YouTube channel Defunctland has gone out of their way to digitally recreate the now-defunct 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ride from Disney World as an immersive 360 degree video that can be enjoyed from inside of a VR headset.
The best and easiest way to watch this would be to open up YouTube VR in a Quest and search for 20,000 Leagues VR — watch this one from Defunctland:
Typically, when a ride at an amusement park is decommissioned, it’s typically lost forever. But now diehard supporters and talented programmers are doing their part to digitally archive experiences using VR so that fans around the world can still experience them.
The original 1954 was a live action Disney production and is an iconic sci-fi adventure film about a sea monster attacking a crew in the Pacific Ocean. It won Academy Awards for both Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects as one of the first-ever feature film to be shot in CinemaScope, which was used to shoot widescreen movies. You can watch it now via Disney+ streaming.
The ride itself was featured at Disney World from the 70s until the mid 90s before it was shut down and removed to make way for others. Notably, Disney doesn’t actually refer to its rides as “rides” but instead “attractions” officially as they are meant to represent entire experiences from the moment you set foot in the park, approach the area of the ride, wait in line, etc. — these are all parts of the “experience” and it’s difficult to recapture that even in a VR headset.
We wrote about how immersive the new Star Wars ride is at Disneyland for this very reason.
Efforts like this from Defunctland to archive attractions and help make sure they live on is amazing to see and hopefully they can continue to do this kind of work with other decommissioned rides like Delta Dreamflight or the originally incarnation of Snow White’s Scary Adventures.
Die Telekom lädt euch auf ein exklusives Virtual-Reality-Entspannungsprogramm ein. Dieses ist erhältlich bei Magenta VR, der interaktiven VR-App des Telekommunikationsanbieters und beinhaltet mehrere 360-Grad-Videos, die euch an beeindruckende Orte mit besonderen Klängen bringen.
Virtual-Reality-Entspannungsprogramm mit binauraler Musik für intensive Erholung
Mit den neuen Relax-VR-Videos zeigt die Telekom in Kooperation mit dem Softwareunternehmen Magic Horizons, wie entspannend schon wenige Minuten in einer virtuellen Umgebung sein können. Sowohl bei der Arbeit als auch im privaten Umfeld werden viele Menschen mit stressigen Situationen konfrontiert. Langfristig können diese Belastungen die Lebensqualität einschränken und den allgemeinen Gesundheitszustand negativ beeinflussen. Es ist also wichtig, hin und wieder den Alltag zu vergessen, um Stress abzubauen und hierfür hat Magic Horizions die passenden Videos produziert. Eine Studie der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin bestätigt die positive Wirkung von Virtual-Reality-Anwendungen:
“Die Studien zeigen, dass das für eine hohe Entspannungswirkung entscheidende Maß an gefühlter Präsenz mit VR die zurzeit bestmögliche Technologie ist. Unterstützt wird die visuelle Intensität durch die stereoskopischen Inhalte, die auch Magic Horizons bietet. Die hohe Renderqualität der Magic Horizons Erfahrungen spielt dabei ebenfalls eine entscheidende Rolle und verstärkt den Präsenzeffekt.“ bestätigt Dr. Christian Stein, Lehrbeauftragter Basisprojekt Virtuelle und reale Architektur des Wissens, IBI an der HU Berlin. “Der Ansatz von Magic Horizons, binaurale, orchestrale musikalische Erfahrungen in Verbindung mit stereoskopischen Bildern in Virtual Reality zu schaffen, zielt damit auf Entspannungswirkung, Stress- sowie Angstreduktion ab.”
Hier noch ein paar Infos zu den veröffentlichten Videos:
Day at the River
Ruhe finden am Flusslauf der Isar mitten im bayerischen Karwendelgebirge. Lass einfach los und beobachte, wie das türkisfarbene Wasser des Flusses durch diese ursprüngliche Landschaft fließt. Das kühle, klare Wasser lässt Alltagsgedanken in den Hintergrund treten. Die türkisgrüne Farbe hat auch hier gemäß der Humboldt-Studie für Magic Horizons eine besonders beruhigende Wirkung auf die menschliche Psyche.
