Virtuosity

A couple of weeks ago the official Star Wars app on my phone got an update with something called Jakku Spy, which the app said was a Google Cardboard experience.  I had to look up what the hell Google Cardboard was and it turns out it is a virtual reality viewer on your phone.  The cardboard part comes from the fact that you put your phone into a viewer that is made of...wait for it...cardboard!

You know soon as I read Star Wars VR I had to get it.  I bought a cardboard viewer on eBay and I got it in the mail the other day.  I still could've watched Jakku Spy on my phone without the viewer, but I wanted to check it out the way it was meant to be "experienced".

Instructions are for losers!  Hey, let me see those...

I got it together and it's all ready to go.  It came with an elastic band and I don't know what it's for.

The warning screen when you load up Jakku Spy.  It actually did make me feel a little woozy, but it might have been because the picture quality was so bad.

Screen shot.

You look real cool when using it.

It was pretty disappointed with Jakku Spy.  It's broken up into several short videos, I just watched the first two.  Yes, you have 360 degree view and up and down, but the video resolution on it is pretty crappy.  The screen shot actually looks way better than it lets on.  I think because that is just a still image, once it's all in motion it's very grainy and blurry.  I thought maybe there was a problem with the lenses in my viewer, so I watched the clips again without the viewer and unfortunately the problem was the same.

There is an official Google Cardboard app that has lots of other VR videos, so I will check those out soon.  Hopefully, they'll be cooler.

There are also lots of viewers available out there.  Jakku Spy is presented by Verizon, so in the US Verizon has free Star Wars themed viewers.  Some companies went beyond cardboard and made really fancy plastic ones with foam padding around your face and a head strap so you can go hands free, even View-Master has made one.  I don't think I want to invest in anything beyond a cardboard version until it gets a little smoother.