Virtual 3-D models may be turning heads in real estate, but there’s another medium headed down the pike that’s also likely to grab some eyeballs: 360-degree video.
Jaunt, a leading developer of the technology, launched a free Android app and its first piece of content today to whet our appetites, TechCrunch reports: onstage footage of Paul McCartney playing “Live and Let Die” at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.
For now, you can view the video only with a makeshift virtual reality headset, such as Google Cardboard, Dodocase or Mirage, according to the tech news site.
That means we can’t post the McCartney video for you to see. But we’ve embedded two videos in this post that mimic the experience of viewing a Jaunt video.
Soon you’ll be able to view Jaunt’s content using more refined devices, like Samsung’s Gear VR headset, which is set to hit the market next month.
Other players in the 360-degree video space, such as Bubl Technology, GoPano and CENTR, sell cameras or lens attachments that you can use to produce videos that are viewable on screens, not just through virtual reality devices. Users can click and drag to change their viewpoints in such videos.
“Real estate is definitely one of our target industries,” said Joanna Taccone, marketing communications manager at Bubl Technology.
Jaunt plans to initially focus on entertainment, such as concerts or sporting events. But Tom Annau, vice president of engineering and co-founder of Jaunt, told Inman that he foresees 360-degree video making its way into real estate.
“Matterport gives you the ability to explore the space but in a relatively static and lifeless way,” he said, speaking of the leading 3-D camera and virtual model software provider for real estate. “Whereas we can actually capture people sitting in the living room, talking about the house on video and walking around and showing you things.”
Still, 360-degree video, like its traditional counterpart, currently doesn’t let a viewer move around, which is perhaps the biggest draw of 3-D virtual models.
That could change down the road, Annua said. It might be possible to blend 360-degree video with 3-D virtual models. Some 3-D tech companies have contacted Jaunt about doing just that, he said.
“Virtual reality video is coming and it could complement what some of these scanning companies are doing,” he said.