
Our conversation doesn't shy away from the gritty details of VR cinematography—the challenges of storytelling, the art of guiding viewers in a 360-degree world, and the tough lessons learned from setbacks like a derailed Super Bowl production. We share the resilience required to keep pushing boundaries in this innovative yet demanding industry. Join us for an honest look at the trials, errors, and triumphs of bringing virtual reality to life, all through the experienced lens of our guest Adam.
Welcome to the serioscope podcast. Number four got Anthony and Byron and we got Adam from virtual presence productions with us today. We're really excited to have him on. We've been watching his stuff for a while. Adam say hi.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm so happy to be here. I've been watching your stuff for a while. So great minds and it's the beat of apparently so happy to be part of it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, this is a new format that we're doing. We haven't done this style before. Adam is effectively the third host on this, on this episode, and I think, I think it's a format that I think is going to work a little bit better for the type of show that we're doing, especially to keep that length down, because we were getting pretty high up there last time. Just, let's, just let's just dive into this. So, for context, anthony and I got an Apple Vision Pro demo yesterday with our buddy Brandon, and you had the device. Tell us, tell us what you think about it.
Speaker 2:I still have it. You still have it in the process of being boxed up to return tomorrow. I don't know where to even begin to start. I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in my life. I was so excited for this product. It is absolutely a business expense. It wasn't the money, it was. The bottom line for me is this is not even a dev kit. To me it's a prototype. I mean, I feel like I'm a guinea pig testing stuff and I don't have the time. The amount of hours I put into just trying to get one of my files viewable was insane, and then come to find out it doesn't look any better than the Quest 3. Yeah, that's pretty rough. The pixel smearing issue, the high persistence of these OLED displays the deal breaker. And you don't realize it until you throw your Quest 3 back on and everything's perfect. It's perfect.
Speaker 1:So I will say that I was pretty impressed when I initially put on the device, mostly because you know they're doing this whole song and dance routine and you know it is really impressive. And I did really think the screens other than because Anthony noticed the smearing, I did not notice it but I did think that the screen quality, the HDR implementation was really impressive and all the other stuff, the like the hand tracking and the eye tracking and stuff that's all stuff that I've experienced before. So it wasn't that big of a deal but I did think that the quality of the screens was good but the A is good, I mean it.
Speaker 2:listen when, the, when the first icons come up, you're like, oh yeah, a little bit better than I remember anything being. Yes, definitely I'm right with you, dude, and the and the four immersive videos they let you watch are amazing.
Speaker 1:They are amazing, and that's and that's something that we were uniquely focused on, for obvious reasons, you know, and either way, they're 90 frames per second.
Speaker 2:I think they're using really. Yeah, they're using the Canon. I am almost certain of this. They are using the Canon dual fisheye lens, but they're put adapted yeah. Yeah and yeah. From what I understand, it's only running at 50 megabytes per second, which blows my mind with what I know about the bit rate.
Speaker 3:Yeah which is insane. Okay, that's gonna be like yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine how that's possible, but I watched it online so it must be, and it's 90 frames per second. However, what makes it good is the sensor. My goodness, it's just a beautiful is. They're very beautiful. I'm just frustrated, as you know, that you can't actually go and watch any other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's, that's something that we were mentioning. Is that they have to be using some sort of cinema cinema quality top, top tier, yeah, camera.
Speaker 3:It's definitely sharper and it's got better dynamic range and the the R5C has, and that's what really comes through. But that's actually where I think it's not the Canon VR 180 lens. I think they're using something custom because I think the lens itself is also sharper than the Canon lens. Also, the field of view within the video is not in close to 180. It's something like 140.
Speaker 2:No, it goes back and forth. That's the thing Everybody keeps.
Speaker 1:the demo shows because I saw, because I saw a lens mask at one point. And they were like here yeah you know, like they were yeah, well, it didn't yeah. Like, like Adam said, it did go back and forth at one point.
Speaker 2:They do, which I think is actually the future and something I've I've tried to do a couple times where you do toy with it in direction. Right, you can, you can bring it in and bring it back, and that's kind of the fun of telling the story. It's the same. It's the same people that were frustrated that 180 isn't 360 because like, oh well, it's not stop for a second. If you direct it correctly, it's not an issue.
Speaker 1:Right, you think about 360 for like two seconds, you go, oh, that's cool, and then you're never turn around again in the traditional, in the traditional flat filmmaking world, you, you choose the aspect ratio that is right for your project and and this is the same that you know, I've seen you know there are videos by Lucid Tripper where he plays with, with framing and with immersive aspect ratios and he changes it based on what the needs of his shoot are, and there's no reason that we can't do the same thing.
Speaker 2:Right, I'll go to my grave site. And it 360 is a complete waste of bandwidth and direction.
Speaker 1:I mean we we largely have come to similar conclusions. I would say that I do think that there are projects that it works for you on your phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it on my phone. I like that's cool looking around, or but. But when I'm sitting down Viewing content, just like when you're like at no pool, I want to do this, yeah. And there are also other ways to take 180, zoom it in just a little bit and, like you can, there are other ways to make people feel immersive. There are players, there's all these things that you can do, but God is it as a flat filmmaker. If you're gonna convince flat filmmakers to go immersive, you're gonna have to at least give them the idea that, okay, the audience can only go like this. Yeah, you start telling them, jesus, that they can go like that. You're gonna lose. You're just gonna lose half of the people that have been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 1:You know one feature that I thought the apple of vision pro. I was not expecting to have any desire for this at all. I thought the implementation of panoramas was, yeah, sort of shockingly good. I've never I've never seen a use for panoramas. I think they are one of the most gimmicky features of any. But all of a sudden I saw these panoramas and I was like, Okay, I think I get it now.
