20th Century Fox First main Hollywood Studio To free up Full-size films On Oculus

Oculus’s virtual truth cinema has no longer simplest been given a brand new name—say hi there to Oculus Video—but it has scored its first major Hollywood studio partnership with the announcement that 20th Century Fox will make its films on hand on the brand new platform.

Fox said it’ll make a couple of hundred motion pictures from its library—including hit titles like perfect image Oscar winner Birdman, Alien, Die onerous, Kingsman: the key carrier, solid Away, and lots of others—on hand to rent or buy through Oculus Video.

at the start, users will have the ability to watch the flicks on Samsung’s equipment VR, and over time, on the full-scale Oculus Rift, which is anticipated to be available early in 2016.

Fox made the announcement at Oculus connect in Hollywood, fb-owned Oculus’s annual developers conference.

Lionsgate can even be making motion pictures to be had, together with Pulp Fiction and The hunger video games.

The announcement is the latest to showcase just how serious Hollywood is taking VR and 360-degree video. earlier this week, Disney was once the lead investor on a $sixty five million funding round for Jaunt VR, a virtual fact know-how company that’s developed an finish-to-finish cinematic VR content-introduction platform that features a customized digital camera able to taking pictures high-end, skilled-high quality 360-level photos, device for stitching the pictures collectively, a distribution gadget, and a la VR production studio.

(September 26, 2015), Disney additionally unveiled an immersive superstar Wars: The drive Awakens clip as a part of the legitimate rollout of fb’s 360 video offering.

still, Fox is clearly among the leaders in the case of merging Hollywood and VR, in part because of earlier experiments like the short virtual reality expertise it released in January linked to the Reese Witherspoon movie, Wild.

as well as, Fox is also engaged on a brand new undertaking, The Martian VR experience, a short, immersive storytelling project tied to the release of its extremely predicted upcoming movie, The Martian.

All of its projects, together with the release of the 100 full-size films for Oculus Video, have been developed by using the in-house Fox Innovation Lab.

“VR cinema is a brand new method of providing our motion pictures, and has the opportunity to bring in mass market consumers to virtual reality,” Mike Dunn, president of twentieth Century Fox dwelling leisure, mentioned in a remark. “With Oculus Video, we are leveraging the dimensions and suppleness of cellular, whereas persevering with to deliver an impressive, emotional expertise for customers.”

added Dunn, “we’re simply scratching the outside of how Hollywood and VR will revolutionize entertainment by means of exploring revolutionary how you can strengthen immersive experiences as a brand new storytelling medium.”

customers who watch Fox’s movies via Oculus Video will be capable to select the movies’ “dimension,” whether it’s on a small virtual screen in entrance of them, or a large, theater-measurement reveal. Giving customers such choices is among the advantages of digital fact technology.

What’s now not fully clear is whether or not users will want to watch whole two-hour films on virtual fact headsets, which can also be rather heavy, in one sitting.

Jaunt VR CEO Jens Christensen instructed quick firm last week that, “I do predict individuals to start doing more and more in VR, [and] eventually individuals will probably be doing feature-length leisure, [but] presently, with the state of the units, I don’t assume individuals will wish to put on [bulky headsets] for 2-hour features. They need to get loads lighter.”

Fox is evidently having a bet otherwise. the corporate knows the success of its ventures into VR depends on users coming away chuffed, and now not suffering from the hardware.

whether film fanatics will flock to its choices via Oculus Video continues to be to be viewed. For now, though, Fox is taking the lead as Hollywood gets prepared to jump full-on into the increasingly exciting digital fact waters.