Anyone who has tried an ‘immersive experience’ (XR – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality) can attest to its incredible potential.

With our content here at the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, we’ve seen first-hand audiences’ responses. Teenagers inspired by tales of Universal Suffrage; audiences who are unable to travel enthralled as they come face to face with primates in the Congo; veterans (and those decades removed from conflict) humbled by the bravery and sacrifice in the two World Wars; and the sheer unadulterated delight of Whovians as they’re hurtled across the universe with The Doctor.

The promise of XR is immense. But the challenges of delivering it at scale are equally large.

In light of that, earlier this year we announced that we would be wrapping up the production and commissioning of our centralised team, the VR Hub, recognising that now the focus needs to be on helping the audience access content.

As part of our effort to share our learnings with as many people as possible, in this blog we reflect on the challenges and successes of getting our content into audiences’ hands, and how some unusual partnerships have helped us in that journey. We hope it’s useful!

The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ is always on the hunt for better ways to inform, educate and entertain our audiences. That’s why we’re interested in XR. XR can be more memorable, emotionally resonant, and impactful than other media.

With the industry pouring billions into XR, new waves of creativity have been unleashed. However, key questions about the audience are often ignored.

What content would audiences like? In what moments? On what devices?

For VR, why strap a headset to your face, rather than binge your favourite TV show? For mobile AR, beyond a filter or game, what would make you hold up your arm and peer through a screen to see an augmented world around you?

In our 2017 research, we found that whilst audiences loved their first VR, the barriers were too great and quality content too scarce to form a habit. After three months, research participants returned headsets, with little intention of buying their own.

Sad, but not surprising for a technology and content market which was so young. Creating a new media behaviour is hard: it must be easier and more attractive than the incumbent one (which for most was watching TV or browsing social media). We wanted to understand if we could do more to make XR more compelling.

What we did: a small team focussed on the audience

We decided to focus on understanding what experiences audiences would respond to; and then, how to get it into audiences’ hands.

Our small centralised team coordinated a small number of pieces exploring audience preferences, learning how to distribute and promote, finding what worked, and what didn’t. Our reflections are published here. 

What we learnt about where to put our content

We experimented with a range of distribution – on mobile, in-home VR headsets, and out of home. Here we summarise our findings on mobile and in-home, and share in more depth our thoughts on out-of-home.

Distribution – mobile (360 video, VR, AR)

Whilst mobile experiences clearly have a large potential audience, reach was still challenging. Not only were we reliant on the curatorial algorithms of third party platforms, but the range of occasions where audiences would engage with XR on mobile were very limited.

Distribution – in-home headsets (360 video & VR, via VR stores and other platforms)

We knew our audience would be limited, and given the fragmented landscape of headsets, that each individual platform would only generate a small amount of consumption. However, even with that caveat, reach was challenging. Consumption on VR stores required significant marketing, comms, negotiated prominence, and association with existing potent brands.

Distribution – out of home, location-based experiences

This is where it gets interesting. Location-based VR experiences have grown significantly in last year – 1.4m more people claimed to have experienced VR out of home compared to a year ago. So, we wanted to explore whether this could be a low-cost and scalable way to help audiences get access to our VR content.

In 2018/19, in partnership with Libraries Connected, we put pop-up VR installations in 175 local libraries where visitors could try ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR experiences. The pop-ups ranged from a couple of hours to a couple of days, and were promoted and managed by library staff. More details about the partnership can be found in this blog.

We asked visitors to fill out a short survey after the experience (>1200 responses) and we followed up 3 months later with 20 telephone interviews.

The feedback was overwhelming.

Of the 1200 people surveyed, 96% told us they found the experience enjoyable; 92% wanted to try more VR and also said they would talk about their experience to other people; 70% were inspired to learn more about the subject they’d seen.

Crucially, we found that the idea of ‘presence’ (a key driver behind the impact of XR – the feeling you’re ‘there’ in the experience) did not appear to be inhibited by audiences trying the experience in an out of home context.

There were also encouraging signs for the industry. For headset manufacturers: most audiences had never used VR before, and so libraries were an effective way of introducing the technology; 37% of respondents said they’d consider buying a headset as a result of their VR library experience.

For traditional content makers / marketers, 75% of the respondents said they were encouraged to watch a full-length TV programme about the experience’s subject.

We also found VR experiences in libraries tended to rate higher than other VR out of home locations: 8.6 out of 10 vs 6.9. Visitors were also 3x more likely to recommend the library experiences compared to other spaces. (It’s worth noting that there are other factors at play here. For example, visitors of other VR experiences may have had higher expectations if they had to pay for the experience, and if they had prior experience of VR).

Happily, we also found that this positive impact was sustained.

Three months later interviewees were able to recall the experiences in intricate detail. All said they had spoken to friends and family about the experience; many had shared their experiences on social media – including those from harder to reach (and harder to impress) younger audiences.

With regards to libraries as event spaces for VR, we found that:

• They were ideal for introducing new audiences to VR. For audiences who were perhaps skeptical, less familiar with technology, or even nervous, they were put at ease as the libraries were safe and trusted spaces
• There was enough space for the installations to be set up, and that the relative quiet of the library was helpful; and,
• We were able to reach audiences from a wide range of backgrounds, not just communities of early adopters.

With regards to the opportunities VR presents to libraries, we found that the pop-ups had a positive impact on perceptions.

We also found the events drove visits from less frequent users, particularly when libraries had done some light touch promotion (e.g. community Facebook pages, coverage in local newspapers or newsletters).

Given the VR pop-ups were one-off events, we didn’t see any significant shift in claimed usage of libraries amongst those we interviewed a few months’ later. However, respondents’ perceptions of libraries had shifted – regarding them more as community hubs rather than quiet places for study, a place for trialing new tech, and generally future thinking rather than old fashioned.

There were of course challenges. Occasionally the technology didn’t work, some respondents found the headsets uncomfortable, some were conscious of being watched by other people whilst having the experience, and some were concerned with coming out of it somewhat disheveled (the ‘hair and make-up’ problem).

