Vimeo Releases Vision Pro App With Spatial Video Support After YouTube Shuns Apple's Headset

[CBlakeston]

No one said that about any of those things. Everyone saw how revolutionary TV was from Day 1. Google paid $2Bn for YouTube in the mid 2000s and Netflix has always attracted heavy investment. Everyone saw the potential of the PC as soon as Windows 3.1 was released, and the iPhone was one of many smartphones hitting the market at that time.

But none of those were 'the future of storytelling'. They were a delivery system for existing stories that were already being told. The Vision Pro is a monitor. A $3500 monitor, with a 2 hour battery life that only one person can use.

Claiming that stereoscopic images are going to be the future of storytelling is exactly and literally what 3DTVs were doing. The Vision Pro is the new 3DTV system.

There’s a lot of revisionist history there as there always is with Apple products. And notice you didn’t address my comment about having tried it or owning one?

This is very different to 3DTVs, of which this is the best ever made. It also supports True Cut Motion which is a big deal if you’re a movie fan.

I get it. We disagree. Let’s come back in ten years and see who is right.

 

[spaxxedout]

No one said that about any of those things. Everyone saw how revolutionary TV was from Day 1. Google paid $2Bn for YouTube in the mid 2000s and Netflix has always attracted heavy investment. Everyone saw the potential of the PC as soon as Windows 3.1 was released, and the iPhone was one of many smartphones hitting the market at that time.

But none of those were 'the future of storytelling'. They were a delivery system for existing stories that were already being told. The Vision Pro is a monitor. A $3500 monitor, with a 2 hour battery life that only one person can use.

Claiming that stereoscopic images are going to be the future of storytelling is exactly and literally what 3DTVs were doing. The Vision Pro is the new 3DTV system.

I definitely don't agree with the comment this is in response to, and I don't think immersive is the de-facto new standard in storytelling as it's basically impossible to shoot content that scales well to both 2D and Immersive (Sort of like how it's difficult to mix a song for both Atmos and stereo).

I just think that the Vision Pro deserves a little more credit. With AirPods, you have a system where each ear and each eye has its own discrete input channel. No other system can offer this level of information density. What happens with that is up to the market. Could easily fall into same wastebasket as 3DTV, but I think there's something here.

 

[BigKahunaBurguer]

Vimeo lost its way a long time ago. Nobody cares anymore.

 

[CBlakeston]

I also don’t understand why there is this… EVERYONE MUST OWN A VISION PRO OR ITS A FAILURE mentality.

Today we have many choices of ways to compute. Command line. Desktop. Laptop. Mobile. iPad. Not one of them replaced the other completely yet that seems to be the measure of success the Vision Pro is held too for some reason.

It can be its own thing and you personally not want to buy it.. and that’s ok. Let people who enjoy spatial computing use it.

 

[wikiverse]

There’s a lot of revisionist history there as there always is with Apple products. And notice you didn’t address my comment about having tried it or owning one?

This is very different to 3DTVs, of which this is the best ever made. It also supports True Cut Motion which is a big deal if you’re a movie fan.

I get it. We disagree. Let’s come back in ten years and see who is right.

I work in the film industry and make movies for a living. Exactly no one is talking about spatial videos, no one is making spatial video content, no one cares. Everyone sees it for what it is, another attempt at 3DTV, because to shoot 'spatial videos' professionally, you wouldn't be using an iPhone, you'd be using one of the 3D cinema cameras/lenses that were built the last time this format failed.

Sounds a lot more like you've purchased a Vision Pro and are trying to justify that decision. If you want one, that's fine. If you want to wear your monitor on your face, that's fine. But to suggest that there is any plausibility in stereoscopic videos being 'the future of storytelling' because Vimeo is making an app for the Vision Pro is just delusional.

Vimeo is not where storytellers go to publish things for audiences. It's where companies host their corporate videos, or people host their showreels to embed them into their websites without having to put up with YouTube ads.

I'm not comparing Spatial Videos to 3DTV, I'm saying they ARE 3DTV. They are both just stereoscopic videos. And like 3DTV, you need to buy a very expensive and otherwise useless monitor and wear something stupid looking on your face to be able to experience it.

