Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Stanley Weinbaum, a science fiction writer who always talks about traveling to Mars, published a short story, Pygmalion's glasses, in 1935. The glasses in this work can give people an immersive feeling, and the five senses are completely in another world. Today we must be familiar with such glasses-this may be the first appearance in the history of the concept of VR glasses.

For more than 80 years, VR glasses have been described as the ultimate vision of human beings in the era of screen in many science fiction works. Unless the holographic projection in the air comes true, VR is probably the best form of realistic and full-picture images.

However, when we talk about VR today, we are more likely to think of the VR craze in 15-16. At that time, capital poured in and thousands of VR companies sprang up, but the end result was a half sigh when the bubble burst.

Science fiction has been imagined for decades, the industry has been working hard for several years, and the mobile Internet generation has been looking forward to the VR dream of youth. Will it go to sleep?

Or will it one day get the key to the crown it has been searching for for a long time and suddenly wake up on the earth?

A few days ago, the 2019 World VR Congress kicked off in Nanchang. Among the many discussions about VR, double G (5G + gigabit) and cloud VR have become the two well-deserved keywords. The highlight of this conference is obviously that Huawei officially launched the industry's first AI-based gigabit VR ONT (light cat) product OptiXstar V series.

What is the relationship between the key words of gigabit VR ONT, double G and cloud VR and the reawakening of VR dreams? Today, can we rely on the strength of these network sides to win back the VR tuyere that seems to have been a success or failure?

Let's start with the products and logic of the World VR Conference. This Normandy landing about VR, the counterattack officially begins.

VR Dream, three years late for halftime

Before describing Cloud VR and Huawei Gigabit VR ONT, we must revisit an unpleasant history: why did the industry fall into silence so soon after the first year of VR in 2016?

The mockery about VR's "the first year of the first year, the end of the second year" can be seen everywhere on the Internet. The reason is that VR devices are always difficult to defeat the natural predator: delay.

Because the viewing mode of VR is in the perspective of moving at any time, if the delay is too high, the mismatch between the movement rate and the picture will lead to serious dizziness. According to a large number of scientific calculations, when the VR video delay is greater than 23ms, users will feel uncomfortable.

Obviously, no one will buy equipment that makes them uncomfortable. However, in order to solve the problem of delay, there are many contradictions. Large-scale all-in-one machines with a large number of chips and sensing devices do have low latency and good picture quality, but the cost of tens of thousands of yuan, coupled with a very heavy device to wear on the head, is destined to be impermanent. Lightweight VR devices, on the other hand, will produce a sense of dizziness, poor video accuracy and inability to load complex games. There is also a form of mainframe + headwear, which recompletes the calculation on the mainframe to reduce the weight of the headset, but this kind of connection to watch VR, it is easy for users to create the illusion that they are pets.

In the end, the problem became an endless cycle. It seems that a balance can never be reached between cost and delay and picture quality. So since there is no suitable equipment to immerse for a long time, users might as well buy a VR box for more than ten yuan and try it out, which eventually leads to the silence of the entire VR industry.

So why did VR, who had been asleep for 3 years, wake up in 2019? The answer is simple: the combination of double G+ clouds has finally arrived.

Cloud VR, Normandy in the double G era

Since the core problem of VR is the lack of computing power in the device to support the rendering of high-definition VR content, is it possible to simply throw this work online and let cloud computing do it?

In theory, of course, but in fact, there are many related attempts in the industry, but the problem is that the transmission of cloud-rendered content to VR devices via 4G network or home Wi-Fi will also cause excessive latency, and the experience effect is still not good.

However, we know that the core and characteristics of 5G and gigabit networks are large bandwidth and low delay. These two just adapt to online rendering VR, liberate the weight and cost of end-side devices, and release the industry expectation of VR computing efficiency.

With the help of the upgrading of the network features represented by 5G and Wi-Fi 6, the Normandy landing of VR back to the industrial center is quietly happening around us.

In the 2019 World VR Conference, double G + Cloud + Cloud VR has become a well-deserved hot topic. As a technology leader in 5G and home networks, Huawei's actions have become the focus of the industry. Earlier, in May this year, Huawei unveiled an all-optical network architecture for ultra-high-definition video services in Guangzhou; in terms of terminals, Huawei just launched the lightweight, portable Huawei VR Glass, which can be seen as Huawei's long-term layout and series of actions on the cloud VR proposition.

The industry may continue to wonder whether Huawei already has a solution that can cut into the market in the face of the actual shortcomings left by the last round of VR.

At the World VR Congress, the answer was finally announced. During the conference, in order to recognize the innovative products and technologies that promote the development of VR/AR industry, the World VR Industry Conference VR/AR Innovation Award was set up. Huawei's gigabit VR ONT (Light Cat) product won the award for its breakthrough innovation in cloud VR home networking.

The name of gigabit VR ONT is Huawei's attack on the weakness of the VR industry.

Gigabit VR ONT, the firepower of the last meter of the beach.

In fact, the network upgrade in the double G era is not limited to the transmission network itself. Take the VR scenario as an example, most VR functions such as videos and games must still take place in the home, so it obviously needs to be connected to the home network.

So is it feasible to input cloud VR capabilities through the home network? Considering the world-leading development speed of our country's optical network and home broadband, gigabit broadband has been popularized in China, and there is no problem for such a home network to support cloud VR.

So can cloud VR be popularized to households? I still can't.

The reason is that the access to home network and Wi- Fib may not meet the adaptation standard of cloud VR. If we say that this network and VR equipment are also available, it is really disturbing to get stuck in the last few meters of Wi-Fi at home.

