Watching Live Broadcasts by NextVR Changes Everything
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As I sat there watching the Superbowl on Sunday I just kept thinking to myself, “Something about this is just wrong!” This is because once you have seen a live sporting event in VR there is just no going back. VR changes everything and after having had a good experience it is hard to return to the old ways of consuming media. For me, this has become the case with almost all forms of gaming, movies and now even watching live sports thanks to the folks at NextVR.
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For years I considered myself a media junkie. I constantly tried to upgrade my home theater and gaming set ups to capture that perfect media consumption experience. This however all changed when I started to consume my media in VR. Trying to play games without being in them was now dead to me and suddenly I could no longer sit and enjoy my favorites on a flat screen. Watching movies without seeing them on a gigantic screen in some exotic location or virtual movie theater also became dull. As my old ways of experiencing traditional media transitioned to VR, there was still no ability to watch live broadcasts and I had not found a way to bring this to my VR world until I discovered the NextVR app on my Gear VR.
NextVR is setting the standard for live media broadcasting in VR. Over the past year I have watched events live in VR that I would have never had access to in the real world. My first taste was watching this years NBA tip off game. Admittedly, I have never been to a professional basketball game in real life, but now have memories like I was actually there! This event was the first time NextVR had broadcast a live professional sporting event and it was admittedly a bit rough with server disconnects and stuttering video but also at the same time very cool and showed a lot of potential.
Over the course of the next few months their tech got much better in part due to some heavy investments. Recently NextVR received $30.5 Million in Series A funding led by Formation 8, and included some heavy hitters such as Comcast Ventures and Time Warner Investments as well as Peter Gruber, one of the co-owners of the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Dodgers.
The next look I had at a NextVR broadcast was Pro Boxing where I sat ringside at the Garcia vs Guerrero fight. This time it was great! The stuttering of the stream was gone and the fidelity was finally there. My only small complaint was that they still needed to work out the scale. It felt as if people just looked a bit small. This issue aside, the playback was truly an eye opening experience for me and got my mind racing as to the possibilities these types of broadcasts would soon bring.
As I pondered all of this it hit me that soon everyone will be able to experience these events from the best seat in the house! Let’s face it, for the average Joe such as myself most of these awesome live events are just not financially possible. The high cost of going to live sporting event or seeing a concert these days has quite frankly priced the common person out of the market. Just the thought of possibly one day seeing my favorite bands play live from the comfort of my living room fills me with a sense of joy!
NextVR shows great potential and If you have a Gear VR unit I highly suggest downloading the app and giving this a look! Most of their live content has been made available for playback. All I can say is that the future of VR live event broadcasting is starting to look great!
Brought to you by vrgamerdude
of the VR Spies www.vrspies.com
