See your world differently with Facebook's 360 video

Social media giant Facebook has announced to bring 360 video to Samsung's Gear VR - the Virtual Reality (VR) headset launched in India recently.

"Today, we are taking an important step toward improving 360 video in VR: Our powerful dynamic streaming technology for 360 video is coming to Gear VR. Gear VR combines the leading VR software, built by Facebook's Oculus team, with world-class mobile hardware, built by Samsung," a Facebook blog read on Sunday.

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Facebook said that they have been developing new technology that will make video in virtual reality work even better. "360 video on Facebook is the first step - it allows you to look around and feel like you are present while watching a video, whether it is surfing in Tahiti or exploring the surface of Mars," the blog further read.

Instead of the entire 360 video in high resolution, theses videos show only the pixels that actually a user is looking at in the highest quality.

To make this work, dozens of variants for every 360 video are made. Each video is tailored to a specific viewing angle and then as a user watches the video, the viewing angle is adjusted rapidly depending on which variant the user is looking at.

"By doing this, we've quadrupled the resolution quality of 360 streaming video in VR by reducing the amount of required network bandwidth by 4x - so videos look clearer and play faster," the blog noted. The video will be out in the next few weeks.

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Virtual reality is already something people can touch and feel with the Samsung Gear VR. More than 200 games and apps are already available for the platform in the Oculus store, and people have already watched more than a million hours of video in Gear VR.

Source IANS