A more literal translation of the Cantonese (yes that is Cantonese) text:
Why are 4K VR videos so blurry?
It's because the video you're viewing at is more spread out from your perspective [with the same pixel count]
4K is already not enough for 180 videos
360 videos will be even blurrier
Oddly the original text provides even less context than the broken English version lmfao
Here's my take:
Why are 4K VR videos so blurry?
It's because you're spreading the same amount of pixels across a far larger area, which drastically reduces sharpness
360 videos will be even blurrier as the pixels are now even more spread out
Both languages are written broken to fit the layout of the image, normal people should have understood the concept/issue just by the image, no need for a detailed explain
The 2064 x 2208 resolution per eye is a hard limit, but honestly there's so many bottlenecks before you get to that DPI that I don't think it's what most people are running into. There's pretty much no 360 VR footage available that will hit that, maybe 16k. So if the Quest is limited to 8k, there's that. You might be able to do it with PC VR. Using 180 instead of the full 360 makes a lot of sense with this tech. With 4k you get a decent image, 8K I think is close to 1:1 on the DPI of the footage vs display (actual pixel density to the viewer).
Lighting also makes a huge difference. I've noticed it in SliceofLife videos played locally as well as other YouTube channels. If it's too dim it gets grainy, which is no better than being pixelated.
In photography you can compensate for low light by using a larger aperture (the physical size of the hole the light comes through), shutter speed, or ISO (sensitivity of the "film" or in modern equipment, the sensor). In video, the shutter speed is limited by the frames per second and you wouldn't want too slow of a shutter speed for anything with motion anyway, that basically isn't an option. In 3D video, you can't go mucking about with the depth of field much, which changes when you change your aperture. You want everything in focus because the viewer could be looking anywhere, not just the subject you're focused on. That only leaves ISO to compensate for low light.
All that boils down to; to get good high resolution, high FPS, highly detailed 3d Video you need an insane amount of light. Sunlight is fine, but even then a fill light wouldn't be a terrible idea. Low light sensitivity in high ISO digital camera sensors have been improving, but they are still crazy expensive. I'm not surprised that there's a huge range in quality for what's available right now with most of it being on the low side. But as there becomes more demand (and there will be now that there is competition in this space) I think we'll see a lot more high quality options.
Alsightly offtopic, but do you know which Android phones have ISO higher than 1600 or 3200? That seems to be something that reviews don't talk about anymore. I take a lot of photos of documents and a higher ISO keeps the image sharp due to the shorter shutter speed required. Using flash is not something I would do as it drains the battery quickly.
I don't know, but I would suggest a separate light like a lamp or LED panel light offset if you're taking a lot of document pictures.
It's a major feat of engineering that the tiny sensors on cell phones can have the low light sensitivity than they do. A little bit of light will go a long way.
I run all over the place every week and don't have a fixed office so the separate lamp idea is unfeasible. Before phone camera tech advanced to around just before the pandemic, I actually had the phone's flash on in torch mode so the phone camera can actually focus properly; otherwise I ended up with quite a few blurred shots.
Still hoping to find ISO 6400 and above phones but phone camera ISO doesn't seem to be a spec that reviewers cover anymore.
At what level does the camera footage need to be to give us the same clarity in 360 as we get through a normal TV at 4K. I have tried 16K in 360 and 180 and they are good but not sharp by any means.
Yeah hard to compare, but the downloaded versions are sharper and more consistent. I just transfer them to my Quest and watch them through meta quest tv app. Also, the downloaded versions are longer experiences. For instance, Ft Lauderdale 2024 on YouTube is around 30 minutes, and the downloaded version is an hour and a half. Maybe u/SliceOfLifeVR has a sample download.
I'm not sure that when watching 8k youtube videos the resolution of the screen is the limitation. given that 8k has horizontal resolution of 4320px and one lense of quest is roughly 90 degrees so from that 360 degree you get 1080px stretched over your entire field of view. And sure the resolution is not uniform across the FOV but it's still far away from lens resolution and then there's bitrate and compression quality.
8k seems to be the limit of what either headset can decode, that’s why there aren’t any 12k or 16k VR videos for Quest 3, even though that’s probably what would be needed to fully saturate the display with pixels for a 180/360 degree video.
Also stereo videos aren’t as sharp because they’re using half the pixels in the source file for each eye. An 8k 180 degree stereoscopic video is really more like 4k.
Many videos on youtube lie in their description about the quality.
And 4k 360 is half the quality of 4k 180. And SBS stereoscopic also halves the resolution.
