Sports in virtual reality sounds cool, but can feel distant
NEW YORK (AP) When watching sports in virtual reality, it's best to remind yourself that TV wasn't born in a day. Early television was mostly radio with pictures. It took years - even decades - for producers to figure out the right camera angles, graphics and instant replays to deliver.
Sports is going through a similar transformation. VR holds the promise of putting fans right in the middle of the sporting action - on the 50-yard line, say, or in a ringside seat, or standing behind the catcher as the umpire calls strikes.
But today's VR sports have an empty and distant feel to them. Watching through a headset sometimes feels like being there in the stadium ... by yourself, absent cheering fans, hot dogs and beer. And it doesn't get you close enough to the action to compensate.
For now, the zoom lenses of television cameras do a much better job of showing a pitcher's intensity or a free-throw shooter's concentration.
Yet Intel, NextVR and other companies are working to bring a variety of sports - boxing, golf, soccer, %href-on(file:
