What Is the difference between XR virtual shooting and VP virtual shooting?

Many people hear the application of shooting technology, but they tend to confuse XR virtual shooting with VP virtual shooting. In fact, the technical re differences. Doitvision will explore the difference between XR virtual shooting and VP virtual shooting for you.

 

What is XR virtual shooting?

XR (Extended Reality) extends reality and combines virtual reality and real-world elements to create a new virtual environment. It usually uses head-mounted display devices and tracking sensors, so that users can immerse themselves in the virtual world.

 

In XR virtual shooting, modelers can use 3D software to create virtual scenes and characters and synthesize them with actual filmed elements. By using special rendering technology and real-time computing, XR virtual shooting can achieve real-time virtual reality experience.

What is VP virtual shooting?

 

VP (Virtual Production) is a technology that adds virtual content to a real environment. It usually uses special backgrounds such as green screens or blue screens, and then adds virtual elements to the actual shooting through post-synthesis.

 

VP virtual shooting is widely used in movies, TV series, and advertisements. In this way, various virtual scenes can be created in the studio. During the shooting process, actors can interact with virtual elements, such as talking to virtual characters and interacting with virtual environments.

 

A significant advantage of VP virtual shooting is that virtual effects can be previewed in real time during shooting, which helps directors better grasp the overall effect.

 

The difference between XR virtual shooting and VP virtual shooting:

 

XR virtual shooting usually has an LED floor screen on the ground and uses an LED background screen, which is achieved with the help of AR and VR devices. Users need to wear corresponding headsets or use devices such as smartphones to experience virtual scenes.

 

The virtual space outside the camera’s line of sight is expanded through the rendering server to show a complete scene. VP virtual shooting relies on the virtual background provided by the LED screen as the environment, but real scenery materials are often built on the ground, and all production processes are collected by cameras, without the need for expansion outside the LED screen. The simulation and creation of the scene is achieved through technical means such as modeling, rendering and animation processing.

 

XR virtual shooting pays more attention to the interaction and perception of the real world. Through extended reality technology, XR virtual shooting can perceive the user’s actions and environment in real time, so as to adjust the position and form of virtual elements according to the user’s interactive behavior.

 

VP virtual shooting is more like a way of simulating reality. It can present effects that cannot be achieved in the real world through computer-generated virtual scenes, and can be adjusted and edited in the later stage.

 

On the technical level, XR virtual shooting is more complex and detailed. It requires real-time calculation and rendering of a large amount of graphic data, so it has a higher demand for computing resources.

 

In comparison, VP virtual shooting is simpler and more direct, and the requirements for computing resources are relatively low. In addition, XR virtual shooting usually requires more equipment and technical support, while VP virtual shooting can be achieved with relatively simple equipment and software.

 

VP virtual production and XR extended reality are showing a polarized trend in products: VP virtual production studios are developing towards high budget levels, larger studio replacements, and improved studio configurations, parameters, and specifications; XR extended reality is developing towards high cost performance, floor-standing studios tending to be smaller in size, and studio configurations pursuing popularization and applicability.

Aspect	XR (Extended Reality)	VP (Virtual Production)
Screen Format	Primarily Tri-Fold Screens	Primarily Curved or Rectangular Screens
Production Method	Combines LED screens with camera tracking technology to generate real-time content, extending the real environment with virtual elements	Utilizes VR and gaming technologies in a workflow designed specifically for filming movies
Application Scenarios	Commonly used in variety shows, live streaming, studios, advertisements, etc.	Typically applied in film, television series, and high-end advertisement productions
Development Direction	Trending towards cost-effectiveness, smaller studio sizes, and more accessible studio configurations	Moving towards higher budgets, larger studios, and more advanced studio configurations
Prevalence of Medium-Sized LED Studios	Not as prevalent due to the trend towards smaller studios for XR	Less common due to the focus on larger, more sophisticated setups for VP

 

XR virtual shooting Current problems

 

As mentioned above, the expansion of XR virtual shooting scenes has promoted the overall development of the industry, but in the current XR virtual shooting, LED display screens still has common industry problems such as color distortion, scanning line phenomenon, and inconsistent colors at different viewing angles.

 

Therefore, whether it is virtual scene rendering, LED control system and LED screen, virtual production system, ambient lighting assistance, or camera recording end, they all face extremely high parameter performance requirements.

 

Taking LED display control as an example, this part mainly undertakes the function of receiving virtual rendering images and outputting them to LED display screens.

 

An excellent control system must have superb video processing capabilities, can accurately manage the color and adjust the brightness of the LED screen, and maximize the display effect of the LED screen. It also provides technical support for the special application requirements of XR (such as multi-camera, high frame rate, etc.) on the hardware side, which is one of the key links.

 

LED control systems need to be able to transmit larger bandwidth, higher bit color depth, lower system latency, larger color channels, and user-friendly debugging interfaces, and can be coordinated with film and television cameras to solve related technical problems such as scanning lines under conventional shooting.

 

Some top brand such as Doitvision has exclusively developed functions such as Infi-bit, grayscale refinement, and multi-layer correction for the grayscale optimization of LED screens.

 

in order to eliminate the scanning lines and black fields that appear in the camera screen, it provides customers with shutter lock technology, as well as scene fusion functions for customers’ multi-camera shooting needs.

 

In addition, there are three main bottlenecks in the overall development of the LED virtual shooting market:
1) the performance limitation of the software and hardware system;
2) the lack of innovation in virtual digital scene content;
3) there are few teams with professional-level production capabilities for LED virtual shooting.

 

 

XR Virtual Shooting Solution

 

Compared with traditional LED display screens that focus on indicators such as brightness, grayscale, refresh rate, and consistency, XR virtual shooting also needs to focus on some key indicators for virtual shooting, such as frame rate, color, delay, and synchronization.

 

Let’s take Doitvision’s as an example to further understand the impact of the control system on virtual shooting. Here we specifically distinguish between VP and XR applications.

 

VP application:

 

For ultra-large screens and customers’ high frame rate requirements, Doitvision provides an 8K master control system: Z8. A single device can support 12 4K signal inputs at the same time, can control a screen of 8192×4320@60Hz, and is equipped with a mass-produced 5G receiving card.

 

On the software side, Doitvision provides a screen control platform that is more suitable for the needs of virtual shooting users: ColorAdept. The software streamlines and optimizes many functions in conventional software that are not related to virtual shooting, focusing on displaying commonly used color management, preset scenes, camera assistance, group management, screen monitoring and other functions to users more intuitively.

 

XR application:

 

Doitvision prefers to provide comprehensive and integrated solutions.

 

Doitvision’s XR virtual shooting full-link solution includes a full set of virtual shooting equipment outside the screen, using professional virtual rendering engines and rendering servers, 3D cameras, virtual tracking systems and other technologies.

 

With the support of advanced technologies such as high frame rate video source input, Genlock phase lock synchronization, multi-camera scene fusion, Infi-bit and 3D LUT, it effectively solves technical problems such as image smear and camera shooting scan lines, realizes highly flexible graphics editing and real-time controllability, and presents a real three-dimensional virtual three-dimensional scene.

 

For actual application, Doitvision also has three different specifications of XR overall solutions: exquisite experience type, standard commercial type and ultimate luxury type.

 

Conclusion:

The market for XR virtual shooting is growing. LED virtual shooting has higher requirements for hardware. Doitvision can provide a full-link solution for XR virtual shooting. If you need it, please feel free to contact us.