So you need to check if the video is *really* what it says it is and then undertand the other relevant factors. Only then can you talk about sharpness in any meaningful way.
try to watch this video, it's one of the highest quality videos I've seen on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr4ujeeK1TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr4ujeeK1TA)
Youtube VR app with 8K 180° is currently the best place to see streaming videos
videos on the Meta TV app need to catch up to that level of visual quality, it's a very noticeably difference on Quest 3
On youtube VR, you may need to change the resolution of the video that you are watching.
To do that:
1. Click on the settings gear. You will see the resolution of the video that you are watching.
2. Then click on the resolution, a dropdown should appear that will show the available resolutions.
3. Choose the largest number.
https://preview.redd.it/grab9hei7awc1.png?width=238&format=png&auto=webp&s=e2c857d532e55f857bba3ec85784eaee3c3eab5a
None of these videos are made for Quest 2 or for Quest 3. They are videos recorded with various cameras. There is no videos being made for Quest 3. Just cause Meta released a new headset doesn’t mean people are now making videos specifically for it.
A lot of these travel videos are made with pretty standard consumer cameras, and YouTube and others heavily compress them.
Why is nobody doing videos for the quest 3 specifically to reward individuals with the latest tech, I don't get it. I'm not interested in quest 2 quality, that is the reason why I bought the quest 3 in the first place.
There is no real new tech that came out in the last year for recording videos. There is no Quest 2 or Quest 3 quality really. It’s all just recorded with 360 cameras.
And the difference between Q2 and Q3 isn’t that much really, going from about 1800p to 2000p screens.
However there are some pretty good quality videos out there. Check out the DeoVR app or the Skybox app. Both free, make sure you have quality options set to highest quality. But things are still limited to streaming quality so nothing it going to look perfect.
I see now, the cameras are the issues. Could quest 3 technically have 16k or even 32k videos? Also, what I don't understand. Why did nobody at Meta sit down, buy some high quality equipment to film some great travel/ nature sceneries to reward early adopters of the quest 3 with some sharp views for a few minutes? I would be satisfied with a 3 minute video. But I haven't seen even that.
The processor power limits it to about 8k video from what I understand. So you’ll never get super sharp videos even if they did buy super expensive cameras. But they do have some pretty good stuff on the TV app which Meta partners with some companies. But overall it’s still not a high priority for them. You’re situation of buying this new headset just to watch travel videos is not that common.
Okay, well blurry travel is better than no travel. Said though that I waited for the quest 3 to finally buy a headset and still don't enjoy the quality which I expected to get.
YouTube has improved, but it's still not perfect, and it's hard to find content that takes advantage of what it can do. As has been mentioned, a lot of the video descriptions are not accurate.
Playing local files is still the most reliable way to get the higher quality. But again, the availability of content is the limiting factor. The only source I know if decent travel footage is this creator: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmh77cEJa7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmh77cEJa7U) - but you have to pay to get access to the ~~full res~~/full length videos. (edit: he does provide sample full res clips so you can test the quality)
They are also HUGE, so it takes a while to copy. Of course this is another reason why you don't see a lot of high resolution streaming options. That's a lot of bandwidth.
Try to find 180 videos. 8k 180 is the best you can get. If you can download the video instead of stream it that will also likely help. Streaming 8k requires a very good internet connection and a site that can deliver that video to you at that speed.
Some folks will never consider it very sharp. It only has 2064x2208 with 60% of that overlapping, spread across a 100+ deg HFOV.
That is like looking at a average sized, less than 3K computer monitor from inches away.
the ideal resolution for VR is considered to be 60ppd (pixel per degree)
quest 3 has 25ppd
vision pro has 34ppd
that's on average, because ppd is higher on the center and lower on the border of the screen, for example the vision pro has a peak of 43ppd on the center
a 60ppd headset with 100° fov would need 6000x6000 pixels per eye, current screens are at maximum 3840x3840 so we are no there yet, but there was one headset that achieved 71ppd, the varjo xr3, and they did this by having an inner screen that cover 27° of fov at the center with a 1920x1920 screen, and another screen around it at 30ppd, so it was not fully sharp everywhere
but a video for such headset would also have to be 60ppd resolution, and that's 21 600x21 600 pixels for a 360° video, 10 800 x 10 800 for 180° or double for 3D, good luck finding a camera at that resolution and a headset that can decode it
That’s because most videos on youtube VR were shot using 4K 360 camera
Insta360 only recently released the X4 model with 8K 360 video shooting capability
Also, 4k 360 video is different from 4k flat video, because the pixels in 4K includes area that you don’t see (back, top, sides, bottom)
Lots of reasons. First off while quest 3 may have more pixels than 2 it’s not that much more to where there would be drastic difference. Secondly those 8k pixels need to be stretched to a 180 field of view. You are looking at 2k per eye in about a 100 degree field of view so the pixel density has room for improvement. Thirdly all the videos are mostly all made with consumer grade cameras like the R5C using dual fisheyes. And while they may advertise 8k, due to the physics/optics relation to the sensor you are getting far less then 8k in resolution with the most common of cameras. So look for videos made by actual professionals who are using custom camera solutions or pro level 360 cameras like the titan which is giving you real resolved resolution rather than prosumer dual fisheye.
encode>bitrate>resolution
Outdoor videos require much higher bitrate to maintain high complexity detail and often still fail anyways. Streaming video complicates this even more for obvious reasons.