Dolphins’ Dream
Hast du schon immer davon geträumt, mit Delfinen zu schwimmen und zu tauchen? Jetzt kannst du dir diesen Wunsch mit Magic Horizons in Virtual Reality erfüllen. Tauche ein in einen Schwarm von Delfinen und beobachte deren magischen Tanz.
Gorge Walk
Energie gewinnen in der ursprünglichen Landschaft der Alpen. Entspanne auf einer geführten Höhenwanderung und lasse die Seele an klaren Bergbächen baumeln. Das viele Grün hat eine wohltuende, entspannende und befreiende Wirkung auf die menschliche Psyche.
Golden Autumn
Durchatmen an einem wunderschönen Herbsttag in Litauen. Goldgelbes Laub, lauschige Wälder und romantische Seen laden zum Verweilen ein. Die Schönheit dieser Landschaft gepaart mit der binauralen Musik führt schnell zu einem entspannten Zustand und lässt Alltagssorgen zurück.
We spoke with the director of Virtual (Black) Reality, Baff Akoto, about how his latest collection of immersive short films tell a connected tale of shared identity.
I wasn’t always a fan of virtual reality. Conceptually, I was on board. It was the practicality of it all – as much as I would’ve enjoyed emulating Ready Player One from the comfort of my home, the associated cost of an Oculus Rift and VR ready PC kept that dream out of reach. And given the fact that VR had come and go multiple times throughout the years, I didn’t think it would last long enough for me to indulge. It had always been a fad.
But, my views started to change as things progressed.
[UploadVR regularly commissions freelance writers to review products, write stories, and contribute op-ed pieces to the site. This article is a feature piece from an established journalist.]
Virtual (Black) Reality: Volume 2
With new technology came expanded uses. I started to see VR headsets as more than expensive toys/machines meant to render virtual worlds for us to play in. I saw them as tools. An avenue to accessible gaming. A means of fighting discrimination. And most recently, a powerful way to connect with others.
This was made most apparent after viewing a narrative VR series called Virtual (Black) Reality: Volume 2. Directed by Baff Akoto (Football Fables, Leave the Edge), the series takes a brief look into the lives of four African-descended Berliners and Parisians.
The goal was to represent black communities that are seldom depicted in mainstream media while also sharing parts of the Afropean experience to others around the world. The shorts do more than that though. They also make aware an undeniable truth. That black people, regardless of origin, have a lot in common with one another.
The idea that we all share a basic level of familiarity isn’t new. As a black person living in the US, this sort of thing is a regular occurrence. Still, I was moved by what I saw in each of Akoto’s short films. It could have been due to my current disposition – 2020 has been a rough year for everyone – or the fact that it was nice to see black people in a state of just being.
Director, Baff Akoto
But each short resonated with me on a deep level. In them, I found a part of me that I didn’t know was missing. A shared familiarity to unique spaces, some of which I’d had never actually been in. Talking with Akoto, he’d express similar feelings.
“I think it was always a very inherent thing to understand,” explained Akoto over the phone. “That we are global, as black folks, as people or descendants from the African diaspora.”
We are global.
Filmed in 180°, Virtual (Black) Reality was first conceived as part of the YouTube Creators Lab in London back in 2018. The series would eventually land in this year’s BFI London Film Festival as part of the LFF Expanded – the festival’s special grouping of immersive art. Its placement within the festival is a testament to the care that went into each short. Shot in a manner befitting a given subject, the audience is always afforded an intimate perspective on the onscreen happenings. Building on this space are the subjects themselves. Whether it’s Babs in his barber shop or Bella in her dance studio, they all are more than comfortable sharing a part of themselves with Akoto (and the rest of the world).