We hope form factor problems will abate as the technology improves.

We also found that the on-boarding could be better. Ahead of going into the trial we knew that the moments when visitors were waiting for the VR experiences, and indeed the moments immediately after the experience, could be key for ensuring they got the most out of it; and this was substantiated in the feedback.

The moments ahead of experiencing VR (particularly if for the first time) are crucial in framing the experience for the user, setting their expectations, putting them at ease, and helping them understand what is about to happen. This part of the ‘on-boarding’ could also be made an enjoyable element of the entire experience. Think of how queuing for a ride at a theme park can end up being part of the experience, if planned properly.

Similarly, immediately after the visitors take the headset off, there is an opportunity to help them get more out of the experience by giving them a chance to process what they’ve seen, talk about it, and share. This enhances the experience for the visitor, and helps the creator land additional messages and calls-to-action.

Our friends over at organisations like Limina Immersive and Diversion Cinema who have spent the last few years finessing out of home experiences, have developed sophisticated insights on the intricacies of ensuring audiences have a positive experience.

Conclusion

There is potentially a fruitful symbiotic relationship for libraries and the XR industry (and possibly wider technology). As community hubs with high footfall, and close trusted relationships with their users, libraries represent a useful gateway for mainstream audiences to have their first experiences of VR in safe spaces.

Equally, whilst libraries seek to remain central parts of their community, introducing their visitors to exciting new technologies could be part of remaining relevant, and reaching new users.

As for the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, we’ll continue assessing whether there are ways we can deliver immersive experiences in a scalable way to better inform, educate and entertain our audiences.

To find out more about ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR go to

For our experiment, we worked with the UK digital agency and some of our R&D team. We created holographic examples for learning content, such as animations of the solar system, a strand of DNA and a brain neuron; we also experimented with a version of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News that floats in mid-air and a holographic big TV screen experience that lets you choose what to watch from a range of different performers at Glastonbury, or select which tennis match you want to watch at Wimbledon.

What is augmented reality and what are smartglasses? 

Augmented reality is a technology that enables your digital world and your real-world to merge. Digital objects can appear as if they physically exist. So a digital video, news article or object can appear as if it is floating right in front of you, like a hologram. You can even interact with these digital floating objects like you do with objects in the real-world. For example, you can press a “virtual” digital button in thin air in the same way that you might press a button on a touch screen or TV remote control.

The latest augmented reality technologies, such as the device that we used, are also capable of 3D scanning and mapping the real-world around you. Once a space, such as a living room, has been scanned and mapped, the technology is able to understand in detail the layout of the immediate environment (for example, how big the room is, where the walls are, what furniture is in the room and where the furniture is positioned).

The technology can then apply the rules of physics to enable that digital object to interact with your real-world environment. So you can bounce a virtual digital ball off the real coffee table in your living room, or as in our experience, hang several huge virtual TV screens on your living room wall or have them floating in mid-air in your garden.

Augmented reality has existed on phones and tablets for some time now, but the introduction of augmented reality smartglasses introduces a completely new form factor to the market that lends itself to a different and potentially far more natural interaction with virtual digital objects. Instead of staring head down at your phone, with a pair of smartglasses, you might be able to walk around and see the digital objects float like holograms right in front of you as move around.

Did it work?

Quite simply, yes. When you put on the smartglasses and walked around, the digital objects felt so realistic that you wanted to reach out and touch them, believing that they are actually in the room with you. What made the experience even more realistic is that, as in the real-world, the closer that you get to a digital object, the more detail you could see on it. We are generally used to digital objects pixilating as you zoom in or get closer to them, so seeing this extra detail as you got closer to the object adds to the realism.

Smartglasses are not widely available at the moment and our experiment was just an internal prototype, but we tested out our experiences with a few pupils, teachers and colleagues to see what they thought. Reactions to the experience were generally very positive, with people saying that it was “really beautiful…I’m quite awe-inspired” and that they felt that “it could really help different types of learners”.

What does the future hold for smartglasses?

Whilst our experiment with augmented reality and smartglasses worked very well, it was far from perfect.

The glasses are still quite bulky (closer in size to a pair of ski goggles than to a standard pair of glasses) and the complicated computing power means that, for the device that we experimented with, you have to carry with you a small palm sized computer. Another key limitation of the current smart glasses technology is the limited field of view – the device that we used gave you a field of view of the digital objects of around 40 degrees (which is considerably less than an average human field of view), meaning that if you looked too far to the left or right, you started to lose some of the ability to view the holograms, which in turn made the experience less realistic and less practically useful.

However, it is very early days for smartglasses and it is likely that the technology will improve and progress – if you were to compare the mobile phones of the late 1990s to the smartphones of today, the jump in terms of their capabilities is huge, and that is very likely to be the case with the smartglasses of today compared to those that we will see in the coming years.

The smartglasses that we experimented with let us see into a possible future, one in which we might be watching TV, accessing the news and learning about new subjects in a far more immersive way than has ever been possible before. If smartglasses do take off, our digital world and our real-world could combine in a way that has never been possible before, potentially transforming the future of media.

It’s been amazing to see this growth, and even more amazing that it’s all happened organically. It started through contact with individual librarians facilitated by Libraries Connected. As it’s taken hold, more libraries have heard about it and come on board. Coupling high quality ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR with the library set-up has enabled the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to reach deep into communities all across the country, engaging new audiences in a huge spread of libraries to give them an extraordinary experience.

The model is simple. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ loans a handful of headsets to a library (a few have their own), licenses some content and supplies a pack of marketing materials, short training videos and the phone numbers for our team so we can troubleshoot on the hoof. The librarians run the pop-ups and when they’re done they send headsets on to the next location on the tour.

Season 1 began in April and featured , season 2 was and we’re now showing for season 3. Once each season is done the headsets return to the start location and the next season begins.

The logistics have mostly worked smoothly but there have been a few challenges.

