The sheer abundance of 3D modeling tools and file formats is overwhelming, and picking the best 3D model format for your AR application can therefore be rather frustrating and confusing. Every file format has different features and limitations, some can only be exported from specific (and expensive) software tools, and not all of them can […]

As a software as a service company, Headjack generates revenue from monthly subscription payments. However, people obviously want to try before they buy. There are several options in this case, for example: 30-day trial period of the full product, like Adobe Free until certain usage limits, like Amazon AWS and MailChimp Free until a certain […]

When Hollywood needs a high-end VR rig or custom built technology, they contact Radiant Images. That’s why we are proud to announce that Radiant Images has officially partnered with Headjack to give their premium clientele access to an easy, fast and reliable way to distribute their VR content in the highest possible quality. This partnership […]

Estimated reading time: 36 minutes It’s been a while since our last blog post, not because we were out of inspiration, but mostly because this one took waaaaaaaaayyyy longer than anticipated to write. To start at the beginning, let’s move back a little over a year, to January 2016 to be precise. At that time […]

As a 360º video producer, you’ve most likely been in the situation where you’re doing a demonstration with multiple VR headsets, or maybe you’re even running a VR cinema where groups of people can watch 360º content at the same time. The issue here is that when one person is still in the middle of […]

I recently compared the encoding settings used by several leading VR distribution platforms, including YouTube, Jaunt, Littlstar and Samsung VR. The conclusion: apart from YouTube, all of these major platforms still rely on the 14 year old (!!) H.264/AVC codec, instead of the more recent and much more efficient H.265/HEVC or VP9 codecs, resulting in […]

We worked closely with the producers of the Fifty Shades Darker: The Masquerade Ball VR experience, to help them create a Headjack-powered app for Gear VR. To maximize eyeballs, this spicy piece of VR content was spread out to nearly every outlet possible. From YouTube and Facebook, to Jaunt and Samsung VR, and even an embedded […]

The Challenge   Create an intuitive interface for virtual reality video apps   Prize Overview The VR Interface Competition is a $10.000 competition, challenging designers and developers from around the world to create an intuitive interface for virtual reality video apps. The person or team with the best interface receives $7500 in prize money and […]

We all know the VR market is still in its early days, and this gives an incredibly interesting view of the emergence of new distribution methods for this medium. Numerous “Netflix of VR” platforms are currently competing head to head, but maybe a different model altogether will win out in the end? Only time will […]

The cinematic VR market is finally at a point where there are camera’s available in the wild to shoot stereoscopic 360º content with. There is the awesome looking Jaunt ONE, the pricey Nokia OZO, the Google/GoPro JUMP rig, Facebook’s open-source camera, or if you like stitching and making your life difficult, our custom 16-camera GoPro […]

October 2014 I had dinner with a good friend of mine from high school, Thierry. He had been researching upcoming technologies to figure out how to bring an unforgettable trip to Villa Borghese in Rome to people’s living rooms. He believed VR was the answer, and convinced me to stop the businesses I was working […]

A while ago we wrote an article covering the basics of live streaming 360 degree video to VR headsets. That article was written after we were asked to build a VR app capable of playing a 360º live stream, which taught us a lot, but meant we did not have to do the stressful work […]

We started Purple Pill VR with two people and an idea. Now, two years later, we finished about 15 360º 3D productions, built a fully functioning multi-platform video player application, and expanded the team with 6 extra employees. Things are moving fast, and keep moving faster as the VR market is picking up speed. This […]

For over a year now, we have been producing high-quality 360º 3D video content for virtual reality headsets here at Purple Pill VR. We plan and script a production, shoot it using our (open-source) 16-GoPro rig, and then spend anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks stitching and editing the videos. […]

One of the most time consuming and frustrating tasks we encountered during our first 360 3D video productions was finding the optimal encoding settings for each of the currently available VR headsets. Each platform supports different resolutions, frame rates, codecs, and bitrates. This article explains the settings we started with, what we learned from analyzing […]

You have shot some amazing 360º video content, but how will you distribute it to your audience and the different VR headsets? Of course you can upload it to YouTube, VRideo, or even Facebook, which all support 360º video, but traditional video platforms are not always the best option. Sometimes you want a branded application […]

It all started with an idea: can we create films for Virtual Reality headsets? This was 9 months ago. The first major hurdle was to develop a camera that can film on all sides in 3D. With our own money and some friends who were generous enough to let us (ab)use their GoPros, we created […]

If you are a filmmaker who wants to learn how to produce immersive video content for virtual reality headsets, then we have exciting news for you: we’re building an online video course! But why should you listen to us? Well, according to the Danish physicist Niels Bohr: “An expert is a person who has made all the […]

During the Google I/O conference at the end of May, Google announced Jump; a revolutionary step in the world of 360 3D content! The idea has three parts: Camera: an open-source 360 3D camera design using 16 synchronized GoPro HERO4 action cams Assembler: computer vision algorithms running on powerful Google servers which seamlessly stitch the […]

In his fourteenth book The News: A User’s Manual, Swiss writer and philosopher Alain de Botton uses several vivid examples to show how news affects human mentality. One of his main critiques of modern news is that it fails to establish a strong enough connection between the reader/viewer and the people the news is about.