VR Journalist Martin Bright: "VR is not a Medium, VR is a step in the evolution"

Virtual Reality is just as strong topic for the future – what about the technology? Video journalist, and Into-VR-chief Martin Heller is looking for t3n.de in the glass ball. He expects more ease.

Martin Heller is the Co-founder of IntoVR and digital journalist with the focal points of the moving image, Social Media and Virtual Reality.

This article is part of a series, in which experts at t3n in the glass ball look. Until the end of the year, it is about the future of technology, science and fiction. Motto: think of what is.

t3n.de: 2017: the last of The snow has melted, many VR goggles from the gift table in the corner. What went wrong?

Martin HellerThe were too big, too heavy, too complicated. Probably the glasses fit only for a part of the family members to Smartphone, because the industry could not agree on a Standard.

“VR will then really, when I bring people together who are in different places. If a grandmother, who has not seen her grandchildren long, can be put on the glasses and the Kids are right in front of her.“

With this Problem we have to deal with, and yet the content of such high quality produce that you offer on all VR glasses a great experience, whether it’s Oculus Rift, Google Daydream, Samsung, HTC Vive, or whatever comes on the market. Full HD not enough, because we can’t assume that users view the content on your Smartphone. So we have to produce all of the content already, at least in 4K quality.

These files are very large, therefore, it can be pretty exhausting, to upload the files to Youtube, Vrideo, Facebook and Co. The networks need to answer the question of what is the optimal compromise between quality and file size – what you can expect from the users? You want to stream it? Then you need to have a good Wifi at home. Or is it that the people who download the content, to be able to him in a high quality smooth playback?

t3n.de: 2018: platform-exclusive games and Apps, a big point of contention were. How is the debate?

HellerI hope to progress in the area of Web VR. The App usage is high – but especially among the Apps that people already on the Smartphone: Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, maybe the Mail program. But it’s insanely hard to get the users to new Apps to download. Therefore, I focus on Web-VR, and I hope that soon it will be possible to watch 360-degree Videos on all mobile devices in the Browser. The power of 360-degree Content more accessible, easier, and then will hopefully be looked at more.

In the area of journalism and Nonfiction Content, it is important to make the content available to as many people. Whether it is a contribution to the team or the concert of a musician. We need to be to reach users where they are – on all relevant platforms present. Therefore, we do not need to hope that the big platforms forgotten in the struggle for the different technical systems the User.

t3n.de: 2019: A quiet summer night, you go to the VR device. What are you doing with that?

HellerI’d like it cool, if I could then go to invite friends, with me through a virtual world, in which we consume content together. The topic of Social VR is very important. I don’t want to sit on this summer evening alone with the VR glasses in my kitchen! I want to have with friends from Stuttgart or Munich in a shared experience with their realistic looking avatars go through the worlds, and the content of experience, we can discuss. That would be an asset to the way I consume currently VR content alone.

What are we looking at? Documentary content, or here and there, sometimes a game, if it excited me. But VR takes to really travel, when I bring people together who are in different places. If a grandmother, who has not seen her grandchildren long, can be put on the glasses and the Kids are right in front of her. And if you can still communicate with each other.

t3n.de: 2020’s getting expensive – how can we earn for now with VR money?

HellerWe could enter for this conversation a space that is sponsored, and we are therefore free to use. Or we decide to pay a small entrance fee to another room and is ad-free.
Paid Content vs. clips vs. Native advertising business that will occupy us in the VR world: How to monetize, we content? People can be touched through this immersive Medium insanely directly and emotionally. This is for the advertising industry is a lucrative one, whether it’s in Games or in documentary content. I believe that VR is for the advertising industry is even more interesting than it is for journalism, because you have to reach the people directly and immediately with the content can interact with.

Some say that VR is no Medium more, because the viewer has to jump into the content into dips. This is a step in the evolution. But at the moment, the hope of VR – and the money that is put into it is overdone – something. A lot of produce Games and content, of which I’m not sure if you can ever be refinanced.

t3n.de: 2021: Virtual Reality has never felt so real. How does it work?

HellerThen we make VR a bike tour around the Griebnitzsee in Potsdam and see flowering trees, the sun is shining, we hear noises and get tasks that we need to solve. We combine Gaming with the mediation of information. Maybe we’ll learn something about the environment, the history, the Geology. And we connect with our sporting activity. I’m not only fitter from the VR-sport Studio out of, but also smarter. And I had more fun than ever.

The physical reality is always associated more with the help of virtual reality. We are in the gym and move us in the virtual world not only with a Controller in Hand, but with the whole body. We don’t walk in to a room, but sitting on sports equipment, and training devices. And then we have a much lighter and nicer glasses and our physical experience is in sync with what we see and hear.

And in 2021, the events that we document today, with Smartphones are accompanied, completely, of course, the camera people or Amateurs with 360-degree cameras. And this is then sent to live on, perhaps with a Facebook Live or Periscope. This means transparency and gives us the Chance to make a better journalism. I hope that we all have in the industry, an understanding of what time is it really worth it to produce a Format in 360°.

More from the series Quo vadis …

• Social Media? SZ-Social-Media-in-chief Dirk von Gehlen: “Twitter remains hot”
• News? Image.de-editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt: “Technical shortcomings have cost a lot of credibility,”
• Blogging? Sascha Pallenberg: “As a Youtuber, I am an employee”
• Mobile Devices? Anthropologist Joshua Bell: “Mobile technologies help against structural inequality”