I wanted to try how well the Rift works as a viewing device for real life POV video footage, and also how well this works together with binaural sound.
The POV footage was shot with two head-mounted VIO POV.HD cameras
The audio was recorded with binaural ear microphones
The winter day footage was shot with a hand-held camera array with binaural silicone earlobes
The fisheye warp of the action camera matches with the Rift lenses well enough so that it looks more or less rectilinear - no Rift warping needed
Horizontal offset and Keystone had to be adjusted quite heavily in edit to make it look natural on the Rift (I'm using Sony Vegas Movie Studio for editing)
Head tracking not used, because the binaural sound and the image must stay locked together and cannot be decoupled (this makes a HMD the ideal way to view these videos)
I'll be posting more videos to this thread (and linking them to this message) as I get the Rift compliant versions done and rendered.
Wow, I really enjoyed those two videos, especially the Stockholm one. The rollercoaster were a bit to bumpy for me... Both were pretty nauseating though. Although both looked really great on the Rift, good job!
The Stockholm video was really immersive I think. The sound definitely added a lot to the experience.
Thanks for the feedback! Yes - when you're at the camera person's whims and have to watch whatever they turn their heads to, it can feel unnatural with the Rift. Also, I noticed that if you turn your head while viewing, it feels like your head is rotating the world around you, which is quite dizzy. I guess the only thing you can do is to keep your head still while watching. 🙂