So it appears the time is finally here, VR headsets seem to be taking the mainstream. Does anyone have any idea on how much it would cost for someone to setup a VR recording kit? But yea i think we can all agree that if it becomes an affordable thing we have alot to look forward to.
Part of the attraction to this fetish is the embarrassment and humiliation factor, it's greatly why I have a much fonder spot in my heart for Mainstream stuff VS the work of producers. Even low-grade actresses on the lowbrow comedy shows can pull off the "shock" look better than girls who are generally just models with no training as an actor.
I looked into this after the NY Times sent out a cardboard VR headset to subscribers https://umd.net/forums/virtual-reality-video . YouTube recently started support for these "360 videos". For example, search YT on "oil wrestling", then under "Filters" (upper left) choose 360 at the bottom of the "Features" column. There are currently nine videos up by user Ugly Dog Sports Cafe including this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXFjNxjObW8 . If your browser and computer are up-to-date, a little hand will appear in the video; left-click and the hand closes and you can drag up, down, left, right, etc. On some videos, the scroll button on a mouse zooms in and out. Here is a popular channel for 360 videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuqhhs6NWbgTzMuM09WKDQ My Windows XP computer does not support this feature on YouTube, but it does work on the NY Times videos from my earlier post. I tried the cardboard headset with several smartphones but kept getting the message that the phones needed more up-to-date software.
One camera that shoots these is the Ricoh Theta brand which is a candy bar sized stick with a fisheye lens on either side of one end. The Ricoh Theta M15 goes for between two and three hundred dollars, while the Ricoh Theta S goes for between three and four hundred. The raw video is two circles side by side (from the two fisheye lenses) and special software is needed to "stitch" the two together, presumably included with the camera -- I geeked out on a YouTube video that explains that process
Looks like the low end for this kind of thing would be around $599 (like, the same price as an Oculus Rift), and like any kind of camera, getting more and more expensive from there.