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. […]

Update Please check our latest blog for the latest developments in 360 video encoding 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 […]

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.

This weekend the Dutch soccer team PSV won the Eredivisie championship duel and we were there to capture this powerful moment in VR! Three days before the championship match between PSV and SC Heerenveen we received a call with the request to film the ceremony in 360 3D. Obviously we jumped on this exciting project!

When we first got seriously interested in virtual reality several months ago, we noticed that there was hardly any video content available. Now we know why; because filming in VR is very, very complicated! The main problem is that there are no off-the-shelve camera rigs available that film on all sides at the same time […]

In 1831, the brilliant Michael Faraday discovered Electromagnetic Induction, which is the principle on which every single electric motor in the world is based. It’s also how your electric toothbrush charges itself. During his time, Faraday gave dozens of lectures on the wonders of electricity, induction and magnetism. However, while his audience was often amazed […]

360 degrees video is not new. In fact, there are dozens of 360 cameras for sale, with the minimalistic Ricoh Theta being one of my favorites. Other people might prefer the Geonaute or the Bubl. These cameras use several lenses to capture a spherical 360 degrees video, which allows you to “look around” in a […]

The recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas made it clear: virtual reality is taking on serious forms! All the big names in tech are working on their own devices, including Apple, Sony, Samsung, and Google. Even Microsoft decided to join the club. 2015 is going to be an exciting year! So far there […]

Amsterdam, the infamous city situated in the beautiful little country of The Netherlands, has always been a hotbed for innovation. I recently read the aptly titled book “Amsterdam” by Russell Shorto, which contains a rich description of the city’s rebellious and liberal past, with references to the radical Dutch philosopher Spinoza, who laid the groundwork […]