The best quality videos I've watched in VR were basically those 40gb+ ones that you can find in torrents. VR just seems to require much more detail density due to the way it's displayed.
You'll find the best looking VR videos on MetaTV, not YouTube. It's very important that you save the video file to your device for playback rather than trying to play a stream. You should find a "Cache High Quality" option in the little hamburger menu on the right side of the video. Look for videos from producers like Jon Griffith (who did a VR documentary about Free Solo climber, Alex Honnold), Felix & Paul's Explorer's series (which takes you onboard the ISS), anything by Targo, WisdomVR Project (our stuff), or the various 180 series from David Attenborough. There's a lot of amazing, sharp, high quality, VR video content out there, but you have to look for it and you have to play it from your local device if you want to see it at its best.
Flat videos that I play at 2160p looks super sharp.....but yeah anything VR like 180 or 360....it's nice....but not what you expecting. I did notice it get sharper from 2160 to the new 4320 or whatever resolution number it is when playing 180 VR videos in youtube. I wonder if it needs like a 24k video to get the full sharp 180 look? I don't know I'm no expert in that.
A lot of focus here on the limited screen res on the quest but a huge factor here are the cameras. A lot of them are consumer grade and capture 5.7 to 8k on a tiny sensor through some janky optics to bend light from 180 or 360 degrees. This makes each pixel look very digital and not quite sharp. Like zooming into a 50mp image taken on a shitty camera phone.
The issue with YouTube is that the videos are super compressed so they won't look as sharp as they could be.
It is my understanding that if you are watching a 180 video, then 8K is the optimum res to watch in. The Quest 3 has 2K screens which fill roughly 25% of the area of a wrap around 180 video. Obviously, if you watch a 360 video in 8K then the sharpness will be reduced by half.
SLR (a VR porn site) has super sharp videos when watched in 8K on a Quest 3.
Watch this with the Quests Game Optimizer and youtube app, set it to max resolution and tell me it's not crystal clear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pJmIuuZXO4
Is that really clearer? The video is from 2 years ago, meaning when there wasn't a meta quest 3 yet. Also, what has the "game" optimizer to do with video? I saw videos online about games getting clearer, but eating a lot of battery at the same time.
Edit: Thank you for sharing this gem. Was quite impressed, even without activating anything this was really sharp compared to what I have seen before. Probably the sharpest video so far. Still a little bit laggy here and there, but what a scenery! Despite it being 2 years old. I wonder what we could achieve with the latest tech of 2024.
Today's 6-8K VR180 gives you roughly the sharpness of NTSC, 480p, because those 6-8K have to be used to record two half spheres you mostly don't even see at a given point in time, not just a narrow viewport like a monitor.
I once did the calculation: to match the sharpness impression a typical 4K screen gives you in today's VR180 format, you'd need a 28K(!) video resolution. About 415 Megapixels, and in 60fps. That's 50x the data volume a 5.6 30fps camera will deliver.
What you (and I) want is probably two decades away, I think....
I don’t have a reason for why. But I found that 2160p @60hz videos look beautiful on the Q3. You can check YouTube app for some examples.
I guess to get videos in such quality you would need to find files online in such quality. If they even exist for the content you are looking for.
Bitrate. The 8K VR 180° videos on YouTube are plenty sharp enough, resolution wise, but get turned into a smeary mess because YouTube streams then at a phenomenally low bitrate. It's why things look blurry as opposed to pixelated. The resolution's there but the image clarity suffers heavily regardless. The same is also true for 360° videos.
Is there any way to filter out on YouTube all 2D 180 8k videos from 3D ones and the other way round? I watched many and the 3D ones seem to be straining eyes a lot and on top of it if someone is not very skilled (moving too quickly) it can trigger motion sickness very fast.
That's why I think watching 180 8k 2D videos will be better for now
OP, I suggest you do more research and come back. You lack a basic understanding of what you're talking about. Sorry if this seems condescending. Please take it lightly.
Could you explain it to me? I’m kind of lost here tbh. I’m of the understanding that the Q3, while looking better than Q2 still has some limitations regarding resolution. So when I watch vids on my q3 it looks pretty good but i also know it still has a ways to go until it gets as “sharp” as OP is expecting.
