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Comment by crazygringo

3 years ago

> Does someone watch an entire 2+ hour movie with a sweaty headset strapped to them

I just want to say, absolutely. Except it's not sweaty.

You're not going to do it in a social situation -- it's not replacing a movie the family watches together -- but in your bedroom or home alone absolutely. Just recline on your bed/couch and watch an IMAX-sized screen in the sky above you. Surround sound in your AirPods.

I already do it with my Quest 2 and it's glorious. It's hard to imagine how good the experience is until you've tried it.

And I'm convinced that within a few years, it's going to become the main way of watching movies together with friends/family/lovers when you're geographically apart -- whether 2,000 miles or 2 miles.

30 comments

crazygringo

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dahwolf  3 years ago

I must be old-fashioned or even anti-social, but what exactly is the point of watching a movie together remotely? Does it become some kind of group debate that constantly interrupts the movie?

  • crazygringo  3 years ago

    With comedies you're laughing together and it's awesome. I did that constantly during COVID with friends. Especially great for reality TV shows, you can pause and make jokes about what's going on.

    It's really fun to pause and chat about what's happening and then resume. Yes it's constantly interrupting the movie but that's the whole point. But because you pause you're not missing dialog or anything.

    I mean, do you not see a difference in watching something on a couch with friends vs. watching the same thing by yourself?

    • dahwolf  3 years ago

      I'll come clean and admit that as it comes to watching movies, I'm anti-social. I do not want to discuss the movie whilst watching it, at all.

      Lighter content like the news, a talk show, things like that...sure.

  • onepointsixC  3 years ago

    During Covid & lockdowns, loads of people watched movies together. It's not much different from watching a movie with a friend at your own place. VR gives the activity sense of presence which is hard to describe, but basically it's even more of a social experience.

    • peoplefromibiza  3 years ago

      > It's not much different from watching a movie with a friend at your own place

      not to sound rude, but that's a bit of a stretch.

      It is much different.

      Maybe not better overall for some people, but very much different it is.

      > VR gives the activity sense of presence which is hard to describe

      Not really hard, it's similar to proprioception

      Difference is proprioception enables you to feel limbs that are actually there, which is not as good as tricking your brain to feel something that it's not there.

      1 reply →

  • King-Aaron  3 years ago

    When I'm away on a remote site for a week or two, it is nice to be able to watch a movie with my wife after a shift. There's something nice about the feeling of being connected even though I'm 2000kms away from her.

partiallypro  3 years ago

I don't have a Quest 2 myself, but my nephew has one and even wearing it for 15 minutes has the padding full of sweat any time I've messed with it. I can't even imagine wearing it for 2+ hours.

nocontextpls  3 years ago

I own a Quest 2 and it's far from glorious. The resolution makes everything a blurry mess, and the lenses make anything off-center even more blurry.

It DOES get sweaty, hot, and it leaves pressure marks on your face.

My 65" 4k OLED TV and shelf speakers absolutely destroy the Quest 2. I have also owned an HTC Vive and a Valve Index.

I would rather do nothing than use any of them for media consumption.

  • crazygringo  3 years ago

    If you use an app like SkyBox you can make sure the screen is outputting full 1080p detail by adjusting the size and rendering quality of the virtual screen. Nothing is blurry or messy at all -- I've actually compared against stills from the same video on my laptop. Each eye is 1920 pixels wide but it's effectively a bit wider since you have two eyes without total overlap between the two images, so it matches up for 1080p pretty perfectly. (And you can watch 4K content but you're only going to get effective 1080p resolution.)

    I'm happy you have a 65" 4K TV but not everyone does, and the vast majority of content out there is only 1080p as well. And my AirPods Pro, with noise cancelling, together with the Quest's own spatial audio, absolutely destroy any regular speakers I've ever owned. And everything can be as loud as I want without disturbing anyone's sleep or study.

    > It DOES get sweaty, hot, and it leaves pressure marks on your face.

    I guess we have different experiences, but it sounds to me like your strap is possibly much too tight. None of those things happen to me. But I'm also using it in a room-temperature environment -- I'm sure it would get sweaty and hot if it were 90°F indoors or something.

    • LoganDark  3 years ago

      > Each eye is 1920 pixels wide

      This is like five times worse than my desktop display, which fills around a third of my visual field with a 4K desktop. It sounds absolutely miserable (and is, based on my experience with an HP Reverb G2, which is 2160x2160 per eye).

    • nocontextpls  3 years ago

      > If you use an app like SkyBox you make sure the screen is outputting full 1080p detail. Nothing is blurry or messy at all. You can do the math if you don't believe me.

      1080p detail? Are you aware this detail is spread all over your field of vision? ~18 pixels per degree is laughable quality. And let's not talk about the Screen Door Effect!

      > The vast majority of content out there is only 1080p

      What???

      > And my AirPods Pro, with noise cancelling, together with the Quest's own spatial audio, absolutely destroy any regular speakers I've ever owned.

      You probably haven't owned many speakers, then.

      > I guess we have different experiences, but it sounds to me like your strap is possibly much too tight.

      If you don't wear it tight, it's easy for it to move slightly and you lose the sweet spot of the lenses, which is very narrow, increasing blurriness even further.

      I don't wear my glasses tightly, and they still leave a mark on my nose.

      14 replies →

  • XorNot  3 years ago

    You know as a parent (feels weird to write that) this highlights an entirely weird product oversight for me: is anyone doing shareable low-latency wireless headphones? Because in terms of putting things on your head, that's exactly what me and my wife need - a way to watch things at night without constantly riding the volume control, with shared audio (and microphone pick ups or something so we can talk to each other).