Speaker 2:You know but While we're not to not crap all over the apple vision pro, I was disappointed because of what I what I specifically bought it for. I literally can't use it for, yeah, even though I got my files on there, they're warped a little differently. Passing the headset to somebody's impossible, because they have to go through the entire Hand process and the eye process and then they have to click it and they have to find it and they have to change it to left and right and they have to hit VR 180 and they have to hit play and it's like dude, this I can't hand this to a client. Yeah, this is a pain, but the good thing that that is clearly where you know this is the future and I don't want a bad mouth at too much, because we kind of really need people to buy this one and the next one and so forth. So this all goes forward.
Speaker 2:The spatial Shit is crazy, dude. Like, like being able to put layouts of like. Here's my tb, here's my this, here's that. I'm walking around my kitchen but I had, I had a blast setting up my house and doing that, but you can't save the layouts. Got to do that every freaking time and it's like, what is the point? I'm going to spend 15 minutes Setting up my layout and and then, if I need to go to another room and bring it up, it's gone. I mean again, this will all be fixed in different 100 percent gradient systems, but it's it was just shocking that for the especially for the price, the quest 3 is actually A better product. I hate to exactly mirror what zuck said today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw that. I watched it yesterday.
Speaker 2:Folksman. He's the worst spokesman that has ever lived, but I don't think there's one thing that he said that wasn't on the money. Yeah, absolutely. I'm honest to goodness, a better usable product? I don't. I have nothing else to do with this thing. I've had the thing for two weeks. I used it a bunch for a couple days. I never picked it up again, ever.
Speaker 1:So it's down on on Tuesday I worked in my quest three for four hours doing Porting my laptop screen into the into the quest and worked on my laptop using my headset as a large virtual screen, and I had Amazon music playing in one tab and YouTube on another tab and my laptop in the middle. And I worked for four hours in my headset and the only reason I took it off wasn't because it was uncomfortable, is because I had other things to do and as long as you have a ballast of a counterweight, the headsets Right are totally comfortable enough to wear for four hours and the lenses are big and the the pancake lenses on the quest three are so amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no it, of course. It's funny how much it made me appreciate the question quest three. I was like, oh my goodness, they really knocked it out of the park for $500 and it is so versatile and I work in it daily. Yeah, literally, really. I mean that's how I edit my videos. Everybody asks me how do you do all the 3d stuff and all the? How do you avoid occlusion when you're putting that stuff, like I'm in my headset, I'm literally editing in my headset and that's the only way to do it. So I'm working in it constantly.
Speaker 2:And it's funny because after the Apple visual pro, I thought you know what. I'm probably going to go back and look at my question, be like, ooh, I did notice that obviously the blacks are as black, yeah, but that went away in 15 seconds, yeah, and what came back was the menu in front of me and mixed reality. When I went, like this, it was perfect. Yeah, yeah, it didn't blur, it didn't smear, and I was like, for $4,000, I just can't believe how they could have let that a thrill see who just did a video on this too. How could they have let the persistence issue? I just could. Nobody could believe they could let that out of the Apple headquarters before they fix that, because to me that's Unforgivable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a shocking number of people don't notice it. And and maybe it's because you were, you've talked about it that I noticed it. But like as soon as I started looking and I saw because you can kind of catch the fovea to rendering happening too and as soon as I was looking at that, then I turned my head and see the smearing and I was like, oh, that is bad, it's really bad.
Speaker 2:What be it did rendering I'm. I accept that I don't need to pixels 100% again. Sambo, it's so immersion breaking and I think, basically half the people that have have a vision. Bro, first of all, you're gonna defend anything? You just spent $4,000.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can understand why people are doing that, but I just think a lot of people have not used the quest 3 the way you can actually use it, yeah, which it makes reality, which is through virtual desktop, which is through editing and working. I'd already done all that stuff and, yes, ak is awesome. But I'm telling you, dude, I looked at my, my NFL reel that I showed everybody. I looked at that how many times, three times on the apple vision pro, put it back on the quest, put it back. I couldn't, I could barely tell, and in fact, it was worse on the apple vision pro, because if you turn your head, there's a little smear and it kind of makes you sick, yeah, and I'm like, oh my god, so I have to give it back.
Speaker 2:It does I have. No, I. There's no reason to even pretend I'm cool and have it. You know, like I, it's completely worth this for what I do.
Speaker 1:So all right. Youtube Is working on an apple vision pro app they announced.
Speaker 2:And not no, but yes what was that? Not VR 180, but yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm guessing that we'll see. No, no works.
Speaker 2:What's that? No, immersive video works Okay On a website At all.
Speaker 3:Currently. You can watch YouTube Currently, yeah, but what he's saying is that they're developing an actual app. Oh, yeah, sure, someday. Yeah, exactly, that's right yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, all right, yeah, well, I think it's important because YouTube, so YouTube used to have. You know, there's the YouTube VR app for Quest three and PC, and it's been around for a while now, but it is effectively been deprecated until like the last few months, where the quest three app was updated for the first time in like almost two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, I've heard it, really I know that it's got.
Speaker 1:so it has extra functionality now where you can, because before it launches into an immersive mode Now there's a button at the top of the app where if you push, punch it, it zooms back into your pass through so you can move your YouTube app around on your Oculus three like anchor, and so you can watch YouTube as if it was like a side loaded APK, because I'm sure that they saw that people were side loading YouTube APKs. So obviously Google has their own headset coming from Samsung, like. So they're doing the software, samsung is doing the hardware, and so all these features that YouTube has kept on the side or hasn't been implemented with Apple Vision Pro, I would assume because they're, because that swan dive app it. There is an immersive mode for that because they're immersive videos.