Outside looking in, Baff Akoto accomplishes his goal – as expressed by him in the details used to explain the series. There’s more to it than just sharing these experiences though. It was also to provide a sense of community. Raised in London and Accra, he didn’t always feel properly represented. Akoto explained that “being African, West African or Ghanaian, was an anomaly [in the UK]. You didn’t really see that representation in the culture. So, from an early age, you kind of pick up that my kind of black wasn’t really mainstream black, ya know?”
The lack of representation wasn’t necessarily indictive of a largely shared sentiment among Afropeans; they weren’t hatful of West African’s or anything like that. On the contrary. The diversity was well met. It’s just that some of us might not always feel as welcome as we should. “You talk to your friends in Germany or your cousins in France and you know, there’s this unconscious kind of multiplicity. Like, this inherent diversity amongst black folks and Africans.” He continued, “but as the same time, [we’re seen] or recognized for being black.”
Akoto wanted to explore the wider context of being black. He didn’t want to focus on our shared trauma though, instead keeping the series grounded in tradition and heritage. “There’s a very well-oiled machine that…kind of commoditizes Black Pain, right? That’s something we are very used to seeing.” I nodded as he talked about how we see ourselves in film. How those works frequent the Oscars. No shade given though. “I mean, they’re very fine projects by very fine filmmakers,” said Akoto. “And I’m not saying I won’t ever do [something like that] but this wasn’t that. This was very much about black life and showing communities.” He wanted to show everyday life.
That’s not to say that his shorts didn’t include any history. One of his shorts featured Kwesi, who works at the Each One Teach One library in Berlin. In it, he shares his views on early German colonial aggression on the African continent. Between 1904 and 1908, German forces would enact the first genocide of the 20th century; they killed Herero, Nama, and San people, sending thousands of them to the first German controlled concentration camps. When I asked Akoto why he included this segment along with the others, given his aim to showcase normal life, he expressed its importance to the culture. “I don’t think we have culture without history, ya know. Like, neither of those things could exist in a vacuum, right?”
Akoto explained that the irrational damage of history is in culture and vice versa. “The Germans have a long and sordid history with colonialism. And if you’re Black and you’re German, that’s something that you need to know and understand in order to kind of make sense of your place in that particular country.” In other words, these shorts mostly offer a peak into the everyday lives of black people. The extra bit of history helps to contextualize their current standing in these countries. “I’m really interested in showing something that wasn’t sensational or headline-worthy,” said Akoto. “Just show another day in the life of people like you or me, you know?”
Virtual (Black) Reality: Volume 2 is profound. On the surface, it might seem mundane. We’re just watching people do their thing? Well, yes. In doing so, we’re allowed to be viewed as normal people. Not the downtrodden. Not slaves. But as black people living our lives. It also showcases a part of the Afropean experience. A view of our culture in Berlin, Paris, London and so forth. Which, with it, comes a relegalization that we aren’t as different as some would believe. I can see myself rocking with Bella as she incorporates hip hop and African dance into a dope routine, sitting with Kwesi to discuss African history, laughing at Babs’ stories while getting a haircut and encouraging ShaNon as she moderates talks with refugees (utilizing her multicultural experiences).
In a way, they all feel like distant cousins even though I’ve never personally met them or shared in their live experiences – my time living in Frankfert and Berlin, Germany (or the fact that my wife is a first-generation Ghanaian) notwithstanding. “I for one, am always marveling at the spirit around us black folks,” said Akoto. “You have a culture, you know. When you’re stepping into a [black] barber shop in Harlem or one in Paris. You know what…in a sense, you know what you’re going to get.”
Out now for PSVR, on steam for Vive, on the Oculus Home Store, and on the App Store, Afterlife (official website) lies somewhere between a game and a traditional short movie. We spoke with the developers to learn more.