 

[CBlakeston]

I work in the film industry and make movies for a living. Exactly no one is talking about spatial videos, no one is making spatial video content, no one cares. Everyone sees it for what it is, another attempt at 3DTV, because to shoot 'spatial videos' professionally, you wouldn't be using an iPhone, you'd be using one of the 3D cinema cameras/lenses that were built the last time this format failed.

Sounds a lot more like you've purchased a Vision Pro and are trying to justify that decision. If you want one, that's fine. If you want to wear your monitor on your face, that's fine. But to suggest that there is any plausibility in stereoscopic videos being 'the future of storytelling' because Vimeo is making an app for the Vision Pro is just delusional.

Vimeo is not where storytellers go to publish things for audiences. It's where companies host their corporate videos, or people host their showreels to embed them into their websites without having to put up with YouTube ads.

I'm not comparing Spatial Videos to 3DTV, I'm saying they ARE 3DTV. They are both just stereoscopic videos. And like 3DTV, you need to buy a very expensive and otherwise useless monitor and wear something stupid looking on your face to be able to experience it.

I’m sure that’s exactly what movie industry people said when TV came along.

I’m a filmmaker also. I don’t work in the film industry like you but I’m getting paid work creating content for the Vision Pro. It is being made whether you want to accept it or not.

You only have to look at Apple’s upcoming release schedule to see it’s being created. And talk to one of your colleagues, Oscar winner Edward Berger about working with Immersive video and see what he thinks.

But we’re never going to agree so let’s leave it there. Do me a favour, in 15 years when someone hands you a pair of Vision Air glasses to try and you think ‘oh, this is pretty cool’. Remember this conversation and how dismissive you were.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Live Photos was not a revolution but is a nice to have.

To me and the wife, having Live Photos of our kids growing up has been an absolutely amazing thing to have. It is definitely a revolution for us.

 

[laptech]

Youtube most probably do want to release an app which would most probably have in-app purchases of some kind but because of Apple's lock down on only their payment system being allowed with commands a 15% or 30% charge (EU excluded), they do not want to give Apple any money.

I envisage more and more companies doing this, just providing a very basic app with no in-app purchases or just not bothering to make an app because they do not want Apple getting a percentage of in-app purchases.

 

[CBlakeston]

To me and the wife, having Live Photos of our kids growing up has been an absolutely amazing thing to have. It is definitely a revolution for us.

Same. Being able to look at spatial photos and videos of family taken over the last year on the iPhone 15 is amazing. Thats the Killer app that people who haven’t tried it are missing. It’s the emotional connection.

 

[canadianreader]

I also don’t understand why there is this… EVERYONE MUST OWN A VISION PRO OR ITS A FAILURE mentality.

Today we have many choices of ways to compute. Command line. Desktop. Laptop. Mobile. iPad. Not one of them replaced the other completely yet that seems to be the measure of success the Vision Pro is held too for some reason.

It can be its own thing and you personally not want to buy it.. and that’s ok. Let people who enjoy spatial computing use it.

As a product it is a failure, not the tech. People aren't interested in buying this AR/VR headset for many reasons: bulkiness, pricey, only compatible with the Apple ecosystem, poor battery life, lack of apps and for some it gives headache and dizziness. While Vimeo launching an app is great for AVP owners, it's not groundbreaking and not an incentive to buy the product. Plus Vimeo outside promos and discounts isn't free if you wanna upload beyond 1GB of videos. Simply put AVP is a niche product.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It seems like we can never get away from "more tech" in the video content space, when what actually always wins is a great story, well written scripts, human creativity, great casting and acting, etc

It's the "blocking, tackling and fundamentals", to use a sports metaphor, that makes the magic

It's basically never some new technology gimmick

As an aside, it always cracks me up that VR enthusiasts wanting YouTube and/or other 3rd party video hosting site Support are usually wanting it, at least in part, for "immersive alternative adult content", shall we say? 😄

On reddit, in VR areas, saying you want "youtube support" is sort of "unspoken code" for that.

 

[CBlakeston]

As a product it is a failure, not the tech. People aren't interested in buying this AR/VR headset for many reasons: bulkiness, pricey, only compatible with the Apple ecosystem, poor battery life, lack of apps and for some it gives headache and dizziness. While Vimeo launching an app is great for AVP owners, it's not groundbreaking and not an incentive to buy the product. Plus Vimeo outside promos and discounts isn't free if you wanna upload beyond 1GB of videos. Simply put AVP is a niche product.


