With the advent of 5G commercial deployments and the rapid development of FTTH, Gigabit, and even Gigabit broadband, it is increasingly becoming a topic of concern for the industry to provide future featured services. Recently, South Korea’s LG U+ and KT have announced their respective 5G services. In the consumer market, immersive media services based on VR/AR are all regarded as the main selling points of 5G services. In China, the recently held 5G VR/AR Innovation Forum also shows that the industry is placing its trust in the development of VR business. High hopes. On the other hand, in the rapid spread of FTTH today, the home broadband field is becoming the first experimental field of VR business. Take China as an example, FTTH accounted for more than 85%, and more than 100M home users accounted for more than 43%. %, After the video became a basic telecommunication service, operators began to test the water VR hope to bring immersive experience to end users, to create differentiated video competitiveness. However, the VR business demonstration during the Pingchang Winter Olympics and the author recently and The results of the industry's exchanges show that in order to achieve the goal of becoming the number one player, the industry still needs to continue its efforts in many areas represented by VR content production and production to promote VR. The further maturation of ecology.
The live broadcast of the VR event is an important part of the new business experience during the Pingchang Winter Olympics. The User Experience Research Team of Strategy Analytics conducted a review of its business experience. The evaluation results show that the current VR event live experience is still quite limited, and may be even more Suitable for static live broadcasts and scene playback at specific locations, such as penalty kicks in snowboarding or ice hockey matches, etc. For the entire live broadcast of 2 to 3 hours, the viewing experience still has many limitations. In particular, athletes need to move quickly in a wide range of items, such as figure skating, alpine skiing, short track speed skating, etc. Fixed-position VR cameras are difficult to continuously capture impacted images. Frequent switching will also cause the audience to feel uncomfortable, causing the audience to watch ordinary large-screen images for a large percentage of the time. It can be seen that the production capacity of VR content still needs further improvement.
The results of this evaluation have also been verified from other aspects of the industry. During the Huawei Analyst Conference, the author visited the VR Open Lab of Huawei iLab. The bottleneck of VR content creation during the communication process was also repeatedly mentioned. In terms of VR video capture technology, such as the choice of seats, the use of light, etc., it is still necessary to accumulate experience. On the other hand, it is also reflected in the production cost. Currently, the production cost of VR video is still very high, according to foreign media reports. , A period of 8 - 20 shots, 2 - 5 minutes of 360-degree VR video, the production cost can be as high as 2.5 - 150,000 euros. Such a high production cost will inevitably affect the richness of VR content. The lack of content and constraints The consumer's acceptance of VR can not form long-term and stable viewing habits, which will affect the popularity of VR services.
In order to enrich the content resources and promote the startup of VR market, Huawei iLab has researched and analyzed new content models. For example, watching IMAX giant screen movies with VR helmets can make full use of existing content resources and make it easier for consumers to watch traditional videos. Mode convergence. In addition, the development of 180-degree stereo cameras can also help reduce the cost and complexity of VR content production. YouTube's data analysis shows that for VR 360-degree video viewers, their gaze is 75% of the time In the 90-degree area, most users rarely turn around to view the content behind the 180-degree field of view, but tend to 'loosely' view immersive content located directly in front of the audience. 180-degree stereoscopic video production costs Far lower than 360-degree video, the resolution resources can be concentrated in front of the screen to make the picture more clear, so that the 180-degree stereo video is more cost-effective.
Although the industry generally expects VR to become the iconic business of 5G, we must see that the use model of VR services is naturally unsuitable for mobile scenarios, and is more suitable for viewing in indoor environments. In this case, VR services The demand for wireless technologies may be more reflected in the last mile of local area connections, rather than the wide-area connectivity in the mobile environment. At the same time, the popularity of VR services will inevitably affect home broadband access as well as metropolitan area networks, CDNs, etc. The basic network capabilities put forward higher requirements. Therefore, while imagining the bright future of 5G, the industry, especially telecom operators, need to take precautions and increase investment in transmission networks, CDNs, home broadband access networks, and so on. The only way to promote the development of VR services in the consumer market is to develop mobile convergence services.
On the other hand, for the difficulties in VR content production and production, the communications industry can expand the attention angle of 5G to VR from the consumer side to the content production production. Using 5G's large bandwidth, low latency characteristics, and better support for VR. User-generated content, VR self-media, VR social networking and other new content development, rich VR content resources. At the same time, professional content production agencies can also consider the use of 5G technology, improve the form of VR content production, improve work efficiency. For example, can use 5G enhanced Uplink transmission capabilities, real-time dynamic VR shooting and real-time live broadcast, providing first-view VR video, and more.
In short, when the communications industry is about to usher in the 5G era, VR services are expected to become the next generation of network identification services. To make VR truly become the 'number one player' of next-generation networks, the industry needs to adopt more. In order to be open and pragmatic and user-centric, we pursue the best balance between viewing experience and content richness, and build a network environment that supports VR development in all directions.