Speaker 2:So I'll put it on. I'll tell you it doesn't work, it doesn't like. Listen I, the reality player, says it does immersive, all these things said it did immersive, it doesn't, it'll play and then it's really stuttery. You can't move your head.
Speaker 3:Moon, the moon player is moon player.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have little play now, some 360 mono, yes, but Jesus, I don't know who's looking for that. Yeah, I'm looking for immersive. Again, it's the immersive video that Apple themselves said is immersive video is the future right? Yeah, they said was. They made those four things. They made the alicia keys thing. They clearly know this is what it is and they purposely gimp Safari so no one else could be there, which is just silly, I mean. And again, I'd say great that you, they're going to develop this app. Something tells me that it's not going to be as easy. If people think I'm talking to with all the people that deal with our like, oh, we're going to make an app that works. And they also kept saying that their WebEx arrow worked. It doesn't.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's going to be as easy, as I don't think Apple wants anybody to do it but them. So we'll see. But then again, meta doesn't seem to care about immersive video, so I don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that that is something that is sort of baffling to me, is that? So I did end up watching the dojo cat VR experience, not the the horizon world one, the, the one on a meta quest TV. It isn't 3D and it's really good, but they're only had four songs. But meta strategy is so baffling because they do music and they do sports and that's it.
Speaker 2:They don't do VR 180.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they don't do them in 180.
Speaker 2:Mono. It's like come on, man, you're so close. Well, what's good is it's helping me? Yeah, how do you think they're able to look impressive at the NFL? Or I have some meetings next week with different major league sports. And the reason is because they think that what's on meta right now, that's the, that's it. And then I come along with Israel and they're like what the hell was that? Yeah, and they're like do we do this? What is this? So three that you're doing? And, yes, so for the time being, keep doing awful meta. That's great, but at some point you would expect them. They've got a 20 million headset user base that doesn't even know this is possible. I mean, I've sold more meta quest freaking headsets simply to watch my silly videos than anything I've ever done. It's crazy. People will love this stuff. They want to see well produced, immersive video and they can't find it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the videos that we're going to feature later, I think the Targo videos. Targo is, I think, co financed by meta, and that's why their videos look incredibly good is because they have the budget for that type of thing, but nobody else has a budget for this stuff, because nobody's.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, I mean you could do a lot of the stuff without the budget. It's just time. But yeah, that's what I said. You guys where? Why aren't you guys making more stuff? You got the camera, you got the like, go make it.
Speaker 1:We're working on stuff We've got. We've got. We've got a couple projects that are coming out in the next couple. Yeah, I want great recent Nice, yeah, and it's more so that, like we both have like other jobs other jobs, he's a working VP I don't know if anybody know this my day job. I'm a bartender. Like that's how I make the majority of my money.
Speaker 2:You can make a lot of cool videos and a bar. I'm just saying the dark, you know, the black levels are pretty good camera. That's true. Yeah, it's amazing stuff. I'm just I think I think a lot of creators get stuck in. Well, we need to have a script and we need to have this and we need and it's like you need to just fall at the stairs already, like go roll something down a hill and and start to learn what makes good stuff good. That is yeah.
Speaker 3:I 100% agree. It's like we've been having this discussion a lot because it's like, yeah, we do the same thing, we get hung up. I like we want to make this big plan. Yeah, I'm like we just need to make small things because we're going to fuck it up and then figure out what was wrong and figure out how to fix it and get better.
Speaker 2:every time, you know, like the way that I got in that baseball dugout at that Columbus Clippers game for the was. I sat there for the first six months of the year, made 40 VR, 180 films, every possible genre I possibly could find anywhere in the world. I wouldn't just anything I could do, and I made a reel and that two to three minute reel. When I showed it then they're like okay, now like, and then, and then that led to the NFL, which led to the Super Bowl, which led to all those things. So again, if I can inspire you guys to do anything, it's just shoot anything and start to mess with it and start to understand what works and what doesn't, because right now all we have are like naked ladies and it's like making me crazy. It's making me.
Speaker 2:I met with Ivan. It came to my house after CES and, dude, they are a little scattered. Let's just say that they're so in love with every piece of new technology. I don't want to badmouth the OVR at all, but they are. They are so in love with all these different pieces of technology and it seems to be an issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I think they've, I think they've definitely made some good headway, but it does seem like they're a little scatterbrained, so I'm very scared.
Speaker 2:I mean, what's just just this Apple vision pro thing? I think Ivan went on on Facebook by 18 times said it's working, and I'd be like Ivan, it's not working. I didn't have one, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was like you stop saying this. You're making it look so Bushley like and I'd go on and check it up doesn't work at all. And then we'd all go into the file ago yeah, buddy, he's not working. Maybe, don't, maybe wait a few seconds. He's just, it's working, it's working it's way. So it's been a rough couple weeks with this Apple vision pro. I'm very excited about giving it back and not feeling Tethered to try to make it work.
Speaker 1:It's funny because the next. The next Topic was about how do VR has claimed that their Web XR is working and it is.
Speaker 2:It's not their fault. Yeah, it's not the ball at all. Safari purposely gimped immersive video on Safari well.
Speaker 1:So what I was reading was that the the implementation of Web XR on Safari is a Limited in Implementation. It doesn't have full access to the Web XR suite.