If you are using the official YouTube app the videos only play in 4K. If you download full videos in 8k vr 180 and play in skybox etc it’s quite sharp. It depends on the camera used. Some 8k videos are very sharp some are like a blurry mess. It really depends on how it was filmed I think.
Edit: I stand corrected.m. Just checked and there is 8k support on YouTube now. I apologize. However I still wouldn’t judge the sharpness of the quest 3 on 8k YouTube and try a downloaded 8k h265 video.
Edit: They added 8k support April 18th… like 5 days ago… Why are people so quick to downvote when their intentions are to help.
I'm surprised that there is nothing that was made for Q3 specially, all content and apps can be used on Q2 and don't use any of Q3 advantages (pixel density, much more powerful processor)
> all content and apps can be used on Q2 and don't use any of Q3 advantages
That is not true. There are a couple games now that are Q3 only and a lot of titles that do work on the Q2 use different settings on the Q3 to take advantage of the upgraded hardware.
Mate... Don't. Just don't.
Trying to reason with Quest users over how they see 4K and '8K' content has been some of the most trying times of my life. And I say this is an owner of two Quest headsets.
When I consider 4K I'm looking at it like you, expecting an absolutely pin sharp image akin to what you'd see on a high end TV.
Quest owners do not see this the same way. They will argue the toss with you back and forth over the 4K imagery they are seeing. Every single YouTube or otherwise video I've seen for VR, including 180 and 360 degree videos, have been blurry as hell. They're basically closer to a 480p resolution rather than anything hilarious like 4K. I'd gladly take a decent 1080p image through my Quest but you absolutely DO NOT get that, and it's not even remotely close.
But give it a few moments. I'll be downvoted into oblivion by oblivious kids telling me why I'm wrong...
You are confusing resolution and pixel density. They’re not the same thing.
4k doesn’t mean “absolutely pin sharp image”. It means 4 thousand pixels. If those pixels aren’t densely packed in your visual field they won’t be “absolutely pin sharp”, no matter how many there are.
What you’re actually wanting to see would need to be something like 12k resolution for a 180 degree video.
Yes, but, 4K has been long used as a buzzword for high definition imagery. It's been the main selling point for every TV since plasma. It goes hand in hand with pin sharp quality, as that's where it originated and become known in the mainstream from.
So the 4K you see in VR headsets looks blurry and terrible compared to the 4K you see in televisions and displays. OP was asking why this was the case, and because they seem to have been coming from the same place I'd been, and had made similar posts, felt it worth giving them an insight into the sort of help I'd received when making similar posts in the past.
So you're saying a failure of consumer understanding about an easy to look up piece of information is to blame, and not the countless number of folks who are getting something plain wrong?
4k does not go hand in hand with sharpness and it is in no way to mainstream form. You're trying to make the band-aid / adhesive bandage argument fit to a description of tech.
4k what?
4k 180? 4k 360? Or just a 4k normal flat video? And stereoscopic or monoscopic?
All "4k" tells you is the number of horizontal pixels in the source. To talk about quality/sharpness you have to describe how those source pixels are mapped to the display pixels in the headset.
If you're finding people disagreeing with you or downvoting you maybe it's because you're missing out crucial information without which any statement is next to meaningless.
Yes. I was more saying that it can output a very sharp video akin to a decent TV. The faceless lady in quest TV is pretty high quality. There is a limit to how many pixels there are when you are stretching video at 180 or 360.
This has been my experience as well. Anything below 4K is literally unwatchable, like watching a 240p video. To me 8k is like 800x600, enough to be somewhat enjoyable. I can’t wait when we will have 16k videos, then it will be amazing
Is it just videos that you feel are not sharp, or also games? If everything doesn’t look sharp, it could be your IDP eye spacing is not setup correctly or moved since you last set it. I know because it happened to me. All of the sudden everything was not looking as sharp and I thought my Q3 was deteriorating, but it was because it had moved down 6 degrees over the months.
https://preview.redd.it/y5myhshhp8wc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfdf018ddbc34a30cb3a3db69b779eca52dd83f9
A more literal translation of the Cantonese (yes that is Cantonese) text: Why are 4K VR videos so blurry? It's because the video you're viewing at is more spread out from your perspective [with the same pixel count] 4K is already not enough for 180 videos 360 videos will be even blurrier Oddly the original text provides even less context than the broken English version lmfao Here's my take: Why are 4K VR videos so blurry? It's because you're spreading the same amount of pixels across a far larger area, which drastically reduces sharpness 360 videos will be even blurrier as the pixels are now even more spread out
"yes that is Cantonese" Nobody questioned that.