You may not have heard of Canadian studio Signal Space Lab, but they have extensive experience in TV, movies, and software. They’re no strangers to VR; if you do already recognize the name, it might be from the We Happy Few spin-off Uncle Jack Live VR, which they worked on in conjunction with Compulsion Games and Gearbox. Whereas that was a fairly lighthearted mixture of real-life footage and CGI, they’re out to achieve something completely different, and all their own, with their latest release.
Comprised entirely of real-life footage which surrounds the viewer in 360 degrees, Afterlife puts you quite literally in the middle of the story. Interactive director Etienne Archambault explains that they savored “the challenge of a new way to both immerse the audience in the piece, and also to adapt it to the attention of the user. They are fully in the space.”
“It was very challenging to use the space properly,” says Archambault, “to make sure that everything was right.” The viewer is not passive; and in fact, in a very real sense, is a member of the cast. The story concerns a family that experiences the loss of a young child to a tragic accident. After this event, the viewer is essentially placed into the role of the child’s spirit viewing the aftermath of his death. Most of the time, you’ll just be watching events unfold. But sometimes, your actions will have an effect on this world, even effecting the story path that you see.
The movie progresses through branching paths. At the end of each brief ‘chapter’, you’re presented with a summary of the path that you took, as well as the one(s) that you didn’t. At certain points, the next scene that you view is determined by which character you choose to concentrate on. Impressively, this mechanic is essentially seamless, never revealing when you’re making such a choice.
“We really wanted it to disappear,” says Archambault. “At specific moments, in specific areas, we made sure that these were right for the story […] we didn’t want you to make a choice except when it made sense.” The only explicit prompts for the viewer to interact are the rare occasions where you, as the child’s spirit, can choose to manipulate an object in the physical world. “If you’re going to do something, then it makes sense to you.”
In this way, VR offers the audience a level of connection that traditional cinema cannot. “On the narrative side, it’s a big plus that we’ve got,” says Archambault. “Remember, you’re in this space. And if you can do it well, it really does feel very engaging. The challenge was really just making it work […] you need to have multiple possible outcomes of the footage, while you’re already using pretty much all the bandwidth you can use. You want it to be in stereo, so you have that [for example].”
Returning to the basic premise of Afterlife, it centers on a family’s grief after the death of a young child. The story is structured so that this tragedy happens at the beginning of the experience. After a brief setup, the young boy has an accident at bath time, and dies. While the viewer does not actually see this happen, they are placed in the room in which the event takes place, and hear what happens. It’s genuinely upsetting, especially for those with children of their own, in no small part thanks to a consistently powerful performance from Alarey Alsip as the mother, Emma.
“We had to kind of scale it back,” says Archambault. “We needed to find this balance where it’s still got that punch […] we wanted to make sure that the viewer was really involved from the get-go.” Hence, the movie begins with this event, rather than leading up to it. “It’s such a strong moment. I think that the fact you are blinded afterwards makes you feel bound to this sense of loss, that you’re involved with the child, as you become him.”
Although it’s now available, Afterlife’s journey isn’t quite over yet; it’s been nominated for not one, but two awards at the prestigious Raindance Film Festival in the form of ‘Best Cinematic Experience and ‘Best Debut Experience.’
“When Raindance’s team first contacted us to let us know that Afterlife was in consideration to be nominated for Best Cinematic Experience, we were truly honored and happy,” says Ana Cardenas, marketing and client liaison. “Then just a few days before launch, we received news that we were also nominated for the Discovery Award: Best Debut Experience. With Afterlife, we took the risk of creating something with a new angle. We couldn’t be happier that Raindance is giving us this opportunity to showcase our work and to reach more people who love storytelling and innovation.”
Known worldwide for its contributions to the MPEG format — the compression technology used in MP3 audio files and MP4 videos — Germany’s Fraunhofer has recently turned its attention to the next frontier in media: virtual reality. After unveiling affordable VR headset microdisplay hardware last year, the company is now showing off next-generation video compression software using the new MPEG-OMAF standard, the first VR specification enabling 360-degree videos to stream over 5G networks.
