Welcome to Lowpass! This week: The promising (and perhaps naughty) future of spatial video, and a behind-the-scenes look at the Walmart Vizio deal.

(Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash)

Is it time to give 3D home video another go?

It’s been a little over a month since Apple released its Vision Pro headset, and one of the features that consistently gets high marks from reviewers and consumers alike is the device’s spatial video format. 

Spatial videos, in short, are immersive 3D videos shot either with the Vision Pro itself, or with the iPhone 15 Pro. On the headset, these videos are presented as framed, not dissimilar to watching a 2D video, but with added depth. This is decidedly less immersive than 360-degree VR videos that surround you, and make you feel like you’re in the middle of the action. However, the more subtle quality of just-out-of-reach 3D appears to strike a chord with many, with former Engadget editor-in-chief Dana Wollman even confessing that it made her tear up.

Apple’s spatial video format is also just the latest stab at making user-generated and prosumer 3D video happen. Prior attempts, including Google’s VR180 format, largely failed to catch on with consumers. Will this time be different? Which role will AI-aided 2D to 3D conversion play? And who in media will be at the forefront of adopting spatial video?

Spoiler alert: The answer to the last question probably rhymes with corn.

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