• Organisationally it’s a mammoth task. (Lurking on VR Hub desktops is a migraine-inducing coloured grid tracking the headsets’ movements around the country)
• The tech is new and new tech has plenty of glitches
• Sometimes the route planning has gone a little awry or the turnaround has been very tight

Despite this, throughout, the can-do attitude and commitment of the network of library staff has made this project work. And it really has worked. The feedback has been incredible.

Participants are really enjoying ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR. So far, a staggering 96% of those who filled in the online survey found it enjoyable, 91% immersive and 93% original.

Our interim results show that people who visited our VR pop-ups in the libraries are three times more likely to recommend it to a friend or family member than any other out-of-home experience. 92% said they would talk about it with other people. The social media amplification has been huge. So far, the tour has featured in around 600 tweets, reaching nearly 800,000 users.

ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ content plus libraries is a winning combination

Great content in an unintimidating, safe, familiar environment with attentive helpers has been a huge draw. With the gentle, guiding hand of librarians, we’ve been able to encourage those who would not normally have tried VR to give it a go. For over half of our library VR users, this was their first chance to try VR.

We know that people don’t get how great VR can be until they try it. Persuading audiences to take that first step and put on a headset has been the big challenge for VR makers. Library VR experiences may be helping to break down this barrier. Even those who are otherwise hard to reach, have engaged with VR.

And librarians are getting a lot out of the tour too. Some of these services have been hard pressed in recent years – and this has given them the chance to reaffirm and strengthen their community role around high-quality content. It’s also been a highly visible way for libraries to demonstrate their developing digital skills and expertise.

VR is acting as a springboard for learning. After seeing Congo VR 83% of viewers wanted to learn more about the subject.

And people want more. 85% of people said they would go to more ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR events. Those who visited ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR library pop-up events were three times more likely to try VR again compared with those who’ve tried other out-of-home VR experiences.

The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has a history of democratising new technology, opening up opportunities for many. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Micro played a key role in the home computer boom in the early 80s. Few other organisations have the potential to offer such a wide scale of opportunities for people to experience new forms of media. And radical new media like virtual reality needs that kind of boost.

It’s not over yet

There are two more weeks of the pilot to go and libraries are still joining the scheme. Across the country there’s a tangible wave of energy, excitement and expectation. We’ve offered three seasons and librarians are asking what’s season 4? There’s a real opportunity to build from this fabulously successful, organic project and reach many communities, particularly those for whom new technology or immersive installations are hard to access.

My name is Colin Warhurst, and I’m a Strategy Manager working for the . I wanted to write about what my colleague Spencer Marsden and I were up to last month in the city of Cologne at the world’s largest photographic and imaging trade fair Photokina.

For over fifty years Photokina has been a landmark entry in the photographic calendar, allowing for manufacturers and thousands of photographers to come together at one huge event. Traditionally Photokina is used as a vehicle to announce or formally launch new products, and as a result it is a trade fair that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Blue Room monitors closely.

The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Blue Room is the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s consumer technology insight and research team. It is our job to analyse new technologies, hardware, software or platforms that may come to affect the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, our competitors or our audiences. The Blue Room had previously visited Photokina in 2016 (it is normally held every two years) and so a return to this 2018 event allowed us to see what had moved on, as well as what maybe coming next in the fields of photography, videography, and other imaging technologies.

Not long after the 2016 trade fair, Photokina announced the need to change and “optimally reflect the fast-paced nature and the ever briefer innovation cycles of an increasingly digitalised industry.” The first action resulting from this statement was a change to the bi-annual schedule that Photokina has used for decades, making this September’s trade fair the last in that two-year cycle. May 2019 will see another Photokina event, just eight months after this event, marking the start of a new annual cycle held much earlier in the year.

Secondly, a sub-conference called Digility was absorbed into the larger Photokina trade fair. Digility was there to focus on immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality. The event was a mixture of trade fair style exhibits and a heavy focus on talks, lectures and Q&A panels with leading industry figures involved in these emerging technologies.

Needless to say, all of this meant there was a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of technology to investigate! We decided to split Photokina and Digility into separate assignments, and divvied up the investigations accordingly. As the Blue Room’s resident camera expert, I was once again asked to create a deep-dive report on the Photokina event, as I had back in 2016. The team’s R&D Engineer and immersive technology expert, Spencer Marsden, was assigned to Digility to create a report covering all of its technologies, trends and talks.

All of this work resulted in lots of photographs (naturally) and two detailed reports which can both be read in full over on the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ D+E Medium blog, using the links below.

As a broad summary, we uncovered trends that matter to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ in the following ways;

• Almost every professional stills camera in the world is now also a professional video camera. The world of online video will only continue to increase in volume and image quality. Competition in the high-quality image stakes has never been so fierce.
• The continued rise of ‘mirrorless’ camera technologies ran throughout Photokina 2018, with most major vendors having a mirrorless camera system announced before the year’s end. Lighter, smaller cameras in the long term means a lower barrier to entry, and lower costs to get established in previously “high end only” formats such as digital medium-format photography.
• Being smaller and lighter, mirrorless cameras also take advantage of a whole swathe of new accessory technologies, primarily smaller handheld gimbals and stabilisers for video content. High quality “cinematic” images and production values are not just in the realm of professionals and top end budgets anymore.
• At Digility, companies were discussing Virtual Reality in a way that was well past the hype, and as a set of technologies that are starting to become useful in real-world applications, but all without the hyperbole.
• The world of XR (Mixed Reality) seems to be where most of the excitement lies, with vendors recognising the best way to access audiences en-masse is via the browsers on their everyday smartphones and tablets.
• The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ needs to continue monitoring this space, as our audience may come to expect, to capture parts of the world as three-dimensional objects, or certain performances in a volumetric fashion.

Hopefully the above whets your appetite and encourages you to want to find out more about our Photokina and Digility reports, the detail behind our summary above, or more about the work of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Blue Room itself.

We hope you enjoy following us down the rabbit hole!

