Exclusive interview with Ma Jiesi: We asked you all the questions you were curious about Xiaomi VR all-in-one

In early May, Facebook's first all-in-one VR machine, Oculus Go, was already on sale. The Chinese version of Oculus Go, a collaboration between Xiaomi and Facebook, the Xiaomi VR all-in-one machine, is also about to be launched. Many people are very curious about how Xiaomi will build this product.

At the technical session of Unity Developer Conference Unite Beijing 2018, Xiaomi VR Director Ma Jiesi shared with developers the "In-depth Development Guide for Xiaomi VR All-in-One and Oculus Go Applications". After the meeting, Leifeng.com conducted an exclusive interview with Ma Jiesi and asked him many questions that everyone is currently concerned about and curious about.

(Ma Jiesi, head of Xiaomi VR)

VR standalone is an intermediate product between expensive and complicated PC VR standalone and poor mobile VR experience. With Oculus' VR technology accumulation, Facebook's strong social genes and channels, and a price as low as $199, Oculus Go, a VR standalone, gives people hope for VR popularization on the consumer side.

Xiaomi VR all-in-one will use the same configuration as Oculus Go. According to Leifeng.com, Oculus Go is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 quad-core chip and uses a "fast-switch LCD" screen with a resolution of 2560 x 1440, which has better display effect than OLED screen, can help reduce the screen door effect, and has a wider field of view. Oculus Go has built-in stereo sound, so users do not need to wear separate headphones, and the microphone is also built into the headband.

When Qualcomm has already launched the Snapdragon 845 chip optimized for XR, the 821 seems to be insufficient. In terms of interaction, Oculus Go supports 3Dof (three degrees of freedom) head and hand tracking, which is a bit weak compared to some VR all-in-one machines that can support 6Dof (six degrees of freedom) head and hand tracking.

Leifeng.com asked whether Xiaomi VR all-in-one machine would consider 6Dof in the future. Ma Jiesi responded, "I think six degrees of freedom is definitely the development direction of VR headsets. There is no doubt about it. In fact, the main question is when. The current six-degree-of-freedom VR all-in-one machine is very expensive, mainly in the 2B market. The hardware quality and content of the current six-degree-of-freedom all-in-one machine are actually difficult to support ordinary consumers to buy such a high-priced product."

Six-degree-of-freedom headsets can bring the movement of the human body and hands into VR. It is a new mode of human-computer interaction, which can also increase the immersive experience and add a lot of gameplay. However, there is not much six-degree-of-freedom content on VR all-in-one machines. The interaction of three-degree-of-freedom headsets is simpler and is suitable for watching movies, socializing, and playing small games.

The configuration of Xiaomi VR all-in-one is mainly for the C-end, which is also related to the positioning of Xiaomi. Ma Jiesi said, "Xiaomi is a company focused on consumer electronics and will not do B-end business. In fact, our goals and objectives are consistent with the company's. Therefore, when we do VR, we also use the idea of ​​2C consumer electronics to do it."

In terms of configuration and functions, Oculus Go and Xiaomi VR all-in-one are more like all-in-one versions of Gear VR. Gear VR is a VR glasses box that Samsung and Oculus have developed together and plugs into a mobile phone. It relies on the computing power of the mobile phone. Samsung will give Gear VR away when selling its flagship mobile phones that support VR. In the past two years, Gear VR has been the sales champion of VR devices by a large margin, with shipments reaching millions of units.

Gear VR has accumulated a large number of C-end users and has a large amount of high-quality VR content. Oculus Go can directly use all the content of Gear VR, which should be one of its advantages.

Xiaomi's cooperation with Oculus not only allows it to absorb Oculus' VR technology accumulation, but also focuses on introducing high-quality overseas content on the Oculus platform. In terms of specific content strategy, Ma Jiesi did not reveal too much this time, and Xiaomi will probably wait until the Xiaomi VR all-in-one conference to announce it.

Ma Jiesi introduced that Xiaomi supports dual SDKs, and Xiaomi VR all-in-one supports Oculus Mobile SDK and MI VR SDK. The difference is that MI VR SDK can run on various Xiaomi VR products, while Oculus Mobile SDK can be used on Xiaomi VR all-in-one and Oculus Go. In China, if you need to use social networking, account, in-app payment and other functions, developers can access MI VR platform SDK.