Based in “significant” part upon Fraunhofer video compression technologies, MPEG-OMAF breaks wraparound videos into grids of tiles encoded at multiple resolutions. The explanatory image above uses red tiles to indicate areas that are being streamed at low resolution, versus normally colored tiles that are being streamed at high resolution.
Unlike traditional videos, which stream from servers at one user-selected resolution, these VR videos dynamically use high-resolution tiles where the viewer is currently looking, and low-resolution tiles for parts that are out of sight. As the user’s head position changes, the headset or display device requests a different mix of streamed tiles optimized for the user’s current focus area.
This trick enables the entire 360-degree video to continue streaming while devoting maximum detail to whatever the user is viewing. It parallels the recent use of foveated rendering to maximize real-time 3D graphics for VR users, guaranteeing that head-moving viewers will always be able to see something through their peripheral vision, even if it’s lower in fidelity.
International cellular standards organization 3GPP has adopted the MPEG-OMAF standard for 5G VR streaming, so it will likely underpin plenty of 360-degree virtual reality video streams — just like MP3 and MP4 defined prior generations of digital audio and video. Current 360-degree VR videos streamed over 4G and even Wi-Fi networks tend to suffer from low overall resolutions, across-the-board compression artifacts, and high latency, all of which the new standard and higher bandwidth networks could eliminate.
Fraunhofer is demonstrating the new technology using a combination of JavaScript, Apple’s Safari web browser, the WebGL API for rendering, and HEVC video support; a technical video is available here. Source code for the JavaScript player and instructions on creating standards-compliant content are available now on GitHub.
Felix & Paul Studios’ Eminem project is now available on Oculus headsets.
Marshall From Detroit is a 21-minute look into Marshall Mathers aka Eminem and his origins in Detroit. You can grab the 8 GB download for free on Oculus Go, Rift and Gear VR.
Marshall From Detroit premiered at the Sundance Film Festival with the release of the above 360-degree trailer.
“In Marshall From Detroit, we sought to explore the city impressionistically: Detroit as a memory, a feeling, a dream,” said director Caleb Slain, in a prepared statement. “With a front row seat down memory lane alongside Marshall and Sway, this lyrical experience offers an unprecedented glimpse into its eponymous titans. We all have a home. And the extent to which it shaped us is one of life’s great mysteries. But as any native would tell you, Detroit, Michigan is one hell of a place to call home.”
A still from Marshall From Detroit, available now on Oculus headsets.
Felix & Paul Studios produce some of the most compelling 3D 360 captures of the real world. So if you’re a fan of Eminem or just curious about the artist, we’d recommend checking this one out. The studio also recently released Traveling While Black on the NY Times website as well as Oculus Go, Rift and Gear VR, with its 20-minute look at race and restricted movement in The United States. The studio’s previous projects include close encounters with Jurassic World dinosaurs and front row seats at a number of Cirque Du Soleil performances.
What better way to forget the experience of a coach passenger than to don a VR headset in first class and watch Ready Player One in 3D?
That’s the pilot project being tested by Alaska Airlines with a basic VR headset built only for 3D and 360-degree movie viewing. The service is called “Allosky Cinematic VR” from a company called SkyLights and it is being tested as a first class amenity on-board Seattle-Boston and Boston-San Diego routes.
What’s interesting to me is the use of specialized hardware here instead of, say, an Oculus Go or Gear VR. Instead, this is a headset purpose-built for 3D movies and 180-degree or 360-degree VR films. I fully expect some comments on this article to argue whether you can have a “VR experience” in this kind of system at all.
The headset is said to offer “a selection of 2D and 3D blockbusters” including “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Spielberg’s Ready Player One in 3D, and Ferdinand for the kids.” It also comes preloaded with some 360-degree films.
I’ve ended up pushing my heart rate to the absolute limit this week. After livestreaming The Exorcist VR not once, but twice, then reviewing the game, I then decided to close out the week by watching The Nun: Escape the Abbey, a terrifying 3D360-video that’s basically just three straight minutes of suspenseful atmosphere building up to a massive jump scare at the end. It’s a promotional video for The Nun, which hits theaters on September 7th.