Speaker 2:And why should it? They don't care about it. They never cared about it.
Speaker 1:It was never their intention for that to be a feature set.
Speaker 2:Ever so, and I kept writing to him I'm like work on your app, because that's all you got, man, right now, you know, work on a really good app. That's about that's the only thing you could do. No, I think you know VR could be the next YouTube or Vimeo, but yeah, absolutely, I totally agree because that homepage is Remarkable, yeah. I mean clients, I've lost.
Speaker 1:I do think I, I do think we need a portal for immersive content, because YouTube is so no, not focused on anything immersive that the assumption that people are watching your content in a headset is Wild, because there's. No, there are ways to tell, but there's. You need a portal that is immersive to translate into immersive views, right?
Speaker 2:Well, that's the problem of do VR too. It also is you can watch it on your PC. Like you know, if I, if I post a link to do VR, I get all these eight thousands of you, whatever, but I know they're not watching in their headset meta TV. On the other hand, I've gotten over almost a hundred thousand views on my videos on meta TV and there's no other way to possibly watch that then on a headset. So at least you kind of get a feel for that. And that's people trying to go through that awful app. That meta TV app is so difficult to navigate and so Uncurated and just very frustrating.
Speaker 3:So it's a hard be a VR film in general.
Speaker 3:That is the issue. I mean, like every time we do this exercise about it like go find a nice video and we'll talk about this video the process of finding a decent video is excruciating. I mean, you go to do and, like you're saying, it's all hot girl videos and it's just like how do I filter all this shit out so I can find something interesting? And then again the same thing on meta TV. I did eventually find something on meta but like, like you're saying, it's not a pleasant experience. It doesn't feel curated, it doesn't feel managed, it's just black.
Speaker 2:So the good quality stuff is so instantly obvious. Yeah, yeah, like the hundred. Like I mean and that's what frustrates me about deal like oh, we know we can go on a curate all this. I'm like guys, it'd be really freaking easy to live. I'd be probably what a hundred videos a day. But you know how easy it is to label that's a butt, that's boobs, that isn't. This is a camera test from some guy that just got the camera move that over there. Like, oh, this is something that somebody spent 300 hours making, you know the back, the future universal ride in an actual DeLorean time machine. You can't find that like. And it was crazy. I had him here, I put him in the DeLorean, I had him watch it and he's like oh, my god, is this on, do VR? I'm like you never know, would you? I was like really dude.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, we gotta do something about that so our next topic is so there's a new immersive video portal on Apple vision pro by a company called atlas 5. So atlas 5, so the app is called swan dive and it's a subscription model that is On that keep going give. So it's yeah, it's, it's an Apple vision pro app that is immersive and it's an aggregator for immersive videos, but it seems like it started its life as a way for them to capitalize on these Animated CG videos that they have been working on since about 2018. So you have the swan dive app.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I mean what? The first thing you do on here is? You download everything you possibly can, right? You know, none of this looked okay, let's see. Goodbye, mr Octopus, that's I gotta subscribe. Do I got a page just to watch it? Probably, yes, okay, well, that was fun, not gonna do that. Is there really not one thing I can watch?
Speaker 1:for that paying. See, you got to have a taste like.
Speaker 3:I don't understand people who don't put the little taste out there, you know, yeah, I guess I figure, if you're buying the thing you're gonna spend, they do have one.
Speaker 2:It says try it for free for three months, and then it's a hundred and forty nine dollars a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's 1299 a month, or a hundred and forty nine dollars a year.
Speaker 2:I'm not actually, but I mean, yeah, there's not. Is this all? Are we sure this is all? Vr 180.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's VR 180, but I do believe that it is immersive. I sort of want to do a real deep dive into the Apple immersive videos, because you've seen all of them, we've seen clips of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't watch more so so just for the audience, there are four Apple immersive videos available at launch. There's only four. Those are Alicia Keys, rehearsal room adventure, wildlife and prehistoric planet immersive, which is direct or Directed. I'm not sure if directed or produced, but definitely produced by John Vagro. So in the, in the demo that we got, I think we got Clips from all four of those videos, plus maybe yesterday.
Speaker 2:There are clips in the demo that were not in the immersive videos.
Speaker 1:I mean, I assume that there were probably a couple shots in there that weren't in in the Tringing shot was not in it.
Speaker 2:The baseball shot was not in it, which definitely perk my eyes a little bit, considering I did the whole video in the dugout.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But to. So my take I was looking at it as a nerd who wants to see fidelity and and feel the view and all this kind of stuff. My wife watched them and she's watched all my stuff and she, she goes, adam, they don't look that much better. That's why I said they really don't, and and and I'll tell you what I noticed the most and it's what you were saying about the lenses, anthony the, the clearness of what was in the distance is freaking crazy. Yes, definitely so crazy.
Speaker 2:I have to wonder if they didn't do a little wizardry with a second camera and then mix the two images, because you know anything about fisheye lenses. I don't give a fuck, pardon me, I don't care what you do. The distance is always going to be blurred. Yeah, but the distance in that, that tightrope one, oh, it's not blurry, it is learst thing. And you're like I was just like this, it's, it's clear than your actual eyes would be in real life, right? So I was like, yeah, that's crazy. So the tightrope one is incredible, simply because have you ever seen the picture of the rig that they're using to get her to do that? This massive crane with a thing as big as her. It's just an impressive feat of filmmaking, because it would have such a hard thing to get on the side of a cliff, mm-hmm. But then let's go to the South Africa one, which was the wildlife one.