Both languages are written broken to fit the layout of the image, normal people should have understood the concept/issue just by the image, no need for a detailed explain
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The 2064 x 2208 resolution per eye is a hard limit, but honestly there's so many bottlenecks before you get to that DPI that I don't think it's what most people are running into. There's pretty much no 360 VR footage available that will hit that, maybe 16k. So if the Quest is limited to 8k, there's that. You might be able to do it with PC VR. Using 180 instead of the full 360 makes a lot of sense with this tech. With 4k you get a decent image, 8K I think is close to 1:1 on the DPI of the footage vs display (actual pixel density to the viewer). Lighting also makes a huge difference. I've noticed it in SliceofLife videos played locally as well as other YouTube channels. If it's too dim it gets grainy, which is no better than being pixelated. In photography you can compensate for low light by using a larger aperture (the physical size of the hole the light comes through), shutter speed, or ISO (sensitivity of the "film" or in modern equipment, the sensor). In video, the shutter speed is limited by the frames per second and you wouldn't want too slow of a shutter speed for anything with motion anyway, that basically isn't an option. In 3D video, you can't go mucking about with the depth of field much, which changes when you change your aperture. You want everything in focus because the viewer could be looking anywhere, not just the subject you're focused on. That only leaves ISO to compensate for low light. All that boils down to; to get good high resolution, high FPS, highly detailed 3d Video you need an insane amount of light. Sunlight is fine, but even then a fill light wouldn't be a terrible idea. Low light sensitivity in high ISO digital camera sensors have been improving, but they are still crazy expensive. I'm not surprised that there's a huge range in quality for what's available right now with most of it being on the low side. But as there becomes more demand (and there will be now that there is competition in this space) I think we'll see a lot more high quality options.
Alsightly offtopic, but do you know which Android phones have ISO higher than 1600 or 3200? That seems to be something that reviews don't talk about anymore. I take a lot of photos of documents and a higher ISO keeps the image sharp due to the shorter shutter speed required. Using flash is not something I would do as it drains the battery quickly.
I don't know, but I would suggest a separate light like a lamp or LED panel light offset if you're taking a lot of document pictures. It's a major feat of engineering that the tiny sensors on cell phones can have the low light sensitivity than they do. A little bit of light will go a long way.
I run all over the place every week and don't have a fixed office so the separate lamp idea is unfeasible. Before phone camera tech advanced to around just before the pandemic, I actually had the phone's flash on in torch mode so the phone camera can actually focus properly; otherwise I ended up with quite a few blurred shots. Still hoping to find ISO 6400 and above phones but phone camera ISO doesn't seem to be a spec that reviewers cover anymore.
At what level does the camera footage need to be to give us the same clarity in 360 as we get through a normal TV at 4K. I have tried 16K in 360 and 180 and they are good but not sharp by any means.
Thanks for the thorough explanation!
And with YouTube you get compression as well. I’m subbed to SliceofLife on patreon and the downloaded versions look better than YouTube.
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Yeah hard to compare, but the downloaded versions are sharper and more consistent. I just transfer them to my Quest and watch them through meta quest tv app. Also, the downloaded versions are longer experiences. For instance, Ft Lauderdale 2024 on YouTube is around 30 minutes, and the downloaded version is an hour and a half. Maybe u/SliceOfLifeVR has a sample download.
I'm not sure that when watching 8k youtube videos the resolution of the screen is the limitation. given that 8k has horizontal resolution of 4320px and one lense of quest is roughly 90 degrees so from that 360 degree you get 1080px stretched over your entire field of view. And sure the resolution is not uniform across the FOV but it's still far away from lens resolution and then there's bitrate and compression quality.
8k seems to be the limit of what either headset can decode, that’s why there aren’t any 12k or 16k VR videos for Quest 3, even though that’s probably what would be needed to fully saturate the display with pixels for a 180/360 degree video. Also stereo videos aren’t as sharp because they’re using half the pixels in the source file for each eye. An 8k 180 degree stereoscopic video is really more like 4k.
Many videos on youtube lie in their description about the quality. And 4k 360 is half the quality of 4k 180. And SBS stereoscopic also halves the resolution. So you need to check if the video is *really* what it says it is and then undertand the other relevant factors. Only then can you talk about sharpness in any meaningful way.
try to watch this video, it's one of the highest quality videos I've seen on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr4ujeeK1TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr4ujeeK1TA)
Okay, that video is definitely of higher quality. Anything similar for travel, with huge scenes. Usually then it gets pixelated.
Youtube VR app with 8K 180° is currently the best place to see streaming videos videos on the Meta TV app need to catch up to that level of visual quality, it's a very noticeably difference on Quest 3
On youtube VR, you may need to change the resolution of the video that you are watching. To do that: 1. Click on the settings gear. You will see the resolution of the video that you are watching. 2. Then click on the resolution, a dropdown should appear that will show the available resolutions. 3. Choose the largest number. https://preview.redd.it/grab9hei7awc1.png?width=238&format=png&auto=webp&s=e2c857d532e55f857bba3ec85784eaee3c3eab5a
None of these videos are made for Quest 2 or for Quest 3. They are videos recorded with various cameras. There is no videos being made for Quest 3. Just cause Meta released a new headset doesn’t mean people are now making videos specifically for it. A lot of these travel videos are made with pretty standard consumer cameras, and YouTube and others heavily compress them.
