Can live streaming become VR’s long-awaited killer app?

Put rubber bands on the watermelon one by one until the watermelon bursts. This 45-minute live broadcast attracted more than 800,000 viewers online, becoming a very popular live broadcast after Facebook launched the live broadcast function "Facebook Live".

Behind this, after Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion, in addition to studying how to make Oculus a new way of socializing, the live broadcast business has also been given more possibilities, especially since Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly emphasized that 2016 will be the year of VR, and VR phones will become the mainstream of the market in 5 to 10 years.

However, this time, Chinese companies seem to be ahead.

Facebook, which launched the VR helmet Oculus Rift CV1 and the 8K resolution professional VR shooting platform Surround 360, has finally shot its own VR film "Here and Now". Today, Chinese live broadcast platforms are busy letting viewers wear VR glasses to watch live broadcasts, realizing the magical journey of traveling to the host's side in one second.

Prior to this, in April 2015, the video website YouTube announced that it would start supporting the playback of interactive 360-degree videos. Computer users can adjust the viewing angle with a mouse, and if played on a smartphone or VR display, the experience will be more immersive - the viewing angle will change as the device moves.

Live broadcast + VR

The rapid development of the smartphone industry has spawned many high-performance chips and high-PPI (Pixels Per Inch) screens, and these materials have greatly facilitated the maturity of VR equipment in hardware.

But even so, the VR hardware manufacturers' collective expectation of a large-scale market expansion and sales did not come as expected.

The market is still plagued by an old problem - VR content. In addition to VR short films and VR game DEMOs (abbreviation of demonstration, sample films) used for demonstration purposes at major exhibitions and events, even as movies and games are recognized as the earliest areas of VR explosion, the lack of high-quality VR content has always been a bottleneck restricting the rapid popularization of this market.

It is worth mentioning that during the rapid development of touch-screen mobile phones, the reason why users threw away their feature phones was largely due to the popularity of touch-screen games.

"Games were used to attract the first wave of users. In the second stage when there were enough users, everyone needed to communicate, so social functions like Weibo and WeChat came out. The third stage was mobile Internet, and many vertical applications, life applications, and service applications began to appear, covering all aspects of life." In the view of Qin Zheng, CEO of Ant Vision, the wearable field and the large fields of VR and AR will also experience a development trajectory similar to that of touch-screen mobile phones in the future.

But the embarrassment of the current VR market is how to create phenomenal game applications like "Angry Birds" and "Fruit Ninja" to attract everyone into the VR ecosystem and gather users.

While most VR manufacturers are focusing their efforts on the film, television and gaming markets in their search for killer applications, the live streaming sector, which is now very popular in the Chinese Internet market, may become a shortcut for VR service providers.

Just like the current popular live broadcast process, the host still performs in front of the camera in a normal way. The ordinary camera on the PC or mobile phone has become a VR camera. After the camera processes the image, the image is uploaded through the software, and then the audience can watch the host's performance through the mobile phone APP. In order to experience the virtual reality scene, the audience needs to wear a VR mobile phone helmet.

"This is a live video broadcast in our current APP. You can see the host sitting in front of you and performing as if it were real. The ceiling in the room and each of the host's fingers are very three-dimensional." According to Qin Zheng, Ant Vision Technology has already cooperated with the top five live broadcast platforms in China and plans to launch this virtual reality live broadcast product within half a month.

Make VR hardware free

The reporter learned that in terms of the specific cooperation mode with the live broadcast platform, Ant Vision Technology chose to first provide VR cameras to the top 100 anchors on the live broadcast platform. In addition, it will also give away VR mobile phone helmets to high-end users of the live broadcast platform as gifts.

Behind this, AntVision Technology's hardware has to be shipped to the live streaming platform at cost price, and this is based on the premise that the live streaming platform guarantees the brand exposure of AntVision Technology's hardware products, without generating any revenue from the hardware and launching the products.

"With the development of the Internet, there is still a considerable psychological threshold for Chinese audiences to be willing to spend money to buy VR equipment. Now the industry is calling for free hardware, and some industries with strong ecological ties particularly need free hardware. The Internet model of making the cow pay for the wool and letting the pig pay for it can also be applied to VR." According to Qin Zheng's prediction, through cooperation with the above-mentioned live broadcast platforms, the shipment volume of Ant Vision Technology's VR mobile phone helmets will increase by ten times or a hundred times.

Behind this, compared to the slow development time of high-quality games, the content of live video is produced quite quickly, and any content that users are willing to accept seems to be an extension of VR live broadcast. Therefore, in addition to the exploration of watching videos on live broadcast platforms in VR, live broadcasts of concerts, live broadcasts of dramas, live broadcasts of sports games, etc. are all included in the next exploration scope.

"Because live streaming has a clear user base and cash flow, these live streaming manufacturers are motivated to do this with us, because they can generate cash flow and are also motivated to purchase and popularize products. This is a (business model) that can currently run." Qin Zheng told reporters.

It is worth mentioning that, judging from the current development status of the VR market, the entire industry is not short of manufacturers that provide VR shooting equipment, and there are also many companies that provide VR viewing equipment. However, for live broadcast platforms, what is really needed is a manufacturer that can provide a complete solution from shooting to viewing all hardware equipment, as well as software integration capabilities.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.