In other words, high-quality overseas content can be directly used on the Xiaomi VR platform through the Oculus Mobile SDK. Developers can also choose to develop content using the Oculus Mobile SDK, reach domestic users through the Xiaomi VR all-in-one device, and also access overseas Oculus content platforms.

After Facebook acquired Oculus, it has been committed to driving the development of VR with its strong social genes. At last year's OC4 conference, Zuckerberg vowed to allow 1 billion people to enter VR, and this driving force will be provided by Facebook's VR social application Facebook Spaces.

At the F8 conference in May, Oculus also launched three new VR social applications: Oculus Rooms, Oculus TV and Oculus Venues.

(Oculus Rooms)

Xiaomi VR all-in-one also attaches great importance to social scenarios. Ma Jiesi said: "From the perspective of mobile VR application scenarios, especially 2C VR application scenarios, social networking must be a very important link. At present, the video of to C VR devices is relatively mature, and the relatively innovative thing is how to integrate games, videos and social networking. Therefore, in the 2C strategy, social networking is an obvious direction."

At the technical sharing meeting, Ma Jiesi introduced the new social functions of Xiaomi VR all-in-one. In his opinion, it is difficult to develop VR social applications alone at present, because the overall number of users is relatively small, and there are few people online at the same time, so it is difficult to find friends in the game.

In order to better help third-party developers, Xiaomi's VR homepage has added more social modules, where users can see their friends and team up to enter third-party applications. In addition, the platform also has a voice communication function to help users communicate better.

Many industry insiders have commented that Oculus Go is a great tool for watching movies. Ma Jiesi also believes that watching movies is the core function of Xiaomi VR all-in-one. However, overseas users have platforms with massive VR content such as Youtube and Hulu. At present, domestic VR video content may still need to be developed. Immersion The previous article also mentioned that Xiaomi VR all-in-one has a powerful video player tailored for Chinese users. Ma Jiesi did not give a detailed answer to this point. It seems that this should also be announced at the Xiaomi VR all-in-one conference.

At the technical sharing session, Ma Jiesi focused on introducing the upgrades of the all-in-one VR machine Oculus Go to mobile VR, which included three major points: fixed gaze point rendering, performance management and dynamic frequency, and 72HZ.

Fixed gaze point rendering can help improve performance by about 25%. Because the central visual area seen by the human eye is clear and the peripheral visual area is blurred, VR displays are also clear in the middle and blurred at the edges. Now computers render images in the entire range with the same clarity, which results in a waste of performance. How to degrade pixel rendering in the edge area will not affect human vision and reduce the burden on computer computing.

In terms of performance management and dynamic frequency, all-in-one VR machines have three advantages over mobile VR machines. First, all-in-one VR machines have a U-shaped cooling system. Second, at the OS level, all-in-one machines are designed specifically for VR, and can set the CPU and GPU benchmarks by themselves, with a total of 4 levels, and will not experience frame drops like mobile phones. Third, all-in-one VR machines can achieve dynamic frequency, which can be automatically adjusted according to the utilization of the CPU and GPU.

Third, Xiaomi VR all-in-one supports both 72HZ and 60HZ modes. The 72HZ mode has lower motion latency and lower flicker, higher brightness and more vivid colors.

At the end of the technical sharing session, Ma Jiesi released some VR-related data. According to data provided by Unity, PC VR users accounted for 33%, mobile VR accounted for 67%, and mobile VR accounted for nearly 3 times this year.

Compared with the data of smartphones in 2009-2010, the current development of VR is not slow. From 2009 to 2010, smartphone devices increased by 42% and smartphone applications increased by 74%, while from 2016 to 2017, mobile VR devices increased by 178% and applications increased by 184%.

At the end of his speech, Ma Jiesi talked about the fact that everyone feels that the VR industry is not popular and developing slowly, and it is difficult to persist. In his opinion, there is only one thing that is enough to continue to persist: "Let us maintain our infinite yearning for the virtual world." When asked how Xiaomi VR all-in-one will meet everyone's expectations, Ma Jiesi responded that we can only work hard! He also revealed that in order to launch Xiaomi VR all-in-one, the team has been working at full capacity recently.