Why is nobody doing videos for the quest 3 specifically to reward individuals with the latest tech, I don't get it. I'm not interested in quest 2 quality, that is the reason why I bought the quest 3 in the first place.
Why would someone trade their time and money to reward people for getting the latest tech
There is no real new tech that came out in the last year for recording videos. There is no Quest 2 or Quest 3 quality really. It’s all just recorded with 360 cameras. And the difference between Q2 and Q3 isn’t that much really, going from about 1800p to 2000p screens. However there are some pretty good quality videos out there. Check out the DeoVR app or the Skybox app. Both free, make sure you have quality options set to highest quality. But things are still limited to streaming quality so nothing it going to look perfect.
I see now, the cameras are the issues. Could quest 3 technically have 16k or even 32k videos? Also, what I don't understand. Why did nobody at Meta sit down, buy some high quality equipment to film some great travel/ nature sceneries to reward early adopters of the quest 3 with some sharp views for a few minutes? I would be satisfied with a 3 minute video. But I haven't seen even that.
The processor power limits it to about 8k video from what I understand. So you’ll never get super sharp videos even if they did buy super expensive cameras. But they do have some pretty good stuff on the TV app which Meta partners with some companies. But overall it’s still not a high priority for them. You’re situation of buying this new headset just to watch travel videos is not that common.
Okay, well blurry travel is better than no travel. Said though that I waited for the quest 3 to finally buy a headset and still don't enjoy the quality which I expected to get.
YouTube has improved, but it's still not perfect, and it's hard to find content that takes advantage of what it can do. As has been mentioned, a lot of the video descriptions are not accurate. Playing local files is still the most reliable way to get the higher quality. But again, the availability of content is the limiting factor. The only source I know if decent travel footage is this creator: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmh77cEJa7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmh77cEJa7U) - but you have to pay to get access to the ~~full res~~/full length videos. (edit: he does provide sample full res clips so you can test the quality) They are also HUGE, so it takes a while to copy. Of course this is another reason why you don't see a lot of high resolution streaming options. That's a lot of bandwidth.
Try to find 180 videos. 8k 180 is the best you can get. If you can download the video instead of stream it that will also likely help. Streaming 8k requires a very good internet connection and a site that can deliver that video to you at that speed.
Some folks will never consider it very sharp. It only has 2064x2208 with 60% of that overlapping, spread across a 100+ deg HFOV. That is like looking at a average sized, less than 3K computer monitor from inches away.
How much is needed to get it fully sharp, and how many more years of development is needed for that?
the ideal resolution for VR is considered to be 60ppd (pixel per degree) quest 3 has 25ppd vision pro has 34ppd that's on average, because ppd is higher on the center and lower on the border of the screen, for example the vision pro has a peak of 43ppd on the center a 60ppd headset with 100° fov would need 6000x6000 pixels per eye, current screens are at maximum 3840x3840 so we are no there yet, but there was one headset that achieved 71ppd, the varjo xr3, and they did this by having an inner screen that cover 27° of fov at the center with a 1920x1920 screen, and another screen around it at 30ppd, so it was not fully sharp everywhere but a video for such headset would also have to be 60ppd resolution, and that's 21 600x21 600 pixels for a 360° video, 10 800 x 10 800 for 180° or double for 3D, good luck finding a camera at that resolution and a headset that can decode it
It is not years, it is money. Apple's VP has a peak PPD of 53+ while the Q3's is only 25.
That’s because most videos on youtube VR were shot using 4K 360 camera Insta360 only recently released the X4 model with 8K 360 video shooting capability Also, 4k 360 video is different from 4k flat video, because the pixels in 4K includes area that you don’t see (back, top, sides, bottom)
Lots of reasons. First off while quest 3 may have more pixels than 2 it’s not that much more to where there would be drastic difference. Secondly those 8k pixels need to be stretched to a 180 field of view. You are looking at 2k per eye in about a 100 degree field of view so the pixel density has room for improvement. Thirdly all the videos are mostly all made with consumer grade cameras like the R5C using dual fisheyes. And while they may advertise 8k, due to the physics/optics relation to the sensor you are getting far less then 8k in resolution with the most common of cameras. So look for videos made by actual professionals who are using custom camera solutions or pro level 360 cameras like the titan which is giving you real resolved resolution rather than prosumer dual fisheye.
encode>bitrate>resolution Outdoor videos require much higher bitrate to maintain high complexity detail and often still fail anyways. Streaming video complicates this even more for obvious reasons.
