Given that more and more people are now downloading (hopefully legally) movies online, could new and improved affordable 3-D virtual reality headsets increase the popularity of 3-D movies?
By: Ringo Bones
Despite 2016 is being dubbed as the “Year of Virtual Reality”
it seems that Hollywood has yet to tap into the 3-D virtual reality headset PC
gaming world for the high resolution 3-D movie viewing potential of their
existing kit. At present, those “large-scale” IMAX movie theaters are the most
popular way to watch 3-D movies in its maximum quality at a relatively “affordable”
cost. But due to the increasing popularity of online movie downloads (hopefully
legally downloaded) could the increasing availability of relatively affordable
3-D virtual reality headsets make high quality 3-D movie viewing at home a
possibility and make 3-D movies popular again since the post James Cameron’s
Avatar dip?
The reason why Facebook purchased Oculus Rift for 2 billion
US dollars is probably due to the perfection of its “headache free” virtual
reality headset a few years ago. Oculus Rift VR headset costs US$599 and is one
of the widely available models out there. HTC Vive is another widely available
VR headset at US$799 while the “cheapest” one out there is the Sony PlayStation
VR at US$499. But can all of them be used to watch 3-D movies at home with an
image quality as good as or better than those in large scale IMAX movie
theatres at your local mall?
At present, there aren’t any dedicated 3-D movies that can
take advantage of existing VR headset’s 360-degree surround view capability. Worse
still, personal computers that are powerful enough to be fully compatible to
those widely available 3-D virtual reality headsets that serious PC gamers can
do without only represent 1-persent of the computers already running around the
world. And if you only use your PC for basic schoolwork, chances are it isn’t
part of the 1-percent that’s fast enough and had the requisite video cards to
run a state-of-the-art 3-D virtual reality headset currently used by serious PC
gamers. And to take advantage of future online high resolution 3-D movie
content, chances are, your existing Wi-Fi or internet connection might be too
slow.