Speaker 1:I thought the wildlife shots, all that stuff with the rhino coming up to you, I thought that was incredible.
Speaker 2:Amazing, absolutely incredible. And what they did that I cannot understand how they did was the forest. If you've ever done anything with a Forest, the compression is an absolute pain in the ass because little tiny movements and you know and pay, compression gets all blocky. They nailed and but then my wife said, listen, your stuff from New Zealand, I Adam. It's really like I don't think anybody would know the difference, like you know the difference because you sit there you pour over this stuff but it's just as good, you know, because 8k is really a k-60 to me is the is the threshold for Amazing, immersive, like yeah, so here's a question what, what bit rate do you do you use for your videos?
Speaker 1:I?
Speaker 2:It's funny. I've just been working on this because I was trying to find a reason to keep the. So I did my. The Apple vision pro can play a file at like 400 megabit mits per second Pretty well, like I was how that actually really helps on my quest three, on Quest 2 was always 100 megabit second and then I bumped it up a little 120 for the quest 3.
Speaker 2:None of it really matters because the second you put it online they do all a whole bunch of stuff to it and Lord knows what they put it at to make it streaming. I'm not sure what that number is either, but I was able to push the quest 3. 200 was too much. 150 you could, it would barely work. But it it didn't always work all the way through the file. Every once or other it was a hiccup. So it seems like 140. 120 is probably the sweet spot, but that's only if you're locally putting it on to your, your what and showing it somebody. But I always I had uploaded everything at 100 megabits per second. It's close enough.
Speaker 2:Again, it lowlights a problem, a force. Any, any foliage is just a disaster. It is. It is stunning how bad it gets if you try to like walk through a forest with your gimbal, oh no, it's not gonna turn out well. And there's the VRO films the shaman one yeah, you got that one. They the same thing beautifully shot. Everything's great. The second they go into the woods, it's like, oh god.
Speaker 1:Did you see? Did you see, vr films? So she milk oh video, the, the one in Mexico. We went on, we went over it on the second episode and that was incredibly well lit because they're in Total sunlight, you know but the, the colors and the vibrancy popped in a way that I think is one of the few times that I've been like Wow, that really, really comes across Even through these like poor LSD screens.
Speaker 2:I must god. It's all color grading, dude. Everybody keeps asking me about workflow and secrets. I'm like guys, color grading, yeah, all the grading, and there's no secret. It's hard, it's just hard. Do you use lots or do you do?
Speaker 1:it by hand. What's that? Are you starting with lots or are you doing it by by hand?
Speaker 2:to me the Lux. The Lux slowed down my computer and, if you can, it's a weird. There there's a secret. You know you want to. You want to render something a little faster. Don't put lots on it because it's slowed it down. I mean, I did test after test after test. I mean, listen, if you're already doing it over, I render, it doesn't really matter. So, but yeah, I've known that, that. No, you got to just go back to the old-school tutorials of what.
Speaker 2:What color grading is, why you do it, how it changes depending on your ISO, how it changes depending on your f-stop, like it's it's up. There's a reason. Colorists are paid a fortune. Mm-hmm. That is the key. I boy. I wish you could apply a codec to these 8k 60 files, because I don't want to do it and it takes a whole lot of time. But that's the, that's the secret, that and I actually edit in the in that set. That's the one thing that I don't see other people doing, because you can tell right away, because they put something 3d up and it, the, the occlusions, all messed up, because the.
Speaker 2:Words are through. People say it. Well, yeah, you got to sit there. The whole red and the anaglyph glasses Don't do it, it's not not good enough. Yeah, we have to be in a headset. You got to be able to play around in it, which also means your computer is. I have the most ridiculously sized Computer you could possibly imagine. It's what you got to do, man. I don't think there's anywhere around it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. As someone who just had to rebuild my machine said something more powerful.
Speaker 2:I watched you. I remember you saying yep, we lost everything Started. Go fund me from my freaking computer rig. I feel you, brother, yeah yeah, the Alicia Keys video.
Speaker 1:That one was interesting because it was grainier than I thought it was going to be. I don't know, it must have been shot by different, like a different team, I'm guessing I bet it's in camera, it's just not nearly as much light as being outside.
Speaker 3:I mean you're talking about orders of magnitude different from light.
Speaker 2:So and what the nice thing about with the Alicia Keys video? That's when I was almost certain that they were using a Canon special eye lens. Yeah, a different camera, because you can see they have three towers in the Alicia Keys they're white towers and you see the lenses and I'm like dude, I guarantee you they're just hiding the fact that they're the Canon lenses and you know a better camera.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you might be right. I mean, because you've had what, you've been able to spend more time with that stuff. Where is, like like saw this one quick demo because there's some shots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like look at the camera. Was trying to find the camera. Yeah, I can't believe they actually let us see it. I was pretty stunned by that because the Alicia Keys thing, I guess they wanted to make it like a hang, so they didn't want cameraman in there, so they just set it all up and everybody went away, which I get for a vibe. But oh, I wouldn't have let it, I wouldn't let people see what they did. I always they gave away too much information.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're gonna move on to the featured videos for this, for this episode. So the, the two videos that we're featuring the first one is the sushi master from behind the dish by Targo, and the other is travel with caro chimborazo, which is in Ecuador. The the traveled caro video we found a couple months ago, but we had some other stuff come in and then the the Targo video is actually from a couple years ago and I'd seen a few. I've seen most of Targo's work before. They've been around since 2018, or at least that's when their first project was produced or released. Anthony, this was your selection, so tell us. Tell us about what, what you?
