Category: Oculus Venues

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Community Download: Will Live Events In VR Eventually Become Mainstream Entertainment?

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today, we want to know what you think about the upcoming VR Billie Eilish concert and what it means for the future of in-VR entertainment.

Oculus has really stepped up its promotion of the Oculus Venues live event app that’s featured on the Oculus Go and Oculus Quest. In Venues you are granted a seat at a real life performance by a musician, or at a sporting event, and it’s streamed using 180-degree or 360-degree cameras. In this way, your VR headset acts like a portal to the concert itself, providing the illusion of attending. Sometimes they offer a flat stream on a screen like a theater instead as well.

What makes the app extra neat is that it’s a multi-user experience too and you can look around and see other people using their Oculus avatars around you as well, watching the same performance in real-time.

Our dicussion topic this week, on the heels of the Billie Eilish announcement, is: Do you think VR concerts and other live events will ever become mainstream entertainment? As of now they’re little more than a novelty, but will they eventually become a highly anticipated part of the live entertainment industry for a large portion of the population? Or will it stay niche within a niche forever?

Comment down below with your thoughts and you may have a chance of your comment being featured in our weekly news recap show, VRecap, which airs every Friday on your YouTube channel.

The post Community Download: Will Live Events In VR Eventually Become Mainstream Entertainment? appeared first on UploadVR.

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Billie Eilish Performing In Oculus Venues On Sept. 3

Facebook’s Oculus Venues social VR service will host a Billie Eilish concert on September 3.

Oculus Venues is a service on Facebook’s wireless VR headsets including Gear VR, Oculus Go and Oculus Quest. The app features a series of events broadcast and recreated in virtual reality to varying degrees with co-watching features so you can watch with other people. Venues debuted on Quest in partnership with NextVR for a soccer game and also a rock opera performance by Tenacious D.

Here’s the description for the event on Venues:

“17-year-old Billie Eilish is the artist behind the multi-platinum global smash album, “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”. The album debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and has since returned to the top spot two additional times this year. Her single “bad guy” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 following an unprecedented total of 9 weeks at No. 2.”

She’ll bring the world tour for the album to Venues from WiZink Center in Madrid, Spain.

Labor Day Weekend is coming up in the United States and that likely means a long weekend of VR for owners of the Oculus Quest. The concert with Eilish will be held after the weekend on Tuesday night at 6 pm Pacific time. If you have an Oculus account you can mark your interest in the event or through the Oculus app on your phone.

The concert joins a growing schedule of social “events” you can join in VR across various apps like Bigscreen or Rec Room as new content is added over time. On September 25 and 26 Facebook will host its Oculus Connect 6 developers conference and that’s where we expect major updates to be announced for Oculus platforms like Rift S, Go, and Quest. Facebook’s built toward the Quest all-in-one standalone VR system for a number of years but hasn’t aligned around a single set of social services to offer buyers across all of their systems. Venues is one of those services and we hope to see updates to Facebook’s plan in September.

The post Billie Eilish Performing In Oculus Venues On Sept. 3 appeared first on UploadVR.

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Oculus Quest Becomes Even More Social With Oculus Venues

Having previously been available for Oculus’ other two devices, Gear VR and Oculus Go, Oculus Venues will now be released for the company’s flagship standalone headset, Oculus Quest.

Oculus Quest new image

Oculus Venues has always been about live social experiences in virtual reality (VR), and what better way of experiencing the latest events than via Oculus Quest. The app is a one-stop for VR enthusiasts to hang out with their mates – or anyone else for that matter – and enjoy sporting events, concerts and more.

For the first time, thanks to Oculus Quest’s inside out tracking (Oculus Insight) and six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) Touch controllers, users can have full fluid freedom. This will make crowd interaction even more natural, being able to high-five your friends, cheer on your team or simply having a dance in VR.

There’s always regular roster of events going on via Oculus Venues and this month is no different. The summer season starts today with Liverpool Football Club vs Sporting Clube de Portugal at Yankee Stadium starting at 5pm PST (25th July 1am BST), followed by rock duo Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass)  performing rock-opera Post-Apocalypto live at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota on 31st July (1st August, 2:25am BST).

Tenacious D Oculus Venues

The inclusion of Oculus Space to the Oculus Quest platform, offering cross-compatibility with Gear VR and Oculus Go certainly helps to tie the mobile ecosystems together, but Oculus Rift/RIft S is still strangely left out. On the flip side, Oculus Rift has Facebook Spaces, which is still in beta and offers cross-platform access with HTC Vive but has seemingly been forgotten of late.