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“Sony, the exclusive supplier of the high-resolution OLED displays in Vision Pro, only has the physical capacity to manufacture 900,000 units per year, and with two displays per Vision Pro, that put a maximum capacity on Vision Pro production at about 450,000 headsets for the year. That’s only slightly higher than the actual sales estimate The Information cites from Counterpoint Research, of 420,000 units.”

“it’s disingenuous, to say the least, for an October 2024 report to suggest that Vision Pro sales are surprisingly weak when they’re almost exactly in line with uncannily accurate expectations set in a May 2023 report by the exact same reporter at the same publication.”

Quoting Gruber, they seem to have sold exactly as many as how they exoected so guess it depends how you define failure?

Do you get headaches and dizziness using it because I’ve never experienced that, but have with other headsets.

 

[CBlakeston]

It seems like we can never get away from "more tech" in the video content space, when what actually always wins is a great story, well written scripts, human creativity, great casting and acting, etc

It's the "blocking, tackling and fundamentals", to use a sports metaphor, that makes the magic

It's basically never some new technology gimmick

As an aside, it always cracks me up that VR enthusiasts wanting YouTube and/or other 3rd party video hosting site Support are usually wanting it, at least in part, for "immersive alternative adult content", shall we say? 😄

On reddit, in VR areas, saying you want "youtube support" is sort of "unspoken code" for that.

Really? Because there’s plenty of places to get that kind of content already. That doesn’t need support. It’s already there lol.

 

[CBlakeston]

“Sony, the exclusive supplier of the high-resolution OLED displays in Vision Pro, only has the physical capacity to manufacture 900,000 units per year, and with two displays per Vision Pro, that put a maximum capacity on Vision Pro production at about 450,000 headsets for the year. That’s only slightly higher than the actual sales estimate The Information cites from Counterpoint Research, of 420,000 units.”

“it’s disingenuous, to say the least, for an October 2024 report to suggest that Vision Pro sales are surprisingly weak when they’re almost exactly in line with uncannily accurate expectations set in a May 2023 report by the exact same reporter at the same publication.”

Quoting Gruber, they seem to have sold exactly as many as how they exoected so guess it depends how you define failure?

Do you get headaches and dizziness using it because I’ve never experienced that, but have with other headsets.

No, never with Vision Pro. I’ve felt sick with earlier quests and PS VR when I tired them at friends.

 

[lilkwarrior]

Clickbait aside,

"This kind of spatial content is the future of storytelling"

It's not. It's a gimmick. It's about as useful to storytelling as 3DTV, LivePhotos, and 360 degree footage.

Turns out that none of these technologies actually add anything to the story and do nothing to affect the script, performances, production design or world building.

That's utterly ridiculous to say.

Spatial content absolutely is a distinct and inevitable path of visual technology being improved to better experience narratives that's distinct and indefinite aspect of modern computing that has been supported by human-computer-interaction computer science for decades to get to this point:

Especially aspects of story-telling such as environmental storytelling that traditional screen technology have distinct disadvantages of maximizing.

The Vision Pro is the first standalone headset to even give creatives a CHANCE to render spatial content stories on par with important creative screen capabilities as traditional screen devices such as Dolby Vision HDR and HLG HDR creatives use to film visual narratives.

Modest, budget headsets sold at a loss (unrealistic prices) for gaming don't even have HDR to be on par with non-spatial-computing hardware.

It's naive and waaaaaaaaaaaaay too premature spatial content in the matter you are.

 

[wikiverse]

That's utterly ridiculous to say.

Spatial content absolutely is a distinct and inevitable path of visual technology being improved to better experience narratives that's distinct and indefinite aspect of modern computing that has been supported by human-computer-interaction computer science for decades to get to this point:

Especially aspects of story-telling such as environmental storytelling that traditional screen technology have distinct disadvantages of maximizing.

The Vision Pro is the first standalone headset to even give creatives a CHANCE to render spatial content stories on par with important creative screen capabilities as traditional screen devices such as Dolby Vision HDR and HLG HDR creatives use to film visual narratives.

Modest, budget headsets sold at a loss (unrealistic prices) for gaming don't even have HDR to be on par with non-spatial-computing hardware.

