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PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Nick Snow [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Colin Mann [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Chris Forrester [email protected] PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Nik Roseveare [email protected] ART EDITOR COLUMNIST Larry Gerbrandt CONTRIBUTORS David del Valle - Madrid Howard Greenfield - San Francisco Pascale Paoli-Lebailly - Paris Branislav Pekic - Rome INSIGHT ASSOCIATES ABI Research Ampere Analysis CCS Insight Decipher Media Consultants Digital TV Research Futuresource Consulting IHS Markit Parks Associates SNL Kagan Strategy Analytics SALES DIRECTOR Sanjeev Bhavnani [email protected] PUBLISHED BY Advanced Television Limited Unit N202 Vox Studios 1-45 Durham Street London SE11 5JH Tel: [phone] www.advanced-television.com PRINTED BY Micropress Printers Limited Reydon Business Park, Fountain Way, Reydon, Southwold IP18 6DH Tel: [phone] [email protected] © Advanced Television Limited 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is EUROMEDIA Steve Overbury [email protected] Virtual Reality will work in a way that 3D didn’t. That’s because VR and Augmented Reality have so many obvious and useful applications across a range of sectors from medicine to architecture to robotics. A broad plane of development also means TV will benefit from not having to do all the production and workflow heavy lifting themselves. And then there is video games; if you like immersive gaming then VR is the gift that keeps on giving. So, VR TV is just a matter of time? Well, as discussed in this issue, even with help, the technical challenges in shooting, production, storage and transmission are not trivial – which is another way of saying that they will be expensive to overcome. And that means monetisation is imperative but it is not obvious how it will play out. But, if the technical and monetisation challenges are overcome, will VR become a major part of the TV landscape? Maybe, maybe not. 3D didn’t work in part because you had to wear glasses, and in part because it worked by tricking the brain over perspective – and a lot of people found that a headache, literally. VR also requires a headset and can tend to have some unfortunate physical effects – one demo introduced me to vertigo for the first time; thanks for that. And that’s without our learned friends being sure there’s enough small print to protect the broadcaster and device maker from claims when a user hurts themselves or someone else as they almost involuntary react – or over react - to their VR experience. So, VR is no 4K UHD, i.e., a nice big step forward in something straightforward and well understood. Its roadmap is complex and has undoubtedly a few dead ends lurking in it, but the journey has begun. prohibited. ISSN 1477-8092 EUROMEDIA 5