As summer temperatures soared to record-breaking highs, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub staged an ambitious event to launch a new interactive VR experience on four HTC Vive headsets in a small tent in a field at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford.

Created by ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Northern Ireland's Rewind team and VR production company, Immersive VR Education, 1943: Berlin Blitz is based on actual ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ sound archive recorded during WW2 on a Lancaster bomber raid over Berlin. Viewers share the cockpit with the brave crew and courageous team of war reporter, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas and sound recordist, Reg Pidsley as they document their flight on a terrifying mission over Berlin. The sense of danger is real, and justified - just four months after this flight, their plane, F for Freddie, was shot down over Stettin.

Less than a year into the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔΗ―s new VR venture, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub has so far produced four ground-breaking projects. Both 1943: Berlin Blitz and Make Noise – a voice-activated experience celebrating the suffragette movement – will officially premiere at the Venice Film Festival. , which takes viewers on assignment with ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News Africa correspondent, Alastair Leithead, to investigate the impact of a huge new dam, has been nominated for a Rose d'Or and last week the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ announced its first Virtual Reality Prom: Nothing to be Written.

ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub's intended audience for these experiences extends beyond the VR community. In order to fully explore the appetite for VR, the Hub is aiming to get high quality pieces out to audiences who might not otherwise have encountered virtual reality - like the 185,000 families, veterans and teenage groups who converged on RAF Fairford for the Air Tattoo in July.

With a skeletal crew, the usual tech gremlins and a thunderstorm it seemed unlikely that our ambitious set-up – screening across four headsets simultaneously in a small tent in the middle of a field – would stand the test.

Mostly, it did.

In four seats ripped out of a 747, inside a vintage RAF tent accompanied by rumbling vibrations of F16s and other aircraft streaking overhead, over 500 people watched 1943: Berlin Blitz during the three day event. With the help of Chris Long, from Immersive VR Education and Warren Bell from ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Rewind, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub team put a constant flow of visitors through the 14 minute VR experience.

The response was incredible. Despite challenges due to the heat and location,Men, women, teenagers, veterans and civilians all went up in F For Freddie,and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Some came back two or three times, despite queues of up to 45 minutes. There were tears, congratulations and plenty of awe. Many had never experienced any VR before.

Comments included: "...if there was one thing worth coming to the show for today it was this!"

"We want more of this from the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ"

"We saw it on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Points West so we got up this morning, walked 5 miles over the fields from our house and came straight here" (0730 Sunday)

"Wow"

"Best thing here"

"Best thing I’ve ever seen""

So convinced by the 'real' computer graphics, one older man asked: 'Did you make the film in 1943?'

Such a project would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. VR kit and expertise is growing rapidly. Whether the audience will match that growth is still a big unknown.

Over the next few months, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub will be running a series of VR Pop-Ups in libraries to bring quality VR to a wider audience so they can decide if it's something they'd like to see more of. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub will also continue to work closely with the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Blue Room to show VR at various events throughout the summer and autumn. As a result of the Air Tattoo multiple museums have expressed interest in showing 1943: Berlin Blitz. They see it as a valuable tool to introduce new, younger audiences to history.

That comes with its own challenges. Most VR headset makers recommend children under 13 should not use VR. Even those over 13 are unlikely to have access to a headset or to easily find good content. And, as the team at the Hub knows, it's got to be very good content to convince viewers to put on what are still quite clunky headsets, tolerate occasional technical glitches - common to new kit - and surrender to up to 15 minutes in the virtual world.

The 360 (non interactive) version of 1943: Berlin Blitz was shown by the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Blue Room earlier this month at the Turing Festival – again to great acclaim. Despite a lack of a VR-viewing habit among the audience and associated kit and quality issues, the team at the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub is cautiously optimistic that these projects might be indicating the audience wants good, and appropriate VR. There are a clutch of similarly ambitious, exciting projects in production. As these are released, over the next year or so, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub – and the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ as a whole - will have a much better understanding of what the virtual future might look like.

Other ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR Hub projects have included AR prototypes with ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News Labs and support for in-house 360 and VR ventures including Crossing the Sky, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News’ Is Anna Okay? and Bloodhound, a 360 ride in the world’s fastest land vehicle.

To see much of this content for yourself, visit /virtualreality or download the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ VR App: .

So this year the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has done something exciting for the 2018 FIFA World Cup: for the first time all the games we broadcast on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ One have been available in virtual reality.

For the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ it’s important to innovate and explore new experiences for audiences now and in the future. We saw this as the perfect time and opportunity to test what our audience expects from a virtual reality sport app. There were a number of areas we were keen to learn more about including audience expectations, device preferences, the amount of time people spend using VR, how popular the platform is and what the demographic of a typical VR user is.

To take a look into this we have partnered with FIFA and its official VR suppliers in and to create stunning immersive environments our users can dive into and watch the action. Partnering with these companies allowed us to learn a lot whilst providing a great new platform for our users and so far nearly 350,000 people have taken advantage of this opportunity.

In this post we are aiming to show the work that has gone into launching this app and what we have learnt along the way.

How we delivered the apps: by Rebecca Heapy — ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sport Apps Project Manager

Six months to customise an out of the box solutionβ€Š—β€Šeasy right? Then as the weeks tick over you realise there is much more to it than a collection of posters and a couple of end-to-end tests. You’re now working with more suppliers based in multiple geographical locations. Internally the number of teams / departments involved has also grown as you’re…

• setting up CDN networks
• settling contracts and agreements
• ensuring security standards meet our levels
• prepping editorial team on the new content interfaces

All this on top of supporting and developing the , one the biggest Sport apps in the market.

So how can you ensure successful delivery when so many elements are out of your control? Without sounding cliché, communication was key.

Initially, direct contact with the teams building the interfaces was limited and irregular. The first obstacle we had to overcome was establishing governance and routines with all parties, fostering transparency and collaboration. Forging a strong direct relationship with the development team was key and helped us gain a better understanding of our role in this project and get closer to the product itself.