Speaker 3:think so yeah, I mean, this was part of my like. He had just trying to find decent quality. You know material on on any deal were meta and stumbled into this one and you know it's good. It starts out just like solid good. You know where it's. They're telling a story, they're using the medium, I think correctly, and not moving the camera in any weird ways. It's cool to be in Japan and you're seeing, like this, the shop and it is that 3d 360, 3d 360 which is another great example of why I don't think it's necessary, because I don't know that I.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of times when, if you look around, they're on a hillside. I didn't even realize it wasn't VR 180 for about seven or eight minutes and but so, like every now and then, you you'd be in a space where it might pay off a little bit to look around. You see, up the hill instead of just down the hill. But it comes at a cost of like bad stitching lines. Like I kept seeing stitch lines, I was like it takes you out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's half the resolution now, exactly, yeah, it's just like oh, so I feel like again unnecessary. That was one of the first videos I watched when I started getting into this one. Oh yeah, yeah. So I know exactly what you were talking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, they're using a custom camera, the macro the macro food shots are what really took my breath away. Like that was more impressive than anything I saw yesterday on the AVP demo.
Speaker 2:It is Gorgeous like absolutely exquisite footage that and this is where the adult entertainment industry told us what you're supposed to do With these cameras. It's up close stuff. Yeah, I need to get any more graphic than that, but that's the point. That's what it works. Well, yeah, right, like good, within two feet. All right, yeah, now you know that's, as long as you have that in focus. Oh, my goodness, I don't know how much of my New Zealand stuff you saw, but, like when I did, the cyclists hang on the back of me, yeah yeah, that stuff was really great.
Speaker 2:We can. What's that?
Speaker 1:I said that stuff was really great.
Speaker 2:Right, so I'm as close to them as I can, only because that's what makes you feel like look at the background, right? Yeah, like you know, I just showed you the background. They'd be like Alex, awful, it's all blurry and crap. No, but if you're right close to them now, you're seeing something, and now you're looking in the background While seeing them in your peripheral vision. That's the magic which feels real.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, I thought that the the it had a very confident style of storytelling, which I think it also very much mimics the way that you do your videos where there's a there's a scene, that There'suba voiceover narrating what's happening in the frame, and it seems like that's a very popular way of storytelling in VR.
Speaker 3:It's a direct translation from 2D doc work though, too. That's the thing. That's where it translates right over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's super necessary for one reason when you immerse somebody, it's overwhelming. If you don't talk them through what to look at in these beginning ages, you're gonna run into some problems and it's gonna be very hard for them to follow a narrative unless there's this nice sounding voice that explains to you what's going. I mean, it's trite. It's not something you always wanna do. It's very trite. In flat video, right, it's almost like look down upon as a lazy narrative. But in VR 180, oh man, it's funny, because the NFL didn't want me to do any voiceover in the reel they were selling to Apple Amena and I just fought with them and I said, guys, you have to ground the people in some sort of reality, because if you put somebody who's never been in it before they go oh oh, oh, oh, and you can't possibly tell them what they're seeing, you have to, and it's really shocking to me how many of your videos there isn't even an attempt at storytelling.
Speaker 1:It's just really a guy with a camera filming stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, and most unfortunately, the storytelling stuff that I've seen. That is fiction. It's so gimmicky that and that's a big problem a huge problem and I'm actually now trying to work on. I said in one of the videos I've been doing all these tests. I've made you feel present in real life. I would like to make it feel like you're present inside a movie from the 1980s. I want the different feel, frame rates and grain or whatever. But I said, I want you to feel like you're in a cinematic experience and that's a whole different thing. But you can't be gimmicky. You have to set it up like a real film shoot.
Speaker 1:Well, can't you? What do you mean? Here's a question for you. If you were doing something like that, would you have an objective or a subjective camera?
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on what you're doing. Obviously I'm saying try to do it subjective, try to do it that way only, like I'm working on something where I literally just pour alcohol, pour whiskey in a glass which has been happening a lot since the and playing a song and leaving the ring. I mean we're talking a one minute, two minute piece, but those are the kind of things that are just. It's why I keep telling you guys to do just go do little things like that. Work on the lighting. See all the things you can do. Your Canon R5C is really good. The Dual ISO. It's an amazing camera. I mean, it's a Netflix approved cinema camera. It's no joke. So you've got all the tools there.
Speaker 2:I don't get caught up in the stories as much as learn the film, the techniques. All of my first 80 freaking VR, 180 videos were putting myself in really uncomfortable situations and seeing if I could get anything out of it that was workable, right, that's the key and that's why it's gotten to a level now where I mean you guys were able to see the RAM, both using all the RAMs, real Okay, yeah, yeah, dude, oh, jesus, you're right behind Stafford as he's throwing the pass. It's like, oh my God, that took months of testing to be able to do that. The problem is is that when it's live, you got one shot, and if I had missed that shot it would have been over. So that's what you got to get over. You got to just start recording.
Speaker 1:So our next video is travel with Caro, from Caro VR chimbrazo, and so this one is. It takes place in Ecuador. This is a shorter video, but it's one of the first videos that I've seen that as soon as I put my headset on and looked at the environment they were shooting in, I was like, oh my God, this is incredible. This is what. This is how you get transported to another location. It is. It looks like they're probably using like K1 Pro or something, because it was a little grainy. But despite that and another thing that they did really well that I think needs to be the standard for any sort of travel or dock, or at least if you're doing sort of a tour type of situation is you have to have a host. Yeah, you have a host.
Speaker 3:A subject to follow.
