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Virtual Home Cinema: Getting Beyond the Hype

SV  |  Jun 29, 2023

Published with permission from the author, Patrice Congard, founder and CEO of Screen Excellence, the U.K.-based maker of high-quality projection screens and, through its Audio Excellence division, high-performance speakers and associated electronics for high-end home cinemas.

Have you experienced the newest VR technologies, like Apple Vision Pro or Lynx R1?

These new generation VR helmets provide some pretty awesome features, the main one being the perception of the actual environment as it is, with superposition of what you want to view. You can be immersed without being disconnected from the external world.

Cool, isn’t it?

I was talking yesterday with a friend of mine who works at Apple. He told me that the whole market of Home Cinema was about to disappear: These new devices can provide a top notch virtual Home Cinema straight on your head.

Amazing! The ‘Wow’ factor during a demo is definitely through the roof with this one.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves...

How do you feel after a couple of hours wearing a helmet?

How do you SHARE your experience with others?

How do you feel the bass that usually shakes your guts in a real Home Cinema?

Going one step further, the assumed goal of VR providers is to merge your computer, your smart phone, your credit card, your entertainment into a helmet you’ll be wearing most of the time during the day.

Imagine walking the streets among other people wearing the same helmet. After all, 20 years ago nobody imagined the way people would text and walk nowadays, or even worse: text and drive.

Would that pretty girl come to chat you up if you were wearing a helmet? No way!

VR is a highway to total self-isolation.

This is only an opinion, but if you do want a fact: VR is simply incapable of replacing a real Home Cinema.

Click here to participate in our poll and share your views on the subject of virtual home theater.

COMMENTS
Mark Henninger's picture
Submitted by Mark Henninger on July 3, 2023 - 6:36am
I love home theater. But let's be realistic. Apple's $3,500 price tag is only expensive compared to a TV. Compared to a dedicated home theater... well, to make a poor analogy, you may as well tell people that going to a water park and buying the VIP pass does not replace flying to Hawaii on your private plane and surfing the Banzai Pipeline.

Home theaters are expensive! They also take up a lot of space. If you rent, forget it. In time, VR will be hugely more popular than home theater. If not, Apple would have released a TV or a projector. Also I guarantee virtual group viewings will occur. Virtual hookups between teens will occur, and who knows maybe they will go to a real movie in a real theater.

Yes I do think people out in the real world wearing headsets will perhaps even be attracted to each other.

Also, if you are sitting watching something passively you do not need VR. I'm sure for just watching movies the same micro-OLED panels could be fitted into super thin glasses. Also, glasses or goggles, you can have real audio to go with your virtual screen. I've experienced it, works fantastically well.

But the main thing is VR can put people who are not in the same room into the same space. Fans of a movie from around the world can have virtual screenings in the same theater. You could mute other people or you could choose to hear the "audience commentary" there's a ton of potential here that is not at all isolating, it is connecting.

Traveler's picture
Submitted by Traveler on July 4, 2023 - 7:33am

When standard prescription glasses double as VR sets then maybe.

Gadas's picture
Submitted by Gadas on February 21, 2024 - 9:11pm

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