What is it Like to Watch a Movie in Virtual Reality?

Meta sent me an Oculus Quest II headset a bit ago so I’ve been testing out different uses. While recently considering whether to watch the new Amazon Prime Lord of the Rings series, Elvis and Top Gun, I decided watching on my new headset would make sense. After all, as someone who only received one shot of the vaccine, I am still a bit worried about getting the CV-19.

My first experience with video was watching YouTube. I played a video of someone wearing a wing suit diving down a mountain. It was wild to be able to go along with that person and look around as if I was flying. The sound wasn’t bad. The only thing missing was a large amount of chilly wind.

To watch Amazon’s new show, I had to download the new Amazon Prime video app on Oculus and go onto my laptop to register the device, to associate it with my Amazon account. It took under five minutes to get started. But, a friend on Facebook said he tried downloading it and has some issues, ultimately giving up without watching.

In initially has an issue with the blue line marking the VR field showing up but I was able to redraw the field and that went away. While watching, I felt like I was actually in a movie theater without an significant difference in feeling. My main issue is not getting used to the feeling of something heavy sitting on my head. It isn’t more than a pound or two but comparable to a heavy hat. I suppose over time the feeling might be easier to ignore but some kind of device, possibly dropped down from the ceiling, would make sense if it could prevent an item from touching you.

Could a solution be to create some kind of larger unit that people could sit under? I can imagine there would be a way to create something like this. It could have a screen showing surroundings while also showing friends or other people nearby, both physical and virtual attendees.

I doubt the technology would be similar though because the viewing screen would have to encircle the head.