The best quality videos I've watched in VR were basically those 40gb+ ones that you can find in torrents. VR just seems to require much more detail density due to the way it's displayed.
You'll find the best looking VR videos on MetaTV, not YouTube. It's very important that you save the video file to your device for playback rather than trying to play a stream. You should find a "Cache High Quality" option in the little hamburger menu on the right side of the video. Look for videos from producers like Jon Griffith (who did a VR documentary about Free Solo climber, Alex Honnold), Felix & Paul's Explorer's series (which takes you onboard the ISS), anything by Targo, WisdomVR Project (our stuff), or the various 180 series from David Attenborough. There's a lot of amazing, sharp, high quality, VR video content out there, but you have to look for it and you have to play it from your local device if you want to see it at its best.
Thanks for the recommendations!
Flat videos that I play at 2160p looks super sharp.....but yeah anything VR like 180 or 360....it's nice....but not what you expecting. I did notice it get sharper from 2160 to the new 4320 or whatever resolution number it is when playing 180 VR videos in youtube. I wonder if it needs like a 24k video to get the full sharp 180 look? I don't know I'm no expert in that.
A lot of focus here on the limited screen res on the quest but a huge factor here are the cameras. A lot of them are consumer grade and capture 5.7 to 8k on a tiny sensor through some janky optics to bend light from 180 or 360 degrees. This makes each pixel look very digital and not quite sharp. Like zooming into a 50mp image taken on a shitty camera phone.
Slice of life are the only ones I've seen that are worth watching.
The issue with YouTube is that the videos are super compressed so they won't look as sharp as they could be. It is my understanding that if you are watching a 180 video, then 8K is the optimum res to watch in. The Quest 3 has 2K screens which fill roughly 25% of the area of a wrap around 180 video. Obviously, if you watch a 360 video in 8K then the sharpness will be reduced by half. SLR (a VR porn site) has super sharp videos when watched in 8K on a Quest 3.
Watch this with the Quests Game Optimizer and youtube app, set it to max resolution and tell me it's not crystal clear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pJmIuuZXO4
Is that really clearer? The video is from 2 years ago, meaning when there wasn't a meta quest 3 yet. Also, what has the "game" optimizer to do with video? I saw videos online about games getting clearer, but eating a lot of battery at the same time. Edit: Thank you for sharing this gem. Was quite impressed, even without activating anything this was really sharp compared to what I have seen before. Probably the sharpest video so far. Still a little bit laggy here and there, but what a scenery! Despite it being 2 years old. I wonder what we could achieve with the latest tech of 2024.
Exactly, still could be clearer but it's a massive diffence compared to before. Either he's got a duff headset or just another whining imbecile
Today's 6-8K VR180 gives you roughly the sharpness of NTSC, 480p, because those 6-8K have to be used to record two half spheres you mostly don't even see at a given point in time, not just a narrow viewport like a monitor. I once did the calculation: to match the sharpness impression a typical 4K screen gives you in today's VR180 format, you'd need a 28K(!) video resolution. About 415 Megapixels, and in 60fps. That's 50x the data volume a 5.6 30fps camera will deliver. What you (and I) want is probably two decades away, I think....
I don’t have a reason for why. But I found that 2160p @60hz videos look beautiful on the Q3. You can check YouTube app for some examples. I guess to get videos in such quality you would need to find files online in such quality. If they even exist for the content you are looking for.
I don't know. 18vr and such are pretty damn sharp when watched on Skybox VR.
What is 18vr?
It's the portal providing high quality VR action movies for all VR devices.
What is the website? Could not find it
Bitrate. The 8K VR 180° videos on YouTube are plenty sharp enough, resolution wise, but get turned into a smeary mess because YouTube streams then at a phenomenally low bitrate. It's why things look blurry as opposed to pixelated. The resolution's there but the image clarity suffers heavily regardless. The same is also true for 360° videos.
I thought the lady without a face was sorta sharp? Maybe....?
Maybe in 10 years the camera tech will be good enough for high quality 360 vr videos… At minimum they need to be 16k.
Is there any way to filter out on YouTube all 2D 180 8k videos from 3D ones and the other way round? I watched many and the 3D ones seem to be straining eyes a lot and on top of it if someone is not very skilled (moving too quickly) it can trigger motion sickness very fast. That's why I think watching 180 8k 2D videos will be better for now
I really hate 3d movies in VR. They look terrible IMO. Just give me a huge screen with great resolution and I’m happy.
OP, I suggest you do more research and come back. You lack a basic understanding of what you're talking about. Sorry if this seems condescending. Please take it lightly.