So this time Huawei concentrated its firepower and launched a fierce landing on the last meter of the home network-this landing ship is the industry's first AI-based gigabit VR ONT (light cat) product OptiXstar V series.

Although the coverage of the home network will not be too large, of course, your family is very large, forget it. But in this efficient space, it is not easy to make cloud VR run. In this "special terrain" battlefield, we need to adapt to the home's network environment and power requirements, to adapt to the distribution of rooms and walls, and to adapt to the service model of operators. Of course, the most fundamental thing is to ensure the ultimate experience of cloud VR. To achieve these points at the same time, it depends on the ability of the landing ship.

In order to meet the extreme supply in a very special environment, the OptiXstar V series, as a light cat product, optimizes four "weapon systems" to help correct the firepower of the VR output:

Smart sight: EAI algorithm locks 0 stutters

We know that there are many things surfing the Internet at home. When enjoying cloud VR, what I am afraid of is that other network devices are used to compete for network speed, especially for devices that do not need so much broadband share. To this end, Huawei's Gigabit VR ONT adopts the world's first EAI algorithm, which integrates embedded artificial intelligence into optical cats to actively identify the network characteristics of VR video and VR game tasks, so as to provide exclusive transmission channels and directional QoS protection, thus effectively ensuring the fluency of VR without stutters. At the same time, with SOC chip acceleration and Wi-Fi empty port acceleration, the family Wi-Fi delay is less than 7ms, and intelligent technology is used to provide "one hit fatal" VR pleasure.

2. Omni-directional effective range: omni-directional antenna covering the whole house

It's not bad to play VR in the living room, but I feel dizzy when I go back to my bedroom, which is obviously too unfriendly for the otaku. In order to solve the traditional Wi-Fi problems of through-wall and whole-house coverage, while ensuring the transmission quality of cloud VR, Huawei Gigabit VR ONT is based on high-performance, omni-directional antennas and four signal amplifiers, as well as Huawei's original air-port optimization algorithm and the industry's most complete anti-jamming model. The Wi-Fi coverage radius is increased by 20%, and the signal passes through one more wall. VR no longer has the problem of "territory".

Third, the ferocious firepower at the forefront of the times: the VR penetration of Wi-Fi 6

Say ten thousand words, want the home network environment to support the ultimate cloud VR experience, or need Wi-Fi transmission effect is strong enough. The key technology here is the key to home network technology in the 5G era, Wi-Fi 6. Huawei OptiXstar V864 is the industry's first gigabit VR ONT based on Wi-Fi 6, with empty port rates up to 6Gbit/s. The transmission efficiency of cloud Wi-Fi is several times better than that of traditional VR, which makes cloud VR come more violently.

Fourth, do not waste every child: APM intelligent dormancy

Some people may think that using VR at home is after all a small amount of time, if the light cat prepared for VR has been running crazily, the electricity bill is too high and it is not easy to do. To this end, Huawei Gigabit VR ONT uses intelligent application management and intelligent hibernation technology, full speed when busy, dormant when idle, power consumption of the whole machine is 20% lower than that of the mainstream in the industry, and carbon emissions are reduced by as much as one tree per year, so that each energy consumption points to the real demand of VR.

With the escort of the four major weapons, Huawei Gigabit VR ONT can really fill the last deficiency in the VR industry chain. When the network rewrites the value logic of cloud VR, maybe we can think about it for once: the change of VR is really coming.

The future, the change of vision, the sea of double G.

With the commercial deployment of 5G, telecom operators are about to start large-scale construction of 5G, while the scale deployment of gigabit networks is also accelerating, which will create a better development foundation for the development of VR, thus promoting VR out of the industrial trough. 2019 will be the first year of the revival of the industry.

This judgment is not only the consensus and expectation of the entire VR industry today, but also pulls a large number of new friends into the revival of VR. Such as cloud computing, chips, operators, network equipment providers, new development rules and content production methods. At a time when the network upgrade represented by 5G and gigabit meets the demand of VR, a large-scale industrial restructuring is taking place. New players, new industrial structure, new imagination, all take place in the construction of the VR highway today.

In order to meet and serve the "first fishing" of the double G ocean, Huawei has laid out a series of product and technology exploration. Perhaps, the release of Gigabit VR ONT must be understood in a series of industry penetration by Huawei. Huawei's idea is to first straighten out the shortcomings of the entire cloud VR industrial relationship and the fertile soil to be developed. Among them, the short board is first filled with product and platform solutions, so that the road of VR is first opened to traffic. Then combined with ecology, to trigger the change and growth of cloud VR in the double G era, and finally leave VR creators with a beautiful garden, rather than a huge technology gap.

On October 10th, China's first cloud VR service was officially released in China Telecom's Sichuan province, which indicates that cloud VR service has entered the commercial stage from the stage of technical verification and commercial design. The revival of VR, which is born out of network technology innovation, and the resulting visual changes, have sounded the opening whistle.

The real prosperity of cloud VR business depends on the degree of coordination and efficiency of industrial ecology. Based on this, Huawei has issued a VR Openlab industry cooperation plan. So far, Huawei has joined forces with more than 70 Cloud VR industry partners to build an end-to-end Cloud VR industry ecology, covering all aspects of the Cloud VR industry, such as Cloud VR rendering cloud platform, carrier-grade VR content aggregation platform, VR all-in-one machine, etc.

The ultimate goal of this operation may not only be that VR is no longer sleeping, nor is it just a digital market. It is the promise made by human beings more than 80 years ago: VR, which occupies our eyes, will be the last screen that human beings use.

Because we have to go further, to the complete blending of real and virtual, so this promise of human-computer interaction must be fulfilled today-this is human respect for their own imagination.

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