We went ahead and embedded the full 3D 360-video right here (rendered in 8K!) but we recommend watching it in a headset and not just on your phone or PC screen:
The Nun is an upcoming horror film set in the same universe as Annabelle and The Conjuring, the series is often lauded as the modern-day Exorcist in terms of tone and setting and I definitely agree. I’m absolutely planning on going to see the film in theaters as an adrenaline junkie and this 360-video got my blood-pumping big time.
If you’d rather watch it some other way then you can find a full list of formats over the on the 360-videos official website. I just watched it on the Oculus Go using the internal browser via YouTube. Honestly, it’s my go-to headset for any type of 360 video because of the accessibility and wireless nature.
Typically I’m not a big fan of 360-video, but when watched inside of a headset it’s better. And when the content is horror-themed, it feels like the best use of the medium.
Let us know what you think if you give the full video a watch!
Insta360 has seemingly been on a non-stop clip when it comes to introducing new products. I remember when they showed me their Insta360 Pro camera and let me use it for a couple weeks. I was so impressed with the overall image quality, but it had a lot of things that needed improving, especially at a $3,500 price point.
The Insta360 Pro was not a consumer camera, but it also wasn’t quite a professional camera either. That’s why it fell into more of a prosumer category. But with the introduction of this new Insta360 Pro 2, we’re starting to see Insta360 get more serious about the target market.
The new Insta360 Pro 2 can now do 8K 3D video at 30 FPS, which was previously limited to 6K 3D in the original Insta360 Pro. The new camera can also do 8K monoscopic at 60 FPS, 6K 3D at 60 FPS and even 4K 3D at 120 FPS. The Insta360 Pro 2 also features in-camera HDR to help reduce the number of highlights because of variance between light sources and camera sensors. The Insta360 Pro 2 also adopts Insta360’s FlowState stabilization technology, which first made its introduction of the Insta360 ONE and is some of the best stabilization I’ve ever seen to date. This helped to solve one of the biggest problems with recording video in 360, camera shake is immersion breaking and causes VR sickness and you can’t have it. That’s why Insta360 basically had to implement this future moving forward. The 12K super high-res still capability remains the same.
One of the biggest problems that I encountered with the original Insta360 Pro was trying to capture shots without having myself be in the shots. This was incredibly difficult with the original Pro because it had a limited range of about 20-30 feet before you lost signal. To remedy this issue, Insta360 is implementing a new antenna technology called FarSight that gives the Insta360 Pro 2 a range of about 300 meters, according to Insta360’s own specs. However, I only witnessed it working at 100 meters, which is still a great improvement over the previous generation. Insta360’s Wi-Fi technology operates at 5.18 GHz which should hopefully interfere less with other 5 GHz signals, and Insta360 claims a ground to air distance of up to 1KM (when used on a drone). FarSight comes standard in the first shipping models of the Insta360 Pro 2, but will eventually be optional in the coming months with a price reduction of $500 if you opt not to get FarSight.
Insta360 also improved the workflow for their cameras with the Insta360 Pro 2, with their integrated Premiere Pro workflow that allows for the use of proxy files to speed up the editing process without having to stitch until the final edits are complete. This is an extension of all the capabilities that the Insta360 Pro already has in Premiere Pro, an application that Insta360 only had support for after the launch of the initial Pro camera. With more Premiere Pro features, the Insta360 is becoming more of a professionally-focused camera than ever before.
Insta360 has also changed the physical workflow of the Insta360 Pro 2, with six (6) microSD card slots and one SD card slot for a total of 7 memory cards. Each MicroSD card will record footage from each camera sensor while the SD card will capture stabilization and low-resolution proxy files for quick Adobe Premiere Pro editing. This is different from the past, where a single high-speed SD card was necessary and would capture each camera sensor into its own folder within the single SD card directory. While I’m not sure that this workflow will be optimal for people traveling with a professional 360 camera, I understand where this thought process is coming from and hopefully Insta360 has an easy way of getting the footage off the camera.