It's naive and waaaaaaaaaaaaay too premature spatial content in the matter you are.

VR headsets have been around for a very long time. 3D movies have been around for a very long time. The 'future of storytelling' in a VR space is only ever going to happen through gaming.

If all you're doing is putting a regular film into a floating virtual screen, that's just a regular film. If you're adding stereoscopic '3D', then that's just 3DTV. Combining those two things doesn't make storytelling any better, in most cases it makes it worse.

The overwhelming majority of people cannot tell the difference between HDR and SDR images on a regular screen. Most people don't care because they're not watching Bridgerton or Wednesday for the Dolby Vision HDR. They're watching for the characters and story and world-building. The technology doesn't matter.

Watching spatial videos on a VisionPro in the Vimeo App isn't the future of storytelling.

 

[CBlakeston]

And yet I just watched an immersive story in 3D that was pretty compelling.. and NBA playoffs where being so close to the players made me feel tiny. So you’re clearly wrong when you say these things aren’t being made.

Define what you mean by future? I don’t think anyone here is saying it will be the ONLY way stories are told. But as you’ve repeated 3D has been around for 50 years so by your own argument it’s stood the test of time. It will definitely be one way to watch content going forward.

 

[lilkwarrior]

VR headsets have been around for a very long time. 3D movies have been around for a very long time. The 'future of storytelling' in a VR space is only ever going to happen through gaming.

If all you're doing is putting a regular film into a floating virtual screen, that's just a regular film. If you're adding stereoscopic '3D', then that's just 3DTV. Combining those two things doesn't make storytelling any better, in most cases it makes it worse.

The overwhelming majority of people cannot tell the difference between HDR and SDR images on a regular screen. Most people don't care because they're not watching Bridgerton or Wednesday for the Dolby Vision HDR. They're watching for the characters and story and world-building. The technology doesn't matter.

Watching spatial videos on a VisionPro in the Vimeo App isn't the future of storytelling.

Just no regarding gaming. Gaming headset manufacturers aren’t even willing to make their headsets on par with non-spatial computing gaming hardware in capabilities and power which will put costs far beyond budget gamers as expected.

It makes more sense like before for substantial ability for spatial computing to support higher-end and more convenient support of text, pictorial, and video content with gaming requiring GPU horsepower and game development complexity the gaming industry as a whole is not yet ready for as they still struggle to get non-VR gaming far more efficient that necessitates higher prices anyway for ray-tracing and SSDs to be indefinitely baseline tech for game devs to rely on.

Gamers are over representative in social media and the internet. Most tech users aren’t gamers; most high-end computer users aren’t pure gamers who often cannot afford high end computing not having complimentary needs of a computer other than gaming.

Most who do easily can finance high-end gaming (spatial computing or not).

3D movies ar home has been stagnant and ill-equipped taking off with the abysmal resolution and limitations of TVs vs spatial computing hardware. This isn’t news or surprising to HCI experts.

The technology doesn’t matter argument you when doesn’t add up when HDR is more noticeable than resolution and technology absolutely plays a part in gaming moving forward you feel will push spatial computing forward:

It’s common knowledge gaming has a huge technology bottleneck with budget consumers at odds and even combative with progress of more advanced tech like ray-tracing (holy grail
of graphics), SSDs, AI-enhanced upscaling, and 4K being new staples of enjoying the hobby the industry clearly is pushing.


Spatial computing is fundamentally much more expensive than traditional computing hardware making it important for non-gaming computing use cases capitalizing on the medium better for mainstream adoption than just games.

Loss leaders attempting to make gaming the forefront are losing 14 billions a year like Meta’s approach.

Technology such as HDR does matter and a key tech that differentiates between budget and quality streaming services and hardware today.

That isn’t changing; content owners deliberately limit Dolby Vision HDR on computers over home devices to combat privacy that’s a secret as well.

In any case creatives need such HDR to take a computing platform seriously that prosumers absolutely appreciates to invest in Dolby HDR hardware for consumption and productivity.

The difference between SDR and Dolby Vision is absolutely noticeable.

 

[MechaVice]

Spatial computing is fundamentally much more expensive than traditional computing hardware making it important for non-gaming computing use cases capitalizing on the medium better for mainstream adoption than just games.

