The K War
The K war is going on. Everyone trying to put a higher number on their video, 5K 6K 7K and now it’s 8K. But is 8K VR Porn really worth it? Is it just another gimmick? I’ll try and explore that a little bit.
At the moment most VR Porn websites offer VR Porn in up to 5K with other releasing in 6K or 7K resolution.
Most of the VR Porn you have seen shot today was done with either 2 modified GoPro’s or the most common Z Cam K1 Pro or Z Cam K2 Pro, which shots in 5K. That means that while you see the 7K logo, the video was most likely resampled from 5K to 7K. That does not mean its bad quality, but don’t expect incredible improvements.
But what has that do with 8K?
It means that when you see 8K, it was shot in 8K. The point I am trying to make is that 8K is another plateau, something that will become the new standard in the future. VR needs quality, and to have that immersion we need to be as close as possible to reality. Having higher resolution and better framerate would bring us so much closer to that.
The porn industry is a fierce competition, something that brought us 6K in 2018 now is looking at 8K.
This time the new revolution is brought by CzechVR, one of the top studios for VR Porn and hailed by many as the best in technical quality. They started recently releasing in 8K, the first to do so as far as I know.
I asked Lukas from CzechVR regarding their 8K VR Porn videos, here is what he had to say:
Is it interpolated? And if you upscale, from what resolution?
– resolution is native 8K. We interpolate from 30 to 60 fps, not picture resolution.
What are the cameras used.
– im afraid that’s trade secret
What were some of the challenges of shooting/editing in 8K VR
– from shooting none, but editing is very problematic due to fps interpolation. It is not easy to make the picture look smooth and avoid making users feel unwell.
What do you recommend to properly play the 8K VR videos, Headset and PC?
– ideally GTX 1080Ti, though it should more or less run on 1060 or higher as well. Headsets would be latest HTC Vive or maybe Pimax (though we have not tested that one).
Do you plan on releasing 8K videos consistently? What would it take it for you to do so? Is 8K even worth it at this point?
– if you mean with every release, then no, but we do plan to release it regularly. Once per week would be an ideal state, though we may not reach it right away.
What improvements can we expect from Czech VR in the future?
– we can expect improvement to current 5k videos due to new equipment and better interpolation of fps. We also expect there will be no need to interpolate anything soon, but that’s a music of hopefully-not-so-distant-future.
From this we can learn how difficult it is to produce 8K VR Porn currently, from needing more high-end cameras to shoot it, to the challenges of editing 8K videos. But for me the biggest problem would be playing it. Not only do you need a very powerful PC to play it, but a VR headset that can actually take advantage of the resolution. Forget playing it on your Oculus GO.
8K 180VR Cameras
Now while Lukas did say it’s a trade secret in how they created their 8K VR Porn videos, we can speculate a bit.
What I consider at the moment would be using two Z Cam E3-F8 cameras that shoot in 8K, add two fish eye lenses to them and there you go, some sweet 8K VR.
If you are in the budget you could even get two RED cameras, add two fisheye lenses to them and create something truly overpowered.
But that is just speculation at the moment, as more factors come in, like size, framerate, depth of field and dynamic range. I’ll share more when I get more scoops.
Want to know how 8K VR Porn looks like? Check out this videos from CzechVR:
