Most Americans have a soft spot in their heart. For some this is caused by eating chili cheese fries dipped in a chocolate milkshake, but for most, it is caused by baseball. I fall solidly into this latter camp and it was therefore an absolute thrill to realize that the virtual reality startup NextVR would be putting on an immersive production of one of my favorite hardball events: the annual home run derby.
NextVR has been a steady producer of VR content for a myriad of headsets since before hardware like the Oculus Rift even launched. Its previous efforts have included boxing matches, basketball games, and other large-scale public events. NextVR’s March Madness broadcast was one of the most incredible sports experiences I’ve ever had, and so I went in to yesterday’s derby production with relatively high hopes. Upon powering up my Samsung Gear VR and launching into the experience I discovered something that was both incredibly encouraging, and massively disappointing for the emerging industry of immersive broadcasts.
Note: the above video will likely look a lot crisper running in single vision on your computer than it did running in split stereoscopic with head tracking on my phone.
Let’s start with the good news. As soon as the event’s splash screen faded and the real show began, I was instantly taken aback by how good the video looked. Let me be clear here, good in this context is a highly relative term. One of this type of video’s main limitations is resolution . NextVR, however, has clearly learned some powerful tricks throughout its many projects.
The first thing I noticed was depth. NextVR really does a nice job taking advantage of VR’s unique stereoscopic 3D rendering options. The depth of field in this production was incredible and really made players pop, landscapes feel real, and crowds seem massive. Unfortunately, this is where the positive features ends.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a baseball up close, but they’re quite small. Small enough that they are a bit hard to see on a high resolution, 4K, television broadcast and small enough that they are basically impossible to see in a low resolution VR video. This means that in NextVR’s home run derby production, you can see the crisp swing of your favorite player, hear the crack of the bat, and…then try fruitlessly to figure out where the ball went. Not an ideal scenario for spectating a home run contest where your primary interest is tracking how far the ball went and where it lands.
My view was consistently a noticeable problem during this experience. It would have been nice to have one or two viewpoints that I could cycle through by tapping my headset. What NextVR opted for, however, was an automatically rotating camera that took me intermittently between three or four angles. Of these angles, some were way too far in the bleachers to see the batter, and others were way too close to the batter to see the ball land. They did, however, provide an up close and personal look at some of the derby’s more ancillary moments such as the flock of kids that hang out in left field to grab fly balls.
The final, and perhaps most disappointing, aspect of this showing was that NextVR presented the derby in 180 degrees, meaning that if I turned my head too far, or turned around altogether, I was met with nothing but blackness. This made what should have felt like an open, outdoor experience feel cramped.
Virtual reality and sports could one day be an unstoppable combination. NextVR gave me a glimpse of how amazing it will be one day to find myself standing in the on deck circle watching my major league heroes rip bombs over the fences. For now, however, I found myself feeling more frustration than delight in this particular experience.
Future VR headsets will increase the industry’s collective resolution, but for now, this fledgling broadcasting method has a lot in common with a baseball at home plate that wants to become a home run: it has an awfully long way to go. If you want to check out the video, it should be available in the NextVR app.