When equipped with more knowledge we were able to efficiently customise the environments, promotional elements and (probably the biggest of all our tasks) test the app. It was paramount that before releasing, before even announcing the apps, that we were 100% confident in the application and the services that feed in to it so that it meets the standards our audience expect.

How we made sure they worked: by Vinny Sebastian — β€ŠΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sport Apps Senior Test Analyst

Whilst we have a lot of experience testing the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sport app, we do not have much experience testing in VR. Testing a VR app from a third party, not only involves looking at the app but also ensuring the mobile and console hardware (cardboards, headsets etc..) each display the app correctly to the user and checking the stream and on demand video quality is acceptable and plays. During this experience many lessons were learnt from our testing as the VR app was delivered.

We had to base our testing on specifications, unlike working hand-in-hand with the development team like we are used to. After analysing the spec, we needed some clarification before we were happy to start our testing. We were also given a document with acceptance tests which were based on user journeys that we used for our testing.

The end-to-end test sessions lasted for approximately two hours and covered testing the stream, branding, video on demand, data and camera angles in the stadium.

In our first end-to-end session we had eight people independently testing the app across a selection of devices. People were going through the test scenarios at their own pace, some were filling out spreadsheets while others were shouting out the issues they found, which resulted in a disorganised round of testing.

As a result, we decided that we would go through each user journey together and with one person scribing the issues that were found.

From then on the test sessions ran more smoothly, however, we took part in a further six tests rather than two tests due to issue found along the way. This extra vigilance ensured we delivered a product of the highest quality.

Learnings

The game’s changed!

Two years ago for the 2016 Rio Olympics we first dipped our toe into immersive / VR technology. In the two years since, not only the headsets but the software / environments have improved dramatically. This is also reflected in the usage with over four times more people downloading the World Cup app compared to the Olympic app. The quality of the lounge, which is central to the app and how users navigate, is fantastic across all platforms and something our users have picked up on.

The camera angles available are great, but there could be more…

As the tournament progresses we have been conducting user testing and monitoring feedback. The users of the app love the multiple camera angles but some would like even more control. We currently have cameras set up in the stand and behind both goals but users would like to see this expanded along with the ability to have more control over the live feed.

Same app different users

The app has been a great success in terms of downloads and one area we have seen significant growth is in smartphone users. However these users have the lowest average session time. When looking at users who invested in headsets like the Oculus Go, PlayStation VR and Samsung Gear VR they spend far more time watching than smartphone users.

When thinking about VR in the future we need to take this into account e.g. should a smartphone VR experience be based around a second screen or highlights and headset users around live games?

Same app different users

People don’t want to be left out, ever

Whilst working with our partners we supported all devices available to us so we could learn as much as possible. Unfortunately not every VR device or headset was supported as this was very much a trail, and the findings taken from this will feed into the decisions we make around device support in the future.

What next…

At the moment the experiment continues until the World Cup finishes on July 15th. After that we will take the learnings from this already successful experiment and factor those into whatever might be next. But we know, there is certainly an appetite for VR and Sport to work together.

If you haven't had the change to make the most of the World Cup experience yet, you can download the app from the below locations:

The theme so far this month in the world of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ technology has been Sound, with a showcase event last week at the New Broadcasting House Radio Theatre.  Sounds Amazing was a joint production by  and bringing together lots of ideas and demonstrations from the world of audio.  Much of it has been written up elsewhere, so here's a brief round-up of some of those highlights and other news.

• We learnt more about how spatial audio works and . And as the summer approaches, soon it will be
• There was a demonstration from the Blue Planet 2 sound production team about the scale of sound editing.  Each episode has around 170 sound tracks and takes roughly 15 days to edit and mix.  There's  
• We heard about ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio's ambitions around podcasting, following .  It's now estimated that 10% of the population are listening to podcasts
• , spoke about some of their recent commissions including the 360 video documentary   More  on how it was made.   
• For VR fans, there's also a new immersive tour of the old Alexandra Palace studios, which takes you back to the early days of television
• And finally, a sound treat.  My colleagues in Archive Development have just released   While still ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ copyright, they've available for personal, education or research purposes. 

Our shows that for as long as the quantity of high-quality content remains low, and the experience remains cumbersome, mainstream audiences won’t use VR. That’s why we’re focussing on a small number of high impact pieces that have broad, mainstream appeal.

We want to excite audiences by creating the most enthralling experiences imaginable using the power of VR. So with every commission, we will target a specific set of audience needs and occasions, ensuring that each piece is compelling enough to make people want to put on a headset.

We believe the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ can bring a unique perspective to VR. We have an unparalleled position in the lives of the UK population. Every week we reach 95% of the UK population and we have the most trusted broadcast news brand in the world, reaching almost 400m people through the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World Service alone.

We can bring all of this to bear in the creation of VR. Having cracked every new content delivery mechanism since radio in 1922, we are excited about the potential of VR and the ways in which it could enrich the lives of our audiences.

With the credibility and trust the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has, along with the size of our audience and intimate understanding we have of them, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ can play a crucial role in bringing Virtual Reality into the mainstream.

I’m Spencer Marsden, and I work in the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Blue Room, where we look at new technology and how it impacts the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. Every now and again an opportunity arises to test a piece of equipment in the field, and to help out our ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ colleagues who produce exciting and innovative content. Last year, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ South West wanted to create a short VR-360º film to capture the story of the Bloodhound Super Sonic Jet Car and the team who have their eyes set on breaking land-speed records. Specifically, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ South West wanted to capture the filming of the pre-public test runs in Cornwall, so that when the car was unveiled to the public, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ would have content already in place and ready to launch on the same date.

This would prove to be a great way to test out VR-360º camera kit in the field, to make some great content, and to share insights with the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ creative technical community. I joined the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ South West team, and together we set about the process of capturing 360º material. It was fantastic to work with a Production team, and to watch their process of creating a narrative. We ensured that the final VR-360º piece would not just feature the (very exciting!) shots of the Bloodhound Jet Car in action, but also interview scenes and context setting shots that immersed the viewer in places such as the workshop, the test-track or even in the cockpit.