In the last 6 to 12 months Facebook Reality Labs has been concentrating on improving Oculus Avatars, most recently at F8 a couple of months ago, demonstrating full-body Avatar prototypes.

As further events are added to the Oculus Venues roster, VRFocus will keep you updated with the latest announcements.

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Quest Gets ‘Oculus Venues’, Finally Connecting Quest Users with Oculus Go & Gear VR

While Oculus Quest was devoid of any of Facebook’s social VR applications at launch, Oculus Venues is finally available for the headset. That means that, for the first time, Quest users will have a first-party social experience in which they can also connect to Oculus Go and Gear VR users (but not Rift).

I wrote previously about the fragmented nature of Facebook’s social VR strategy: between four separate apps from the company, not a single one actually supports the entire ecosystem of Oculus headsets. While that’s still the case, the situation has gotten slightly better with today’s launch of Oculus Venues on Quest.

Oculus Venues lets users get together in virtual stadium seating to watch scheduled and sometimes live content like sporting events, stand up comedy, and concerts. It’s the first of Facebook’s social VR apps to come to Quest, and that means that Quest users finally have a first-party means of getting together with friends using Oculus Go or Gear VR. Rift users, unfortunately, are still left out.

Image courtesy Oculus

Oculus recently announced the launch of Oculus Venues on Quest, and previewed some of the upcoming events headed to the virtual venue this Summer: on July 24th at 5PM PT [your timezone here] you can catch Liverpool vs. Sporting CP at Yankee Stadium live, as well as Tenacious D’s rock opera ‘Post-Apocalypto’ on July 31st. The company is promising more to come.

SEE ALSO
New Quest Ad Spot is One of Oculus' Best Yet

We’re glad to see another headset supported by Oculus Venues, but Facebook’s social VR play is still in an iffy place that deeply fails to leverage ‘Oculus’ as a connected ecosystem of VR users as opposed to a logo on five different headsets. In the meantime, third-party apps like Bigscreen actually do offer a singular place where users of almost any headset (Oculus or not) can be social together in VR.

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Facebook Has Four Separate Social VR Apps and None of Them Are on Quest

Facebook’s fragmented approach to social VR hasn’t gotten any better with the launch of Quest. The company now has four separate social VR apps, and none of them are currently available on its newest headset.

With Oculus, Facebook has aimed to build the premiere VR ecosystem, but when it comes to allowing users of the company’s different headsets—Go, Quest, and Rift—to actually interact with one another, it has completely dropped the ball.

Facebook has lofty ambitions for what the far future of social interaction could look like with VR, but between the parent company and the Oculus brand, there’s a confused smattering of different social VR offerings which do a poor job of connecting users across the platform. Let’s review:

  • Facebook Spaces (available on Rift & Vive)
    • Allows users chat and share Facebook content (like photos and videos), draw in 3D, and video chat with non-VR users via Messenger
  • Oculus Home (available on Rift)
    • Allows users build virtual homes and invite friends over to talk and visit
  • Oculus Rooms (available on Go & Gear VR)
    • Allows users to decorate a virtual home and invite friends over to talk and visit, play mini games, share Facebook content (like photos and videos), and launch into other VR apps together
  • Oculus Venues (available on Go & Gear VR)
    • Allows users to watch live VR video content together

As you can see, before Quest came along, there was already a complete division among Facebook’s social VR apps which kept PC users (Rift) and mobile users (Go & Gear VR) completely separate. If you happened to own a Rift and had a friend which jumped into VR with Go as their first VR headset, there’s unfortunately no easy first-party way for you to connect with your friend in VR.

With Quest now on the market, things have only become more fragmented. While it was at least possible for Rift users to connect with other Rift users, and Go & Gear VR users to connect amongst themselves, Quest doesn’t have access to any of Facebook’s social VR apps. We would have expected at a minimum that Quest would get Rooms and Venues to link up with the company’s other mobile headsets—and it might one day—but at launch, Quest is a social island unto itself.

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Facebook Shows Off Research Aiming to Deliver Truly Realistic Avatars

It’s an unfortunate situation because it fails to leverage the Oculus ecosystem that Facebook has spent so much time building. The company now has five headsets on the Oculus platform, and it’s baffling that there isn’t at least a basic first-party social VR service that works between them all. For a social media company that thrives on the network effect, Facebook has been surprisingly obtuse about social VR.