Speaker 1:A subject to follow is so important and it's something that I picked from my last video too, from the Shoshimilco is that she's talking to the camera and we're following her around and it's clear that they're figuring out the format, but as soon, and then the dynamism between the mountain scape, but then when they go into the actual cabin itself, the cabin is what'd you guys think?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean yes, so my only disappointment. So, like I've, honestly, immediately when I turned it on, I was disappointed because it looked really soft and low-res.
Speaker 1:It was soft.
Speaker 3:So I think they had some technical issues, because after that, it was just very sharp. And it was beautiful and so I was bought into it. And once they went into the cabin, like you're saying, and then went back out after that, everything looked great and I was sold on the whole thing. But yeah, I mean, it's like a friend has taken you, like here's this cool location or whatever, and you're there. It was effective of what they were trying to do.
Speaker 2:Adam did you watch this one? I did. I have nothing more to add. I literally had the exact same thing. Thought it was grainy, which is just, unfortunately, all I ever do if you're not using a Canon R5C. Oh, did I just did my.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're back, you're back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, like I'm a snob now, right.
Speaker 3:This is exactly what happened to me. I was like I'm just like filtering by 8K, now I don't even want to see anything now.
Speaker 2:And not only a snob, but it's also like I just think less of. I don't spend time on it because it's already so difficult to you know. I feel like if you're serious, you bought the Canon R5C and a Dual-Fish Eye, and if you didn't, you're not serious and I got other stuff to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't it's feeling necessarily there's still going to be content that's made by it's harsh, but I kind of agree.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm tending to agree and I don't even want to agree, but yeah, I don't know, I still think there's a place in the market for, you know, prosumer level content. Yeah, it's all the hot girl videos.
Speaker 1:So, adam, I think we're going to use the rest of this time. Just tell us what's been going on with you. What is, what is the-.
Speaker 2:I was waiting for you to get to the real drama. I was like you're really going to have me on talking about all the other people because I got some awful stuff. That happened.
Speaker 1:No, this was always the intention. This was always the intention. I know.
Speaker 2:I, as you know, booked the Super Bowl on December 8th and what I think most people don't realize is that it required me to turn my company into an S corp. It required maybe $12,000 worth of backups. It required a tremendous amount of production, meetings and so forth to prepare for a Super Bowl. Shoot my goodness right. It's the biggest thing ever. And on January 16th it was announced, through variety, that Disney was going to be by deal with ESPN and NFL or whatever. They were going to take over NFL media, which is who I was working for, which basically just froze everybody's account. And they said until the merger goes through, we can't everything's frozen. And I'm like well, my credit card wasn't frozen.
Speaker 3:What do I do now?
Speaker 2:I'm like. So I got a good deal of everything back. Money wise, I got to tip my hat at Amazon their return policies it was already open, thank God. There were a couple of things where I was like are they?
Speaker 2:really going to give me. Okay, they gave it all back and then at this point thank God the Super Bowl is now over because I thought I was okay until that pregame started and I was like, who, who, who? That hurts. I'll tell you what hurts the most. This is the first time my family has ever been around me when something of that magnitude happened.
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of show business stories where I had my own light night show that was going to run up against Craig Ferguson on CBS and then the guy that did it got fired and I was like, oh, but we were already in talk. They're like no, everything he did Greenland's gone. And you're like, oh, what? But I never had. I had never told my kids I was going to be at the Super Bowl. And they told their friends, hey, my dad can be at the Super Bowl. And then they have to have the egg on their face. When they're like we didn't see you at the Super Bowl, we didn't see you. It's like, oh, geez. So that was the hardest part about all this is that I've got to like I feel bad for everybody who's gone on this journey with me. And then there's all the people that be like, ah, you probably didn't really have it. I'm like, oh God, did I have it? Oh God, did I spend out the nose for it? That being said, once the initial shock went off, I have been contacting every single DeLorean contact that I had in the 10 years of doing Rent the Lorin, and it's quite a list actually. I mean I worked for Facebook and Google and YouTube, and I mean every big company Apple I've worked for all these people. But I worked for Lakers TV and I contacted that producer which has now set up all of this stuff, with all of these people finally seeing it not necessarily the leagues, but the people that produce and showcase some of it, and all about trying to do behind the scenes footage. For you know, I'm in a great town. We've got major league baseball, we've got hockey, we've got basketball, we've got soccer, we've got all that kind of stuff. So the good news on all this is the merger goes through in April. With the NFL they are still going to be pitching to Apple and Metta. Presuming the new bosses at Disney and ESPN think that's a good idea. I can't imagine why they wouldn't. They already have, you know. Yeah, the biggest concern has to be they're like oh, that sounds great, that's a great real. We got some people that are gonna do that and then that's that's the biggest concern, right, because who am I? Who is? But except I'm the guy that did what that real and that real is. So you just kind of have to have faith that what you did is different than what anybody else did and, in the meantime, do everything you can to get you know established doing other stuff. That's the hope you.
Speaker 2:I need a press release with my company and another big company talking about a partnership. I get one of those kind of home free, right. So that's, I'm just pushing, and pushing, and pushing. And I got meetings lined up next week, the week after, basically the way I looked at it, I told my accountants what happened and they're like, oh, I'm sorry, we already put all the paperwork in and I said it's gonna be my goal To make me have needed to have an escort at some point. This yeah, I certainly have the right offs, I need a few right arms, but at the moment, yeah, no, I again.