We collectively learned a lot about filming for this medium, making us better prepared for future VR-360º projects. We also learned a lot about media reach and the marketing of the final project, which by all accounts was an incredibly successful. The full report goes into our findings from both the perspective of capturing 360º, and how the final film reached over 1.2 million views, including 300,000 hits on the day it was uploaded!

The full report can be read here on the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ D+E Medium Blog – I hope it’s of interest.

Virtual Reality (VR) has certainly been having a moment, with leading pundits forecasting billions of dollars of revenue, the distribution of hundreds of millions of headsets, and the fundamental disruption of audiences’ media habits.

For those who’ve experienced it, the hype is understandable and it’s not without foundation. Work coming out of the Immersive Labs in Oxford, Stanford and UCL suggests there is significant potential for VR to have profound positive social impact by telling stories in immersive and memorable ways.

But we need to pause for a second. A recent observed that ‘enthusiastic reactions to VR at trade fairs or at industry conferences, based on a few minutes of usage, may not convert into mass market demand.’

Most of the content created to date has been driven by the promise of the technology and pushing the vanguard of what is possible. Whilst the experiences created have left many with their jaws on the floor, they have largely not been driven by what works for the non-gaming mainstream audiences – of which there is little knowledge. An found that 60% of participants felt that VR was mainly for gaming and 46% of participants agreed that they couldn’t see a practical use for people like them.

For the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, as a public service broadcaster that reaches 95% of the UK population each week, the question over mass adoption is crucial. And, as younger audiences move away from traditional media, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ must ensure it has the expertise in new mediums like VR to continue providing them with world-class public service content.

Having pioneered mass market story-telling mediums since 1922, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ wants to put the same audience-centric approach into the development of VR. To help start this process, we partnered with to better understand what people want out of VR entertainment experiences, how VR is experienced in the home, and what we can learn about the new grammar of storytelling in VR.

We’re sharing these insights so the wider industry can benefit from what we’ve learnt, in order to help improve the experience for everyone.

What we did

We undertook a research programme into VR encompassing market sizing, a mix of existing ‘media needs’ research and a longitudinal ethnographic study. As part of that we recruited teens and adults from across the UK who were interested in VR but had little experience with it. We gave them each a mid-range mobile VR headset for three months.

For the first few weeks we asked participants to play with the hardware every day, discovering VR experiences themselves, and trying pieces we suggested, which we had previously researched and found to be of superior quality.

For the following 12 weeks, we left the hardware with participants to observe how VR would fit into their daily lives in the longer-term.

Participants also joined an online community to talk about their experiences. We visited them in their homes in the first two weeks, and interviewed them at weeks 8 and 14, part way through and at the end of the study.

What we found

There was a huge amount of insight coming out of this study that we’ve tried to summarise in this post. We figured the best way to do this was to share the insights we gathered in the order they came to us....

1. What did audiences think about VR before they’d actually tried it?
2. How did participants react to their first experience?
3. What content were participants drawn to?
4. What content resonated?
5. What are the key challenges to overcome for VR to become mainstream?

So, what did our participants think about VR before they’d actually tried it?

As you can see from the video there was a wide variety of expectations.

Those with prior experience of basic entry-level mobile VR expected to be underwhelmed; others expected VR to be a futuristic, shiny technology, but were not entirely sure of its sophistication. Unsurprisingly many associated it with gaming. A few were concerned about the experiences they were about to have – they had heard stories of getting nauseous, they didn’t want to look silly in front of friends and family – or indeed, get pranked by them!

In summary, new-comers to VR are unsure about what to expect and about the type of experiences they want to have. But they are excited, and their first experience didn’t disappoint....

How did participants react to their first experience?

Many of you will have seen the videos on YouTube of first encounters with VR – the elderly grandmother gripping her armchair for dear life and screaming (for joy?) as she is thrown about on a rollercoaster.

We found our participants were equally enthralled and delighted. Their initial – fairly low – expectations were far outstripped in terms of the quality of the experience and the very nature of being immersed in virtual reality.

However, this in itself presents a nuanced marketing challenge. The industry has difficulty communicating what VR experiences are actually like. Given the wide variety of technology which can determine the nature and quality of experience, setting the right level of expectation for audiences such that they don’t come away underwhelmed is tricky.

What content were participants initially drawn to?

Generally participants wanted to get straight to experiences designed to get your blood pumping, things like horror, rollercoasters and other extreme experiences that had some novelty value.

What they were not doing was discovering a wide variety of other experiences available to them (more on that later).

We found that when we suggested particular pieces of content, the appeal of VR can go far beyond the novel and extreme, and that audiences can have profound experiences.

What impact did the VR experiences have on participants?

Participants loved VR which allowed you to:

• walk in someone else’s shoes to better understand the world (e.g. experiencing what it’s like to lose your sight – Notes on Blindness).
• experience something you wouldn’t normally do (e.g. sky-diving – although the novelty factor wore off quickly so it’s likely you’d watch these sorts of things a small number of times).
• learn effectively (e.g. become microscopic and travel through the body to learn about anatomy – like the The Body VR);
• remove all distraction, enabling focus on activities like relaxation.

This last type of experience threw out a few surprises. Our participants frequently came back to watching traditional 2-D widescreen content in a virtual cinema – i.e. watching traditional content on ‘the biggest screen in the house’. This was everything from long-form scripted content from popular VOD providers through to music videos on YouTube.

We know from broader media behaviour research that audiences will tend to seek out the best screen available when watching long-form video; however, whether a virtual big screen counts ‘as the best screen available’ given the resolution challenges devices currently have is questionable – it would certainly appear the largest though.

