VR isn’t new technology, but it’s only now, as prices drop, that it’s finding its place as an effective business tool.
Immersive realities, gaming, the metaverse… it’s the vision of Virtual Reality that’s captured imaginations and shaped how we think the future is going to look. But right now, VR headsets are clunky, the metaverse is a bit, well… confusing and the truth is that Virtual Reality today is less about being the bridge between real life and online, and more about doing the things that we do anyway – only faster and cheaper.
Take, for example, the film and TV industry. When you think of VR here, you might envisage a world where you don’t just sit and be passively entertained, but you step inside the action. But in making movies, there are plenty of immediate and practical challenges that VR can solve – ones that the audience will never see. Barry Griffin, the Segment Manager for Broadcast & Professional Video Solutions at Canon UK, has been meeting customers and attending trade shows for the film and production industry. Since the launch of the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L DUAL FISHEYE lens, he’s discovered that there’s real excitement around this product for the problems it can potentially solve behind the scenes.
It’s a lens that’s small enough to fit on the front of a camera. Smaller, even, than the average VR headset today. And it can capture three-dimensional 180° VR content at a price point that’s got the industry in raptures. “At the moment VR is very much in the gaming arena, where it’s a bit of an experience, but from a B2B perspective, it’s still quite niche,” he explains. “And you might expect the interest would be around what kind of productions could be made, and how they would be delivered to the audience, but it wasn’t that – the initial interest was about pre-production.”