IMAX Embraces Virtual Reality, To Open Six VR Theaters This Year (theverge.com) 32
An anonymous reader writes: IMAX is getting into the virtual reality business. Tthe company has announced that it is teaming up with Google to build cinema-quality virtual reality video cameras. It is also planning to launch virtual reality "locations." The cinemas will be opened in shopping malls, much like traditional movie theatres. There are six reportedly planned for this year, including in Los Angeles and China. From the Verge report: IMAX chief executive Richard Gelfond told The WSJ that he imagined that the VR content would be tied to existing movie franchises, that they would last around 10 minutes and cost between $7 and $10. The idea, suggests Gelfond, is to create a VR experience that's better than what you can get at home -- the same way that a movie theater is better than your living room TV.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
I liked this part (Score:2)
Like crying infants? Disease-ridden theatergoers? Uncomfortable seating? Deluges of bad ads? Bathroom half a football field away with no pause button? Like that?
Nope. I'll stick with my awesome home theater, thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
Up to a dollar per minute. Shall I lube up now?
Sounds like I need to call a 1-900 number to buy tickets.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I've been waiting for this! (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can go stagger around and throw up in front of strangers, rather than in the privacy of my home!
Oh, wait, there are already places for me to do that. They're called "bars".
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Virtual titty bar. Including robotic silicon tits for motorboating and a RC truck full of week old anchovies to drive by when you're sitting in virtual gyno row.
This post has a date stamp. Prior art for when someone tries to patent the business model.
Re:Oh, I've been waiting for this! (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a Vive, and have experienced zero sickness while playing room-scale. It's just fast-moving sit-down games like Project Cars that cause a problem.
There's a lot of potential to group room-scale VR in very large rooms. You can even add tracked props to allow touch.
Re:Oh, I've been waiting for this! (Score:4, Informative)
It's all down to content.
Of course the headset can make you sick standing up. It can also make you fall on your ass. If it doesn't, it's because the content, more or less, keeps up pointed up.
Re: (Score:2)
Room-scale VR does not cause any motion sickness.
Oh, it certainly does. It's down to the content. If it looks like you are stood on a moving platform but your inner ear doesn't feel motion, or if the frame rate suddenly drops, it becomes a vomitorium.
Re: (Score:2)
Room-scale VR does not cause any motion sickness. It's just seated VR that's a problem to some of us, because our inner-ears tell us that we're sitting still, but the world is moving around us.
I beg to differ. One of my most memorable VR-sickness experiences was in a three-wall CAVE. Three walls or six doesn't seem to make much difference; once enough of your visual field disagrees with your inner ear, they start to fight, and the loser is always my stomach.
The problem was that only one of us was tracked as the preferred viewpoint, so perspective and motion were off for the rest of us. Unless everything you're rendering is far enough away that parallax isn't a factor, I don't think there's much y
Re: (Score:2)
Room-scale VR does not cause any motion sickness.
I general, I do not suffer from real motion sickness. But the first time I saw IMAX shot out of the side of a helicopter, as opposed to from beneath it, I had to close my eyes or urp.
So much better than 3D (Score:3)
No more getting motion sickness after an hour, now all it takes is a minute!
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It seems to be based on a misconception anyway. Cinema screens are not better than my TV. They are bigger, but not better.
But seriously people, let's face it (Score:3)
Whether it's 3d, VR or as far as I care smellorama, as long as the movies are simply uninteresting, formulaic and bland, the characters one dimensional and the acting wooden, you can put as much icing as you want on the shitcake, it won't taste any better.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't think I could have made a better post myself. Now days most movie producers would rather spend tons more money on effects then on writers that can... well write a decent story. I had an ex boss that used to call it "polishing a turd".
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Take what you want, but don't tell me how it tasted, ok?
Caveat emptor (Score:1)
Since this involves Google, be prepared to give up some type of personal information for the privilege of paying to refine their VR hardware.
BYOVB (Score:2)
Um, so... Problem? (Score:2, Flamebait)
"Wow Bob, the surround sound is amazing. Those gunshots sound so real! Wait, why are their gunshots in Fried Green Tomatoes 2? Bob?.... Bob?"
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly, just about everyone left at Slashdot is "that guy" these days. If anyone wants a negative spin on any technology, this is the place to go.
Yea I kind of hate that this was the first thing I thought of. I have to agree with you, it's become very anti-technology, anti-science, anti-society around lately.
Holodeck (Score:2)
I really hope they don't do it from a single perspective with an ability to move around. I would definitely pay for 10 minutes of walking around inside of a movie within a 15 ft x 15 ft space. That would be truly awesome.
cinema better than home? (Score:2)
fuck all those noisy bastards in the cinema who talk clatter,block your view and generally fuck things up for the likes of me... someone who likes to sit and watch something without interruptions
yeah yeah I'm a grumpy old shit... now get the fuck off my lawn!
Re: cinema better than home? (Score:1)
This will be the biggest thing since 3D movies! (Score:2)
trailers (Score:2)
"the same way that a movie theater is better..." (Score:2)
"...than your living room TV."
Which part is that, the part where I pay $20 for smelly nacho's or the part where I get to enjoy my movie in crappy seats surrounded by rude louts?
I can't figure there is a single part of the movie theatre experience that I miss at all.