{"id":3511,"date":"2019-06-23T21:49:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T21:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/?p=3511"},"modified":"2019-07-01T22:22:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T22:22:35","slug":"vr-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/vr-update\/","title":{"rendered":"VR Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It has been awhile since we looked at\nthe state of the art in VR headsets and how well they will work for\nporn. We are still waiting for something groundbreaking. As Greg\nSullivan, director of communications for Microsoft\u2019s Mixed Reality\narm, said in an interview with UploadVR: \u201cInterestingly, the\nimmersive VR headsets were pitched as consumer devices and I think\ndid not meet, in general, the high expectations that were set for\nthem there. But what you\u2019re seeing now is more and more commercial\napplications for those types of experiences.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, new models have come out. I\nhave said in the past that true VR without any screendoor effect and\nwith high realism requires at least 60 frames per second and 4K in\neach eye. That is the goal. We are not there quite yet. Pimax<\/a>\nhad a Kickstarter promising an 8K headset in 2017. They are shipping\nit now, but surprisingly, their 5K version is sharper, due to the\narrangement of pixels and the fact that they do not offer actual 8K.\nEven worse, it won\u2019t actually accept native-resolution 8K video\ninput. Despite the promises, this is not the 8K headset we are\nlooking for. Still, it seems to be the best on the market, although\nyou may have trouble getting one from the Chinese company as their\nshipping seems to be a little spotty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real problem is that 8K televisions\nare just now appearing on the market at a price below $10,000. Two\nyears ago Sharp introduced the first 8K TV for $133,000, and those\nearly adopters are still waiting for 8K content, while there is still\nsurprisingly little general 4K content (although quite a bit of\nporn). It may be a very long time before we see 8K content for\ntelevisions. There are 8K cameras but nothing even close to even the\nprosumer price range. You are generally looking at five figures. You\nalso need to store all this video. A 2 terabyte drive will hold just\nfour hours of 8k content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only company I know streaming 8K content is Vimeo. I don’t know of any porn companies shooting in 8K, and why would they? There is not even a streaming 8K standard for televisions yet. There is some good news on the computer side. VESA has released the new DiplayPort 2.0 standard, which triples bandwidth and supports output of dual 4K displays at 120Hz. That is just what you need for VR. Products that support this new standard will not be on the market until the end of 2020 though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, even if an actual 8K headset appears, we also need lower cost cameras, faster streaming, and much greater general adoption of 8K in general to bring the costs down. 8K headsets are the goal, but no matter how you look at it, they are realistically still a long ways off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting 8K aside, where are the mainstream headset manufacturers now? The Oculus Quest was recently released and many reviewers are proclaiming it the best VR headset yet. It is wireless and self-contained. No one wants to be tethered by wires. You get 1440 x 1600 per eye with a refresh rate of 72Hz. It incorporates floveated rendering, a feature I expect to become common as it reduces stress on the processor. It really needs to be paired with eye tracking to make it full effective, otherwise, as in this case, it just blurs the edges of the display. It has six degrees of tracking as opposed to the typical three. This gives you a lot more freedom of movement. It is strictly VR, with no AR (Augmented Reality) capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oculus Quest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another next generation headset is\nexpected this Spring with HTC’s Vive Cosmos. It has slightly higher\nresolution than the Quest at 1440×1700 per eye, which is an 88%\nimprovement over the earlier Vive model. Neither the Quest or the\nCosmos resolution is enough to completely eliminate the screendoor\neffect, but it is an improvement. It also uses inside-out tracking.\nIt does not have floveated rendering or eye tracking, which is fine\nas one with out the other does not make a lot of sense to me. It is\napparently a tethered headset, but maybe not. They have intimated\nthat it will work with more than just your PC, perhaps also running\noff of an insertable smartphone. They have been very stingy with\nreleasing details, and some of what little we know just came out a\nfew days ago. It has two front facing cameras so AR is at least a\npossibility. We know much less than we don’t know, not even the\nprice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HTC Vive Cosmos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Also brand new is the HP Reverb. While at the higher end in price, it wins on resolution, with an impressive 2,160×2,160 in each eye. Unfortunately, it is based on Windows Mixed Reality platform, which is not as popular or as sleek as the competition. The games come from the sparse Microsoft store rather than from the much larger SteamVR and Occulus stores. A little research on Google will show you how to make it work with Steam games. Access to lots of games means higher adoption and eventually lower prices. Let the gamers fund the R&D so we can enjoy better VR porn at less cost. It still has a slight screendoor effect, but much less than any other headset on the market. It has the sharpest display available. It is also tethered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HP Reverb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Freedom of movement is probably of less\ninterest to those who just want to watch VR porn. For the future,\nthough, I expect to see some amazing VR porn environments and\ninnovative interactive video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making interactive content out of\nactual video is difficult. Doing it with AR is probably not\npractical. The future will probably focus on more realistic avatars,\nthose that are controlled by other players and those that function\nwith artificial intelligence. Researchers are working hard to create\nmore realistic looking animated people. Researchers from Facebook\nReality Labs (FRL) have developed a new system called Codec Avatars\nthat gives VR users the ability to interact with others while\nrepresenting themselves with lifelike avatars precisely animated in\nreal-time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While video games have managed\nrealistic looking characters and movement by having actors put on\nmotion tracking and facial tracking rigs, this has not been possible\nat the low end for the home consumer. What FRL has done is use\ncameras mounted on the headset to do facial capture. They use an\nartificial intelligence technique based on Generative Adversarial\nNetworks (GANs) that performs consistent multi-view image style\ntranslation to automatically convert HMC infrared images to images\nthat look like a rendered avatar but with the same facial expressions\nof the person wearing the headset. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, people will figure out how\nto use this technology for sex. You will be able to have sexual\nencounters with other people who can appear any way they want to. The\nnext step will be more sophisticated teledildonics, the remote and\ninteractive operation of sexually stimulating devices. Incorporated\ninto the actions of an avatar, this would allow for actual sexual\nstimulation within a virtual world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the FRL tech, it is still a\ncomplicated process to create a realistic avatar, requiring a studio\nand a lot of expensive equipment. The idea is that you would step\ninto one of the already created realistic avatars. You might, for\nexample, step into a remote controlled Riley Reid. Voice technology\nhas advanced dramatically, and you could probably even talk in her\nvoice. This would make gender swapping in interactive VR possible.\nThey are working on creating easier tools to make an avatar of\nyourself at home, but that is a ways off. For porn applications,\nhaving a different body has its own specific appeal. I also suspect\nthat we may see virtual cam girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, real sex involves a lot of\nstimulation all over your body. Recreating that is probably a long\nways away. Still, when real sex is not available, this could well be\nthe next best thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Augmented Reality (AR) has been much\nslower to take off, despite being pushed by Microsoft. Does it\nrealistically have possibilities for adult entertainment? We’ll look\nat where we are and where it is going next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been awhile since we looked at the state of the art in VR headsets and how well they will work for porn. We are still waiting for something…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","category-virtual-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3515,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions\/3515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}