Individually, some of Facebook’s social VR apps are quite compelling. It’s too bad that your invite list is limited by which Oculus headset your friends own. | Oculus Rooms, image courtesy Facebook

The current state of things is as if there were a Windows version of Facebook that would only connect to other Windows users, and a Mac version of Facebook that would only connect to other Mac users—while Linux (Quest in this rough analogy) wasn’t allowed to access Facebook at all.

When we asked Facebook about the state of their social VR offerings at the launch of Quest the company told us that they want to “push for having social layers that sit above all the headsets and work together,” but they have no specific plans to share. So it seems like it’s going to be a while yet until the company manages to make the Oculus platform feel like one socially connected group.

Luckily, third party developers are bridging the gap. Some social VR apps like Bigscreen manage to interconnect users on all of Oculus’ headsets, and even headsets outside the Oculus ecosystem. So even if Facebook doesn’t have it figured out yet, there’s at least somewhere in VR where friends of almost any headset can come together to be social.

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Oculus Quest Social Strategy Unclear Three Weeks Before Launch

oculus quest

The Oculus Quest is less than three weeks away with its May 21 release date fast approaching. The $399 standalone VR headset allows users to freely move around their environments with complete 6DoF head tracking and positionally tracked controllers. At launch it will feature top-rated VR games such as Beat Saber and Superhot as well as new releases like Dance Central, Journey of the Gods, and more.

Facebook is marketing the Quest as a gaming-first platform, similar to the Oculus Rift, but fans of non-gaming media apps like Netflix, multi-user social hangout spaces like Oculus Rooms, or live event social apps like Oculus Venues, are left wondering about the status of those experiences.

In an interview with UploadVR last month, Chris Pruett, the Direct of Content Ecosystem at Oculus, explained the current non-game offerings included on the device as a review unit:

UploadVR: What about non-game apps? Rooms, Netflix, Venues, etc?
Chris Pruett: “You will see a browser, you will see some media apps, you’ll see a few of them in Oculus TV in the device that you get today, but not the complete lineup. We are continuing to experiment with other first party applications, so for now no Rooms and no Venues, but that’s something that we will continue to figure out how we want to do on Quest.”

UploadVR: What about Facebook Spaces?
CP: “That falls into the same group, we have a large group of people that build things like Spaces and Venues and that group continues to be building things but we aren’t ready to talk about yet.”

UploadVR: Will there be word on those things before launch?
CP: “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Based on that language it certainly seems like apps such as Rooms, Venues, Netflix, and even Spaces are being considered for Quest eventually, and may be included in the near future, but none of them are listed on the day one launch lineup published by Oculus this week. Even John Carmack is reluctant to talk about media apps.

Currently the Quest lacks any sort of default social hub. There is no customizable space like Home on Rift or Rooms on Go and you have no way of using your avatar to hang out with friends in VR other than audio chat in a party or playing games like Racket Fury and Creed together. That feels like a major missed opportunity. Granted, we are still basing impressions off of pre-release hardware, but the embargo on official reviews has lifted so I’m hesitant to pull punches if they consider it complete enough to review.

Obviously by the time Quest comes out there will be more options, such as Rec Room, Bigscreen, and VRChat, but the lack of a native social experience feels like a notable omission, as is the reluctance to talk about it.

Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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Visit SXSW 2019 This Week Through Oculus Venues

The annual SXSW 2019 festival has begun in Austin, Texas, celebrating the interactive, film and music industries for the next week. Naturally, virtual reality (VR) technology makes a number of appearances with Oculus taking part, not only displaying projects from its VR for Good initiative but also giving everyone the opportunity to be at the event thanks to Oculus Venues.

Oculus VR for Good SXSW19

Three Oculus VR for Good Creators Lab projects have been chosen as part of SXSW’s Virtual Cinema Program, Girl Icon, Home After War and Mercy.

Girl Icon an immersive look at women’s empowerment in India, following 17-year-old Rani, from Varanasi as she breaks away from the country’s caste system, determined to finish school and go to college.

Home After War is an interactive VR experience which follows Ahmaied Hamad Khalaf and his family as they return to their home in Fallujah after the war ended. Khalaf’s story revolves around how they fear their home, with many buildings still booby-trapped with IED’s.