Insta360 is also introducing a video codec called CrystalView. This codec is able to play back high resolution 8K video files on devices like the Oculus Go and Gear VR at full quality without having to down-sample to 4K and lose image quality. Insta360’s own video player, Insta360 Moment, will dynamically render these files to show the full 8K video fidelity based on where the user is looking. I believe this feature will eventually become standard in nearly all video players in the future, especially as eye-tracking becomes more popular. I still strongly believe that 8K is the best video format for viewing 360 videos and that Insta360’s Pro 2 has some of the best footage I’ve ever seen. That includes this new ClearView technology which I saw for myself recently in a Samsung GearVR, and once again set the standard for high-quality video footage for me.
Because the Insta360 Pro is capable of simultaneous local recording and live streaming, it comes as little surprise that Insta360 made an upgrade in this area as well. The Insta360 Pro 2 is now capable of live streaming 4K footage in both stereoscopic 3D and monoscopic formats while also saving 8K source files on the microSD local storage. Previously, it was impossible to do 4K 3D and record 8K local files, but with this new version of the Insta360 Pro, professional users can and they can do it with GPS data included. The new Insta360 Pro 2 has a built-in GPS antenna on the top of the camera that makes Google Maps Street View contributions extremely easy. Not to mention other professional applications where GPS data is valuable for a user to have when capturing their shots.
The new Insta360 Pro 2 weighs in at 3.42 pounds, including battery and antennae which still makes it very friendly for hand-held shoots or shoots with a drone. All these capabilities and convenience come with a price, though. The new Insta360 Pro comes in at a nearly 50% more expensive price of $4,999, which includes the FarSight wireless technology. This price hike is unlikely to make a significant difference to some potential customers, but it is out of reach for prosumers that aren’t using these cameras for their jobs. I would be interested to see if Insta360 will consider an upgrade program to get more of their professional users using the new Insta360 Pro 2 instead of the older less-capable model.
The company says that the new Insta360 Pro 2 will start shipping September and can be acquired through the company’s site or B&H Photo Video as well as select retailers worldwide.
The Gumball 3000 is a 3,000-mile car rally that happens every year from London to Tokyo featuring a wide multitude of celebrities driving across the world and making pit stops. From the likes of Usher and David Hasselhoff to Ken Griffey Jr. and more, it’s a star-studded event.
This year Finger Food Studios teamed up with LNG Studios to create an episodic series of 360-degree videos chronicling the rally dubbed “A Gumballer’s Journey.” The videos take viewers on a ride both along the street at pit stops and inside the vehicle with featured celebrity guests.
You can watch the first two entries in the series right now on the Gumball 3000 Facebook page here (Episode 1, featuring Gumball 3000 founder, Maximillion Cooper) and here (Episode 2, featuring David Hasselhoff, wife Hayley Roberts, and KITT from Knight Rider.) Both videos are available in 4k at those links and can also be viewed in VR via Rift, Vive, Gear VR, PSVR, or Go. Both episodes can also be found over on LNG’s YouTube, so pretty much anything that can access YouTube in VR is good to go.
In the second video Hasselhoff reminisces about KITT and how even though it isn’t the actual original car from Knight Rider, it feels extremely accurate even while adorned with logos and sponsorships.
We’ve got it embedded right here for you to see as well:
You’d be hard-pressed to put a 360-degree video in front of me in 2018 and elicit any sort of reaction other than “meh” but getting to sit inside the cockpit of KITT alongside David Hasselhoff is certainly a step in the right direction. These sorts of videos are at their best when they show viewers things that they’d otherwise never get to see from a new perspective and this one definitely qualifies.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Update: Fixed two typos and added more context on how to watch the videos.