Speaker 2:It's unbelievably devastating and disappointing news, but the the real is undeniable. It's just one of those things that anybody who sees it I'm out of. If you saw me on the radio last week with, yeah, yeah, I saw that dude, he lost his mind, I mean. And then afterwards they talked about and then he showed his producer and they're all like I, they didn't. They literally had no idea that the concept was even possible. Because anybody who's ever watched video in 360, they're like, yeah, yeah, it's alright, I guess. Yeah, alright, I guess. But that Rams Reel is like okay, that felt like I was standing there and I want to see more of that, please. I thought I just had somebody email me like so I'm gonna get the camera 5c, what are your suggestions? I'm like, oh shit.
Speaker 1:Everything, every since, my entire life.
Speaker 2:I'm like yo you how YouTube. Good luck, yeah, but yeah, because that I mean. That guy has I can't say where. He says he's the greatest person I've ever met. I got.
Speaker 1:I love you Honestly. We've been watching you for years, for literally years now. Half the stuff that we know how to do we learn from him, Absolutely and I love him to death.
Speaker 2:I am amazed at how many times I've had to slow down the video, because I really want to hear everything he's saying.
Speaker 1:But his, he's so Ado lovable, passionate about the medium, yeah, and you can see it in every word and his, his dedication to Comparing the quality of cameras. I mean there were definitely. We had a z cam k1 pro for a while that we got based on his advice and the quality at the time was the huge leap for us at the time at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know you and and yeah, he's the key to anybody who's buying Can our five you. But I'll still tell you there is no secret. It's really hard. You got to be able to color grade and you better have a really fast computer.
Speaker 1:That's it. Yeah, if you try to do this, they, if you try to do it on a potato, you're gonna nuke your rig.
Speaker 2:But yeah, again, there really is no secret. It's, it's work. I just work and work, and work, and work and work, and just like anything like the cannon goodness, everything's manual man, like god damn it, like I mean, that's another thing we I haven't had to deal with a long time I've been, you know, for some things I don't do autofocus, but I sure liked it. Yeah, you know, alright, or I don't know, having a codec. I know people love raw, but for this it's really over the top. It's this is not, you don't? I would love to have a codec on that. Okay, 60 file. Yeah, I'm dying for Canada. Release of body that does like I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not a professional DP, but I've shot stuff and the first time I had to use the Canada if I see I Was, you know, it was like being pushed off a cliff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a learning curve. I mean, if you don't know, if you don't do that, I'm since I do that. I mean it was comfortable for me.
Speaker 2:But well, but the biggest thing for me is camera movement. I I Immediately said there's no way I can do the journey without moving the camera. Oh, my god, it's. This is what I do, right? I've done a hundred videos a year for 25 years. So if I'm gonna, I have to insert it into the journey somehow. So it has to be movement.
Speaker 2:And then you introduce motion sickness. Thank God my wife has a weak stomach because she became my guinea pig. Your canary, yeah, goodness the canary, the amount of canary in the coal. My mistakes I made that poor woman. I Mean because you're sick for two hours. It's not like you're okay, you minutes, she'd be, she'd be out. I'd be like, oh, talk to you in two hours. I Slowly working back up, it's slowly working back up. So, yeah, it's just hard. And I get why they're Appalachian pros doing the spatial video and I understand the baby step that that is. However, spatial video just isn't. I mean the parallax, come on guys, vr 180, if shot correctly, is the most immersive thing you've ever felt in your life. So yeah, it's a video.
Speaker 2:It feels like a band aid to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty much it. That's the whole, that's the whole game right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Band aid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we're thousand no mandate yeah with a 1500 water phone I got typically for spatial video and I was like yeah, why'd I do that? Are there any? Any closing, any closing remarks, anything you want to say to the audience, anything you want to say to us, oh, no, I'm just I'll say it for the third time go shoot man.
Speaker 2:Yep, cute, keep shooting. I. I I've watched this too many times. It should even in flat, the flat world of people like, well, we need you put the planning stages. People are so worried about putting something out. That isn't the best and I'm like it's not gonna be. Just put, just keep going, because you progress infinitely. I mean, the difference between my video five and my video 25 is Night and day.
Speaker 1:Yeah and we have what we definitely have learned a lot from, just like very basic Videos that we thought were just gonna be a side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right and that, and that's the key. Put yourself in the weirdest lighting positions, understand that camera, keep key and again, movement. You're gonna have to learn to move the camera. You're so isolated if you're not moving the camera. Get, get yourself a little bit of a gimbal and then just throw it in your headset and watch it and Test it 4k 60 so you can watch the files quicker. Right, that's the. That's a. That's a good tip. Just go do tests, put it in and you'd be surprised at how many mistakes you made that you didn't realize you made.
Speaker 2:The tiniest left and right movement, you lose the audience. And you didn't even see it at the time, because when you're filming on this thing, it's just a little goddamn. I bought some of those mature glasses, right Does, oh yeah, and and it actually kind of helps. It actually gives you a little bigger screen. Why watch it? But there's just all this extra equipment and it's kind of a pain in the butt. But yeah, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. We need more people that aren't just gonna sew boobs. Oh my god. Yeah, I love boobs, but I'm so tired of.
Speaker 1:My senior. One more ass in a in a thumbnail. You know like I.
Speaker 2:And I just don't understand why they don't just put it on the boot page. It's they're gonna find it, people are gonna find it.
Speaker 1:So I think that I think they're very quickly learning their lesson, because they're well. They definitely in the last like three months, seem to have done a better job Changing it up depends on the day, dude.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not sure I agree the hour Okay I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably it, guys. Adam, thank you so much for being on the the podcast. I really appreciate it. It was great having you.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, man, yeah man I.