Lastly, there’s Mercy, the story of 14-year-old Edith. “At the age of seven, Edith started to feel a pain that eventually grew into a tumor on her lower right jaw the size of lemon [sic]. Edith is mocked and teased at school, and even accused of being the victim of witchcraft. In Mercy, we follow Edith as she travels by foot through the jungle for days in order to have a life-transforming surgery,” explains the synopsis.

Mercy screenshot

And for many of you who can’t go to SXSW 2019, Oculus is bringing a little slice of the festival to you, by way of Oculus Venues. The company has partnered with Supersphere and SXSW to bring you 90+ acts over four days, starting on 12th and running through to 15th March.

Here’s the lineup:

Margin Walker “All Are Welcome” Party
March 12 // 11:00 am – 6:00 pm PT
Lineup: Ghostland Observatory • The Bright Light Social Hour • Helena Deland • Elder Island• Barrie • Black Belt Eagle Scout • FADE • Morabeza Tobacco • Sorry Girls • Divino Niño • Das Body • Graham Van Pelt • Munya

Nine Mile Records Party
March 12 // 5:00 – 11:59 pm PT
Lineup: Golden Dawn Arkestra • Sweet Spirit • Spiral Stairs • Night Glitter • Chris Staples • Low Cut Connie • Go Fever • Carson McHone • The Night Thief • Tinnarose • Kevin Galloway• Izaak Opatz

Paradigm Talent Agency Showcase
March 13 // 11:00 am – 6:00 pm PT
Lineup: DJ Jazzy Jeff (Host) • Durand Jones & The Indications • The Black Angels • The Strumbellas • Chromeo (DJ Set) • Westerman • Celeste • CHAI • Pink Sweat$ • Omar Apollo

Polyvinyl Records Party
March 13 // 6:00 – 11:59 pm PT
Lineup: Pedro the Lion • The Get Up Kids • Shy Boys • Orchards • Hovvdy • Why Bonnie • Proper. • Lomelda • Sidney Gish • Paul Cherry • Pkew Pkew Pkew • Good Fuck

Margin Walker x Brooklyn Vegan “Lost Weekend” Party
March 14 // 11:00 am – 6:00 pm PT
Lineup: Phony Ppl • Priests • Japanese Breakfast • Les Louanges • Control Top • Hubert Lenoir

Oculus x Supersphere Showcase
March 14 // 6:00 – 11:59 pm PT
Lineup: Ben Kweller • Bully • Japanese Breakfast • Strand of Oaks • Garcia Peoples • Nonconnah • Grandchildren • Flower • PAWS • Versus

Margin Walker x Brooklyn Vegan Party
March 15 // 11:00 am – 6:00 pm PT
Lineup: The Beths • Amanda Palmer • Laurea Jane Grace • Fury • Sidney Gish • Otoboke Beaver • yahyel • J.S. Ondara

New West Records Party
March 15 // 6:00 – 11:59 pm PT
Lineup: Robert Ellis • The Nude Party • Steve Earle & the Dukes • Lily & Madeleine • Seratones • The Texas Gentlemen • Nikki Lane • Parker Gispert • Los Coast • Justin Townes Earl • Dan Luke and the Raid • Wild Moccasins

Oculus Venues is a free app which is compatible with Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR headsets. For further SXSW 2019 updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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This Week In VR Sport: NBA and European Tour Golf Brings Sports into VR

It is the weekend, its also well in Autumn now, which means some sporting seasons are ending, while others are starting. As always, VRFocus brings you the latest on where sports and immersive technology intersect. This week sees golf and basketball bring the action into 360-degrees for fans to get a better view.

An Experiment With 8K 360-Degree Video For Golf

A proof-of-concept at the Sky Sports British Masters has demonstrated how 8K quality 360-degree video can be used to let fans of Golf follow their favourite players across the course.

The test was conducted by The European Tour and Tata Communications, which showed how fans could use a virtual reality (VR) headset to get a virtual tour of famous European Tour venues like Walton Heath or Valderrama.

“This proof-of-concept is part of our strategy to attract new fans to the sport by harnessing the latest digital technologies and introducing new, shorter and faster formats,” said Michael Cole, Chief Technology Officer, European Tour. “With Shotclock Masters, for example, players have just 40 or 50 seconds to play a shot. We’re also using more and more shot data to bring fans more engaging insights. We look forward to leveraging live 360° video in 8K to make each tournament more immersive for golf newbies and our core fan base.”

