I Watched the Debate in Virtual Reality. Things Got Weird
Last night, CNN aired the first Democratic debate of the 2016 election to millions of TV viewers, and to an indeterminate but undoubtedly much smaller number of virtual-reality headset owners. CNN worked with California company NextVR, which is building a live-broadcast infrastructure for the VR community. Using Oculus’s software and Samsung’s hardware, they brought a real-time broadcast to face-computer-wearing viewers everywhere.
Roller says NextVR is working on ways to integrate graphics, social media, and even broadcasters into the stream. He thinks that when it works right, virtual reality can combine the best of being there with the best of TV, in a single experience.
“Ultimately, we have the ability to have people go to the debate,” he says, “where you’re at your house and I’m at my house, but we’re both watching the debate together from better than a front-row seat. And we’re able to stop it, and start it, and ultimately—hey, did you see someone do that? And then rewind and see it again.”
Forget Twitter—what if we were all there, at the Wynn, together in the audience? Someday, I think, virtual reality will enable that. But there’s a long way to go. The screen resolution, the camera setup, the entire industry’s understanding of how virtual reality is supposed to work when it’s streamed live to everyone’s face-computer. Oh, and one more thing: It needs to not overheat my phone right in the middle of closing arguments.
See the full story here: http://www.wired.com/2015/10/dnc-debate-virtual-reality-gear-vr/