Our emerging hypothesis is that headsets provide audiences with a rare opportunity to engage with content utterly free from distraction. The rise of the smartphone being rarely away from one’s side means that it can often be challenging for audiences to be fully immersed in any kind of activity. A recent from Facebook found that 94% of US consumers kept a smartphone to hand when watching TV. Headsets are a helpful blocker to being distracted by multiple mediums.

What are the other characteristics of content which worked?

From an industry perspective we are still developing the VR story-telling grammar around producing content that works.

By spending time with real people and talking to them about their experiences, we were able to pull out a few key insights into what got them excited and why.

• First, leading the audience on a journey is crucial; experiences without a narrative or goal tended to fall flat – experiences with good story-telling or clear objectives worked well.
• Second, making the most of the unique possibilities of VR. Playing with scale was particularly evident here – for example ‘The Body VR’ shrinking you to a cellular level. Presence and embodiment were also important asthe viewer must feel ‘there’ to be immersed. For example, a Cirque du Soleil experience resonated because the characters made plenty of eye contact with the viewer.
• Third, recognising the risk of cognitive overload: audiences need time to process and understand what is happening around them before being able to follow a narrative. When and where to draw their attention is also fundamentally important.

Experiences that do these things well can blow audiences away and provide a real depth of emotional engagement.

The challenges... (you’re halfway through!)

So, to recap the story so far: audiences are excited, albeit uncertain about the prospect of the new technology; they love having adrenalin-fuelled experiences to begin with, but the novelty can dissipate fast; content with a clear narrative that thinks about the audiences’ experience is crucial; and there’s an opportunity to have a real world impact, and to add value to people’s media routines.

However, we’ve identified four challenging areas that need to be kept in mind when assessing the opportunity VR presents. These are:

1. The occasion in which VR will be used.
2. The hardware.
3. Discovery of content and the current poor user experience.
4. The play-out.

Let’s start with the occasion

At the beginning of the research, we asked our participants to use their headset every day for two weeks, completing a range of tasks – seeking out new content, discovering new experiences for themselves and trying out pieces we had suggested. We then left the headsets with them for three months, with no instructions other than to use them if and when they wanted to for the first 7 weeks (i.e. ‘natural usage’), and then 5 weeks of ‘prompted usage’ where we point them to new content. Unsurprisingly over the 7 weeks of ‘natural usage’ their usage declined significantly – with some of them not picking up the headset at all.

We found that often, as described in more detail below, it was just too much of a faff, without enough of a compelling reason to bother. When the headset was used, it tended to be the last media option they turned to, having exhausted TV, their PVR, SVOD, social, gaming.... the rest of the internet(!).

In the words of one participant, “It isn't replacing any of my media habits... it's not as easy: you have to get your phone ready, slot it into the headset and then find something to watch. Normally I can just flick on the TV and watch something instantly!” - Female, 18-44.

There are evidently a range of behavioural barriers to overcome before VR will be habitual. These include:

• Safety and security – some audiences were concerned about being shut-off from what’s happening around them.
• Social norming – some were anxious about feeling stupid in front of friends, or self-conscious about their appearance, hair and make-up.
• Physical space – often audiences weren’t in the right physical situation – sitting down on a sofa after a long day or lying in bed is not conducive to an experience which necessitates turning around and looking behind you.
• Proximity of headset – the headset needs to be conveniently available. Many of us will have hundreds of potentially entertaining distractions in our homes; however, it will tend to be the ones which are the most visible / proximate / easy to engage with which we use. If a headset has been put away on a shelf, in a cupboard, or under a bed, it will not be front of mind.
• Social interaction – for some audiences the insular / individual nature of the experience was off-putting as they preferred connecting with others either digitally or in physical space.

This underlines how the issue of how VR integrates into real lives in the home is of great importance. To overcome this the VR industry needs to give care to making seamless experiences in occasions and settings that are appealing to audiences.

The hardware

If you have decided you want to try some VR, you have found your headset, you’re in a social situation and geographical context you feel safe, you then have the hardware to contend with:

• Often the headsets or the screens of the phone will be dirty – if not cleaned this will significantly diminish the quality of the experience, blurring or obscuring the images.
• The phone must be charged: headsets are often used at the end of the day – after school, college or work, often when the phone is low on power.

Then of course you have to find something to consume

• If you haven’t used your headset for a while, you might forget how to use it – many of our participants found the user interface to be tricky in any case.
• Often the way to navigate around various VR environments differs from app to app – adding to frustration.
• The way in which content is then presented to audiences is a challenge. We found that when our participants were left to discover content themselves, they rarely ventured out of the main app; by themselves they found very little of the high quality content we had given them. Their discovery was mostly limited to gimmicky, adrenalin-focussed and games-orientated experiences, resulting in the novelty factor wearing off quickly.

Audiences need to be exposed to content they might not automatically choose to expand their range of tastes in VR. There is room for intelligent content curation from trusted brands which takes into account the different usage occasions, the different types audience needs, and the goal of expanding VR beyond novelty experiences for audiences.

Once participants had found something to consume, the play-out also caused problems

• Many handsets overheated after 30 or so minutes of usage.
• Variable Wi-Fi quality leading to poor content resolutions and slow download speeds was also limiting.

The content itself

The industry is obviously still learning, but there is a risk of sub-par experiences flooding the market and turning audiences off the idea of VR altogether. We found that much of the content available didn’t add any value over and above consuming the same sort of thing on a TV screen.

A typical comment was “If the content could have been just as easily consumed on a TV screen, why go the effort of watching it immersively?"

For the occasion to be worthwhile, the content must be a special experience that could only have been conveyed in VR and not through any other media.

Thoughts for the future

VR in-home entertainment definitely has massive potential. Headsets will get cheaper and more content will be made. Some content will have substantial impact. These are potentially great things for creators, the public service and the audience.

But when thinking about the audience first, we’ve seen there are some challenges that need to be addressed for VR to realise its potential. For VR to be successful it needs simple, intuitive and consistent interfaces, better curation and content discovery, and a higher supply of quality content which is ‘worth the effort’.