“Today’s sports fans are savvier than ever – they have an insatiable appetite for data and content that gives them deeper and higher quality viewing experiences,” said Mehul Kapadia, Global Head of Marketing, Tata Communications. “The adoption of the Video Assistant Referee at the recent FIFA World Cup is just one example of the transformational potential of digital technologies in global sports – which benefits the players, the fans and the entire sports ecosystem. In the same way, apps with live 360° video in 8K would redefine fan engagement in golf, and even have the potential to change how the sport is refereed.”

Oculus will Be Streaming NBA Games For Free

Fans of basketball have a chance to watch this season’s games in VR for free, thanks to efforts from Oculus and VR live-streaming service NextVR along with the Oculus Venues app.

Oculus Venues launched for Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR earlier this year as a social VR app that lets users share a virtual space to take in live events such as sports games or music performances.

Watching NBA games online usually requires the purchase of an NBA League Pass, but watching through Oculus Venues is free, though users watching through the NextVR app will need to pay.

“Now in our third NBA season, we continue to evolve our VR broadcast to provide the highest quality, most immersive NBA experience in VR,” said NextVR CEO David Cole in a statement. “Every night of the NBA season, NextVR is providing fans worldwide with multiple live VR viewing options, coupled with free on-demand highlights.”

Check back next week for some more This Week In VR Sport.

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NBA & NextVR Announce 2018-19 VR Livestream Lineup

The NBA and NextVR, the VR video and livestreaming company, announced the 2018-19 schedule, which will let even more basketball fans experience games in VR.

Now livestreaming its third NBA season, NextVR announced in a blogpost that they’re expanding the distribution of live NBA League Pass VR experiences to include Oculus Venues, the app that allows Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR owners to watch live content in the stands with friends, family, and hundreds of other fans.

NextVR will continue to feature select games in immersive stereoscopic 3D, but also standard streams of all League Pass games in the NextVR ‘Screening Room’ and other on-demand content in the NextVR League Pass channel of the NextVR app.

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Oculus 'Venues' to Host NBA Games, Horror Films & More This Fall

The live VR schedule will begin on October 21st with the NBA League Pass Free Preview, which will feature two games: the Golden State Warriors vs. the Denver Nuggets on the 21st, and the Golden State Warriors vs. the Phoenix Suns on the 22nd.

For some games (marked below) you’ll need an NBA League Pass subscription, which can be purchased as a stand-alone VR package or single game, and are included with a subscription purchased through participating video distributors or directly through the NBA.

NextVR’s broadcasts will be available through Oculus Venues (Oculus Go, Samsung Gear VR) and on all other supported VR platforms through The NBA League Pass channel in the NextVR app. The free NextVR app is available on Gear VR, Google Daydream, Windows VR headsets, PlayStation VR, Oculus Go, HTC Vive, HTC Vive Pro, and Oculus Rift.

Free

  • NBA 3D Stereoscopic VR games during 4 free preview windows
  • NBA games in the NextVR Screening Room during 4 free preview windows
  • *NBA League Pass not required.

NBA League Pass

  • 26 NBA 3D Stereoscopic VR games
  • NBA League Pass games in the NextVR Screening Room
  • Schedule of Live League Pass Package games
  • *NBA League Pass required.
Image courtesy NextVR

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Oculus ‘Venues’ to Host NBA Games, Horror Films & More This Fall

Oculus Venues, the social VR app for large-scale live event viewing, is continuing its screenings this fall with more NBA games, scary movies, and stand-up comedy nights. Check out the schedule below.

Update (5:15 PM ET): An Oculus spokesperson has informed us that NBA games are entirely free, and don’t require an NBA League Pass to watch. The information has been corrected in the article.

Venues allows you to virtually attend events with friends and family while sitting in the stands filled with other viewers. You can download the app on Oculus Go and Gear VR.

NBA games, captured by Next VR, may don’t require the regular NBA League Pass (see update). In addition, everyone who attends an NBA game in Venues will get season-long access to an NBA jersey from one of the teams you watched for your Oculus Avatar.

Image courtesy Oculus

Availability of streams may be subject to your location, with at least US residents getting access to all licensed content. Some users in other countries have reported a region lock on Lionsgate film nights, so make sure to pop in and check it out before you dedicate your entire night to a splatter-filled Saw binge-fest leading up to Halloween.

Fair warning: you’ll also need a Facebook account to log-in to Venues.

Check out the schedule below for the full line-up:

October

November

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