Prima Immersive on Apple Vision Pro offers the highest quality immersive 3D video yet, sharper than even Apple Immersive Video.
The app, only available in the US, currently offers one 16 minute immersive music session of the bluegrass band AJ Lee & Blue Summit, priced at $3.99. A one minute free immersive trailer is available.
Trying out Prima on Vision Pro, the sharpness of the image is truly remarkable. We highly praised Apple Immersive Video in our Vision Pro review, and Prima is even higher quality. After over a decade of streamed immersive video, this is the sharpest I've ever tried.
The startup behind Prima Immersive is called Immersive Company, and says it built a custom camera it calls Immersive Camera Two to capture the footage. It provides the same 8K per eye resolution, 90 FPS, HDR, and spatial audio as Apple's custom immersive cameras (based on its NextVR acquisition) and the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive, which Prima will support "in the coming months".
So how is Prima sharper than Apple Immersive Video, if it's the same resolution? The answer is software, not hardware. The startup says it developed "the world's first immersive video encoder", specifically designed to compress 8K per eye 90FPS HDR immersive footage, with "industry-leading visual fidelity" at 40-80% lower bitrate than traditional encoders like x265 or Apple's VideoToolbox.
x265 encoder (left) vs Prima encoder (right)
However, there is one way in which it seems to be inferior: perspective. The 3D effect seems slightly less pronounced, and turning your head results in more warping. This is likely a limitation of the Immersive Camera Two hardware though, not the Prima software.
With Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive becoming available to studios, Immersive Company plans to turn Prima into the highest-quality portal for immersive video, a title it has, in my experience, taken from Apple.
If you own an Apple Vision Pro and live in the US, you should absolutely try out Prima Immersive, as the sharpness is truly something to behold.
