China: Virtual Reality industry in the era of 5G

2019 is widely recognised as the start of 5G era in China. On the one hand, 5G has been officially commercialized. On the other hand, the entire industry is still looking for a “killer application”. The 3G era has witnessed the success of social software, 4G era has short video and live broadcast, what can we achieve with high speed, low latency and wide connection of 5G connection?

In fact, many companies have foreseen this trend. In recent years, Apple, Huawei, Samsung and Vivo have launched their IoT plans, and the development of VR/AR glasses has become a consensus. HTC is a first-mover, and has launched a number of VR devices. But not every company is as lucky as HTC: Google's Daydream platform and Samsung's Gear VR have officially announced their death this year. There is still a long way to go before the maturity of VR products, it is still unknown who can be the leader on this track.

How VR can be beneficiary of 5G, cloud and AI technology

Around 2015, the VR industry ushered in a wave of investment gold rush, and innovative companies have sprung up. However, as investors became aware of bottlenecks in VR technology and applications, then capital started to retreat.

However, between 2016 and 2019, the VR cool-down actually allowed the steady development of the industry. In China, the VR market will amount to 7.9 billion U.S. dollars by 2021, said Wu Shengwu, deputy head of the electronic information division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at a press conference of the 2019 World Conference on VR Industry.

Nowadays, at the moment of 5G, many companies see VR devices as the next big thing. Guo Ping, chairman of Huawei, believes that 2019 will be the first year of revival of the VR industry. The founders of the MIT Media Lab has been focusing on the VR field since 1969, and believes that the VR has made great progress in the last decade. Technological advances in other areas, such as 5G, have put VR and AR into the eyes of the general public. In previous years, latency and dizziness in VR headset are big issues. Now, 5G offers to overcome these downsides of VR. 

In addition, today, Cloud is booming, VR is upgraded and merges with Cloud technology. Cloud is helpful for both the terminal and the application of the VR industry. The combination of Cloud and VR makes it cheaper and lighter, greatly improving the user experience. At the same time, Cloud can also make VR applications as easy and popular as mobile phones.

Artificial intelligence is also a new technology that is beneficial to VR. AI promotes VR mostly in content, including image rendering and processing, VR content production, and perceptual interaction. In terms of content production, artificial intelligence can be used with real users' virtualization and 3D reconstruction. There's an emerging trend of enhancing the interactivity of VR content by targeting and virtualizing the body of users. The traditional method relies on expensive equipment and cumbersome post-processing. The new method is based on deep learning technology that restores the three-dimensional geometry and structure of an object without the complicated processes.

The Internet giants have entered into VR industry

The biggest pain point of VR development is content. The global output of video content is millions per year, and high-quality VR content is estimated to be only a few thousand. There are some technical solutions: 2D to 3D technology, increase social features and normalize VR live broadcasting.

Concretely, "2D to 3D" technology provides a conversion to 3D for existing 2D content; social features refer to applications such as VR games and VR education; and VR live broadcasts will become a common channel, attracting more users.

In addition to the content, Huawei's VR headset just launched officially. In September 2019, Huawei's Mate 30 was released and VR glasses were introduced. The glasses achieved VR headlight weight reduction and weighed only 166g, improving traditional heavy VR headsets. Recently, Gan Bin, vice president of Huawei's 5G product line, said that Huawei is focusing on VR, cloud games and cloud office at the “5G to C” business application. In fact, according to Huawei's 1+8+N product line layout, VR/AR glasses are one of the eight categories, which has become an important part of Huawei's IoT layout.

Not just Huawei, mobile phone manufacturers have launched their IoT plans, and the development of VR/AR glasses has become a common point. According to Bloomberg News, Apple's AR glasses will debut as soon as possible. It is reported that Apple will launch a separate application store to promote the development of AR software ecosystem. In addition, at the end of October, a set of patents for Samsung VR glasses was released. It can be seen from the pictures that Samsung VR glasses are similar to Huawei VR glass. 

Vivo's AR glasses are also on display at this year's Shanghai MWC. The lenses of AR glasses are translucent. According to the staff, this glasses can be used for face recognition. When a person is detected, a message box will appear near the face, showing the name, position and other information entered in advance. 

Industry calls for standardization

In current VR industry in China, standardization is the main issue that enterprises, industry organizations, and national ministries and commissions are actively promoting. 

HTC had previously set up a centralized VR content distribution platform VIVEPORT. On this platform, both HTC devices and Microsoft, Oculus can use the device, which is more convenient from the developer's point of view. Simply upload the app to a place and users around the world can download it. This is beneficial to consumers as well. For example, consumers are using HTC devices. After that, they want to continue to buy a Microsoft device. Through standardization, the previously purchased content can also be used on another device.

Huawei is also contributing to another related standard. In late October, Huawei jointly issued the "Virtual Reality (VR) Standard Technology White Paper" which provides operators, equipment manufacturers and content providers with multi-angle and multi-index. Different evaluation modules provide a unified reference standard for VR experience evaluation.

In addition to the internet giants, the VR industry alliances in various countries are also promoting standardization. 

The VR standardization is underway in China. He Guili, vice president of China's ICT, said at the 2019 World VR Conference that the VR standard is a very important part of the standardization of the entire information and communication industry. ICT has built the overall standard of the VR industry, completed the definition, classification, terminology and architecture of VR/AR, and built common standards, including networks, terminals and services/platforms, as well as operational and vertical fields