When experiencing problems, audiences don’t particularly care if it’s the hardware, the software, the content or anything in-between that causes a glitch. They just want good experiences and become frustrated when this isn’t possible.

This is exemplified in how our participants responded at the end of the 14 weeks, upon giving the hardware back to us – when asked “Would you now go and buy a VR headset”, they said that with the current mix of content and difficulties with the hardware they would not, but may consider it in the future.

Many of you will recognise this hype curve showing the typical cycle of new technology. But it isn’t a given that all technology becomes mainstream. Think 3DTV.

When thinking about VR in-home entertainment, there could be another trough of disillusionment if we don’t address these challenges.

This is clearly a challenge for the VR industry. Hardware, platforms, and content creators need to be aware of the limitations of technology, but also of the real world context in which audiences will be interacting with VR. This sounds straightforward, but in the fragmented VR landscape, there are a variety of experiences and it’s not clear this is going to be solved automatically.

So we believe there are two calls to action coming out of this work.

First, we need to simplify. We need consistency between the currently fragmented hardware and software experiences. This will enable a more frictionless user experience for all audiences. Consistency and open standards will also provide greater certainty for content creators to produce a breadth of content which is not limited to a small set of costly closed devices.

Second, we must put the audience not just the technology at the heart of our thinking. This will give us a better understanding of audience perceptions, needs, usage occasions and how best to curate. In turn this will enable us to produce more relevant, impactful and memorable content that fits into real people’s lives.

The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will be continuing to look at VR and how to make amazing immersive content. We’d love to hear from you if you’re thinking about researching this area.

Acknowledgements. Finally, as ever, pulling together work like this takes the dedication of many hard-working people. A big thank you to staff at Ipsos Connect, including but not limited to: Katherine Jameson Armstrong, Dr Neil Stevenson, Elliot Whitehead, Hanna Roe, Anna Hickman, Cecilia Zolo, Hannah Stott, Rhianne Patent, Andaleeb Ali, Alice Ellen, Ian Jarvis, Ellie Rose, Will Shaw, Lucy Kaye, Usman Khawaja; and from the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ , Aleksandra Gojkovic and Jaya Deshpande.

Although the famous Princess Leia hologram from Star Wars was set a “long, long time ago”, this type of audience experience might not be that far away. Holographic experiences, like Ultra-High Definition or virtual reality, offer audiences a level of detail and realism that only a short while ago seemed virtually impossible but that are now becoming a reality.

For our experiment, we used existing technologies and simple techniques to explore ‘holographic’ content. The device that we made also gives us an extremely low-fi and low-cost way to assess how the ‘floating’ images of augmented and mixed reality devices, which aren’t readily available for audience testing, might be used to view ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ content in the future.

This is all part of our work exploring emerging technologies for future audiences – in fact, our Research and Development team wrote a back in the 1970s. You may remember that we when it first came out and have since gone on to create of 360 video and virtual reality content.

While virtual reality has been grabbing the headlines, some of the worlds’ largest technology companies have recently been investing in mixed reality and augmented reality, which has just become a mainstream phenomenon, if you are a fan of catching certain pocket monsters. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: if devices such as  also capture the public’s imagination, we could soon find ourselves in a situation where the lines between digital content and the real world become increasingly blurred.

Making a ‘holographic’ TV

We had seen that people had created  and so it occurred to us that making a super-sized version of these low-cost displays would give us a way to see how ‘holograms’ might work on a larger scale, something comparable to the size of a living room TV.

To make our ‘holographic’ TV, we took a 46” TV that we had in the office and then asked a local plastics cutter to make a simple acrylic pyramid shape based on some sketches that we had done.

By placing this acrylic pyramid on our flat screen TV, we were able to try out a modern-day version of an old Victorian theatre technique and create the illusion of floating ‘holographic’ like images.

For this theatre trick to work, the video footage needed to be of a certain type, so we looked through the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ public service and archives for iconic footage that matched this criteria and then worked with UK based visual effects and hologram specialist company , who tweaked and formatted our archive footage to bring it to life.

Did it work?

Although it was just an experiment based on some sketches and made using low-cost acrylic, it produced some striking results.

We tested out our display with a few audience members who were doing a tour of our New Broadcasting House building in London (have a look at the video above). Reactions were mixed, ranging from “you feel more engaged with the image, more involved” and “it brought it to life” to “it was better from a distance than closer up”.

When we asked them what types of programme they thought might work well on a ‘holographic’ TV, the most popular suggestions that our audience members gave us were nature documentaries and sport.

We learnt from our experiment that the images were much more powerful when the ambient lighting levels were low and when the room was dark. We also noticed that the effect worked best when the display was positioned at eye level.

Will we see ‘holographic’ TVs in the living rooms of the future?

There are limitations with our experimental device: as mentioned above, only certain types of footage will work, you need a fairly low level of light in the room to get the maximum impact and the viewing angles are narrow. The physics of the light reflecting off the pyramid and the TV’s screen size also means that there will always be a practical limit to the size of a display such as this.

However, this wasn’t an exercise to test how well this specific prototype performed, it was intended to give us a good approximation as to what ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ content would look like on a ‘holographic’ TV, get an insight into what audiences thought of it and give us a cheap way to explore floating images in the real world.

Our experiment was fairly simplistic, but the new technologies on the horizon have the potential to completely change the way that audiences experience media content in the future.

You can imagine a world where instead of watching a film star being interviewed on the sofa of a TV chat show, they feel as if they are sitting right next to you on your own sofa in your living room, or where instead of looking at a 2D image of Mount Everest, it appears as if the snow on the mountain top is falling around you.

Our Research & Development team have been considering some of the other ways that emerging technologies could impact the way that audiences consume and engage with media in the future and you can see some of their ideas in .

We are always looking out for ways to bring third party innovation into the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to help us explore new technologies and types of content with our audiences in new ways – if you have any innovation ideas or technologies that you think our audiences could potentially benefit from, do get in touch in the comments section below or contact me on Twitter .