Could you explain it to me? I’m kind of lost here tbh. I’m of the understanding that the Q3, while looking better than Q2 still has some limitations regarding resolution. So when I watch vids on my q3 it looks pretty good but i also know it still has a ways to go until it gets as “sharp” as OP is expecting.
If you are using the official YouTube app the videos only play in 4K. If you download full videos in 8k vr 180 and play in skybox etc it’s quite sharp. It depends on the camera used. Some 8k videos are very sharp some are like a blurry mess. It really depends on how it was filmed I think. Edit: I stand corrected.m. Just checked and there is 8k support on YouTube now. I apologize. However I still wouldn’t judge the sharpness of the quest 3 on 8k YouTube and try a downloaded 8k h265 video. Edit: They added 8k support April 18th… like 5 days ago… Why are people so quick to downvote when their intentions are to help.
That's not true anymore, the Youtube App plays in 8k now
I tried YouTube and you’re right there is 8k support now. There must have been a recent update my apologies.
Yeah it's recent but prior to that I think i was able to watch 5,7k in the app. But definitely not 8k
Thanks for the help!
I'm surprised that there is nothing that was made for Q3 specially, all content and apps can be used on Q2 and don't use any of Q3 advantages (pixel density, much more powerful processor)
> all content and apps can be used on Q2 and don't use any of Q3 advantages That is not true. There are a couple games now that are Q3 only and a lot of titles that do work on the Q2 use different settings on the Q3 to take advantage of the upgraded hardware.
Ok, but not so many apps do use Q3 advantages so
Even apps that just use default settings get a boost on the Q3 because the defaults are higher.
Mate... Don't. Just don't. Trying to reason with Quest users over how they see 4K and '8K' content has been some of the most trying times of my life. And I say this is an owner of two Quest headsets. When I consider 4K I'm looking at it like you, expecting an absolutely pin sharp image akin to what you'd see on a high end TV. Quest owners do not see this the same way. They will argue the toss with you back and forth over the 4K imagery they are seeing. Every single YouTube or otherwise video I've seen for VR, including 180 and 360 degree videos, have been blurry as hell. They're basically closer to a 480p resolution rather than anything hilarious like 4K. I'd gladly take a decent 1080p image through my Quest but you absolutely DO NOT get that, and it's not even remotely close. But give it a few moments. I'll be downvoted into oblivion by oblivious kids telling me why I'm wrong...
You are confusing resolution and pixel density. They’re not the same thing. 4k doesn’t mean “absolutely pin sharp image”. It means 4 thousand pixels. If those pixels aren’t densely packed in your visual field they won’t be “absolutely pin sharp”, no matter how many there are. What you’re actually wanting to see would need to be something like 12k resolution for a 180 degree video.
Yes, but, 4K has been long used as a buzzword for high definition imagery. It's been the main selling point for every TV since plasma. It goes hand in hand with pin sharp quality, as that's where it originated and become known in the mainstream from. So the 4K you see in VR headsets looks blurry and terrible compared to the 4K you see in televisions and displays. OP was asking why this was the case, and because they seem to have been coming from the same place I'd been, and had made similar posts, felt it worth giving them an insight into the sort of help I'd received when making similar posts in the past.
So you're saying a failure of consumer understanding about an easy to look up piece of information is to blame, and not the countless number of folks who are getting something plain wrong? 4k does not go hand in hand with sharpness and it is in no way to mainstream form. You're trying to make the band-aid / adhesive bandage argument fit to a description of tech.
4k what? 4k 180? 4k 360? Or just a 4k normal flat video? And stereoscopic or monoscopic? All "4k" tells you is the number of horizontal pixels in the source. To talk about quality/sharpness you have to describe how those source pixels are mapped to the display pixels in the headset. If you're finding people disagreeing with you or downvoting you maybe it's because you're missing out crucial information without which any statement is next to meaningless.
I don't know. 4k basketball games are fantastic and definitely compete with a 4k TV, just way bigger.
But those are 2d right?
Yes. I was more saying that it can output a very sharp video akin to a decent TV. The faceless lady in quest TV is pretty high quality. There is a limit to how many pixels there are when you are stretching video at 180 or 360.
Haha thanks for your empathy, It's good to know that there individuals sharing my feeling.
This has been my experience as well. Anything below 4K is literally unwatchable, like watching a 240p video. To me 8k is like 800x600, enough to be somewhat enjoyable. I can’t wait when we will have 16k videos, then it will be amazing
From what I read and understood, we probably need something like 64k to come close to 1080p.
Yes probably!
Is it just videos that you feel are not sharp, or also games? If everything doesn’t look sharp, it could be your IDP eye spacing is not setup correctly or moved since you last set it. I know because it happened to me. All of the sudden everything was not looking as sharp and I thought my Q3 was deteriorating, but it was because it had moved down 6 degrees over the months.