I think gaming is THE mainstream use case for devices like the AVP. Developments in the technology can benefit both gaming and non-gaming uses, but IMO it's gaming that's has the most mainstream potential.

 

[CBlakeston]

Once that surprised me - obvious in hindsight I guess - is how many games on Vision Pro are actually in 3D. I’ve played tons of mario kart like games in my life but the family guy one on Apple Arcade is actually in 3D. It’s not a killer app by any means but a fun potential for what a need for speed would be like.

 

[lilkwarrior]

I think gaming is THE mainstream use case for devices like the AVP. Developments in the technology can benefit both gaming and non-gaming uses, but IMO it's gaming that's has the most mainstream potential.

That's very different than 'the future of storytelling'; video games have a hard time even having the content affordances to tell the stories in matters other mediums can.

Also gaming headset manufacturers aren't even targeting today's mainstream non-VR AAA gamers. Budget gamers grossly underestimate the complexity, cost, and horsepower needed to power a spatial computing headset panel.

Expecting Apple to do so when incumbents such as Sony aren't (who owns the biggest premium AAA current-gen gaming platform) is wishful thinking.

Valve haven't properly supported their VR headset with first-party content either on the most powerful gaming platforms in the world (PC)

Apple doesn't have an investment of first-party studios in the AAA gaming market, and it's a low profit business unlikely to be of interest to Apple indefinitely.

The Vision Pro is a prosumer device with screen density and a modest GPU tech in their APU (just .5 Teraflops more powerful than a Meta headset) antagonistic of a q

That's the case across all of Apple's devices outside of maybe the M3 and up Apple devices (finally having hardware-accelerated ray-tracing to be current-gen-compatible at least).

Apple's pixel-dense-oriented hardware would necessitate far higher investment in GPUs horsepower than most gaming hardware companies are willing to do for games to run natively well (or via MetalFx for AI-enhanced upscaling) on their pixel-dense devices.

That's the case for the Vision Pro which would have to be even more expensive than it is today to be a prosumer headset that also can play games well (a no-compromises approach that Nvidia does with their prosumer GPUs).

Meta, Sony, Valve, HTC, and others deliberately have weak GPUs (standalone), resolutions/PPI abysmal for prosumers, and not even HDR having lukewarm investment in attempting to enable games on par or be superior than non-VR AAA gaming hardware… Even the loss leaders such as Meta would have a much more expensive headset sold if they did pursue such things.

 

[MechaVice]

That's very different than 'the future of storytelling'; video games have a hard time even having the content affordances to tell the stories in matters other mediums can.

Also gaming headset manufacturers aren't even targeting today's mainstream non-VR AAA gamers. Budget gamers grossly underestimate the complexity, cost, and horsepower needed to power a spatial computing headset panel.

Expecting Apple to do so when incumbents such as Sony aren't (who owns the biggest premium AAA current-gen gaming platform) is wishful thinking.

I agree that the technology needed to do spatial gaming well is considerably more advanced than what is currently possible. I'm just saying that from a consumer perspective I think gaming is what would attract the most people to these headsets. Moreso than using them as a computer monitor, or TV for viewing 2D content. Even if an amazing gaming headset would be wildly expensive, it would at least pique people's interest as an aspirational product.

I have no expectation that Apple will pursue it, but I believe it's necessary, if they want the AVP to become a mainstream consumer device. Of course, they might be okay with it being a niche device.

 

[lilkwarrior]

I agree that the technology needed to do spatial gaming well is considerably more advanced than what is currently possible. I'm just saying that from a consumer perspective I think gaming is what would attract the most people to these headsets. Moreso than using them as a computer monitor, or TV for viewing 2D content. Even if an amazing gaming headset would be wildly expensive, it would at least pique people's interest as an aspirational product.

I have no expectation that Apple will pursue it, but I believe it's necessary, if they want the AVP to become a mainstream consumer device. Of course, they might be okay with it being a niche device.

The Vision Pro like Apple's other prosumer devices aren't intended to be mainstream consumer devices.

If they create a "Vision" or "Vision Air" it would have compromises that would not make sense for their entrenched prosumer demographic just like the iPad Pro vs iPad, Macbook Pro vs Macbook, Mac Studio vs Mac Mini, Pro Display XDR vs Studio Display, and so on.