Newbie - matterport & Ricoh3302
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kevshed private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi all, Great to be on the forum and just finding my feet a little. I had been doing my research over the last couple of weeks and am very close to joining the matterport MSP community... but digging around the forum the Ricoh discussions have spooked me a little. You folks are the experts... how big a threat is the point and shoot market to the great innovation that matterport have delivered. I am a tech person, and know how fast innovation can be caught up and superseded... is there a hardware roadmap from matterport that stands up against the competition from the bottom ? The Matterport experience still seems to shine to me as market leading, but i did wobble a little, when you see low cost cameras coming into the market.... with performance and features that can be considered 'adequate' to many potential customers... 'good enough' is a dangerous place to be. Folks here seem to be leading with a 'stay on matterport for indoor, but have a ricoh for outdoor/small areas' message.. is that the current consensus of the forum ? Guess... my real question is, have i missed the bubble and is matterport still a cost effective offering ? Tx Kev |
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 WGAN ForumFounder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
Video: immoviewer CEO and Founder Ralf von Grafenstein and Julia Marks PR and Social Media Julia Marks compare the immoviewer 3D/VR tour service to Matterport at Inman Connect San Francisco 2016 (ICSF16). --- @kevshed If you are looking at Ricoh, you might find the immoviewer platform of interest. Even before you buy a Matterport Camera or Ricoh Theta S, you might test the water selling first. Can you make sales with either solution? If you are talking with real estate agents, it is about helping them get more and bigger listings more often by differentiating their listing marketing plan to gain a competitive advantage. Notice that that the above sentence is camera/platform agnostic. For the community, your question may be a little like asking someone is they prefer Nikon or Cannon or PC versus Mac. Best, Dan P.S. And, welcome to the Forum. Related Forum Discussions ✓ immoviewer: Create 3D Tours with Ricoh Theta ✓ ICSF16 immoviewer 3D/VR versus Matterport ✓ Matterport Pros: Also Buy a Ricoh Theta S |
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JonJ private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi Kev, I offer both solutions to my clients during office presentations and even give a side by side comparison of the same property. Side by side comparison To say the least, unfortunately, I have not had a single sale with the immoviewer offering. There just isn't that much excitement about the product and the wow factor is not enough to justify the extra expense above just photos. Personally, I think the immoviewer solution is a great product and I had high hopes for it, but in my market, it just didn't hit the mark. Thanks, Jon |
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kevshed private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by JonJ Jon - thanks! you saved me some work  Looking at your comparison, i'm not surprised at your experience. This is really helpful, thank you so much! Best, Kev |
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kevshed private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DanSmigrod Thx for the detailed reply Dan, and apologies for not finding all the research you linked me too *busy forum*... I totally get what you say, though the Nikon vs Cannon, or PC vs Mac analogy are a little different. In this case, we are talking about a massive hardware cost delta.... even apple don't charge that much premium over the PC folks just trying to get sense of the current value of that... Jon's post below helps. I'll give a little thought to my markets again and do some more local research before jumping in. thanks ! Kev |
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
@kevshed Most of us saw Matterport and jumped into the deep end of the pool You might consider: ✓ engaging a Pro to demo Matterport (I can connect you) ✓ "selling" Matterport before you invest (job out: I can connect you) Build out your website and start selling. If you can't make enough sales to justify the purchase, you'll know that upfront. |
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UserName private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @kevshed - You asked "Is there a hardware roadmap from matterport that stands up against the competition from the bottom ? I think the magic lies in Matterport's software. We can stich together all the Iris360 and Ricoh images we like and we still won't get a 3D model like Matterport creates. As JonJ's comparison tours show, there's a difference between Matterport models and 360 panoramic images linked together to create the illusion of a tour. I love high-quality imagery as much as anyone but when I view Gear VR Street View locations, I set the image quality setting to medium. The immersion experience beats the quality experience for me since it takes longer for high-quality Street View images to load. Additionally, phone-based VR viewers still have that "screen door" effect so we can't see true highest quality images in VR. Someone wanting to get into the realtor "virtual tour biz" using a 360Fly camera once said .. "I never expected the 360fly to do the same quality job because the Matterport stitches everything together and creates a fluid walk though people can go at their own pace." However, he later added, "being able to offer a nice walk through to clients without breaking the budget would be awesome." That raises the question of how many potential clients are happy with "just getting by" paying less for pseudo virtual tours consisting of linked panoramas. I bet we have no idea of how many camera owners are out there marketing VR Tour services. |
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kevshed private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DanSmigrod Thanks Dan for the advice and offers - my intention was to do just that I'm not too concerned, as this is not intended to make me a fortune (great if it does, but i'm realistic) - its more of a family concern to try something new and make a little extra... if it doesn't work out, the investment and ongoing costs are not that high in the big scheme of things. |
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kevshed private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by UserName I agree completely, so why is the camera so expensive this is good when its new, as it keeps the cost of entry high enough to stop everyone buying.... but, as low cost options come out, it makes you wonder. I'd be happier paying more for software/saas and less for hardware. Quote: Originally Posted by UserName I guess this is the big question... as this dictates the real scope for the business. I think if its just one part of your offering the risk is low, but if reliant on it, price pressure will make it challenging over time. Thanks ! Kev |
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UserName private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Maybe Matterport-type cameras and Hololens headsets will cost $100 in the future. If all home BUYERS believed that only virtual tours could .. 1) Save them time and money 2) Enable them to explore many homes quickly and choose the best one that might make VR tour providers rich. Home buyers are the ultimate entities in the food chain; they purchase homes from sellers who use realtors. Sellers and realtors, who many VR tour providers target, are not the ultimate consumers/beneficiaries. If a home buyer refused to even look at a house that had no VR tour, the following would probably happen ... 1) Sellers would be forced to choose only realtors that provided VR tour creation services 2) Realtors would have to start adding VR tours to their homes and absorb the cost if they wanted to stay competitive 3) VR Tour providers would have a lot of business I'm not sure how the VR tour industry might target and educate buyers, but buyers seem to hold the key to everything. No buyer, no sale. No sale, no realtor income. It all trickles down. == On the VR headset side, I'd look for homes with VR headset tours if I was a buyer. Dan posted an eye-opening chart in this VR stats thread.  That looks like good and bad news. The good news is that many people will have VR headsets in the future. The bad news appears to be that 2016 bar graph. Folks in 2022 may look back at 2016 and go, "virtually NOBODY had a VR headset back in those primitive times." Everybody seems to be making their own VR platforms these days with Google being the latest entry. The report says that "The highly fragmented VR market today will eventually narrow as the market grows and matures." Maybe Microsoft's announcement next week might alter the future. If their headset will run on virtually any computer, the headset's only $299 and most people use Windows and Microsoft's VR headset does things other can't (like holography), Microsoft VR might become the standard the way Windows is probably the operating system that most people use. In an ideal scenario, virtually everybody has a cheap Microsoft VR headset at their desk and VR is part of their lives as they work and play throughout the day. If you see a house you like on the Web, you put on your headset and you're there. That's how I hope next week's announcement plays out. If not, no clear winner in the VR headset race may emerge for a while. |
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Expertise private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Here's the question I keep asking myself: Is 360imagery/VR just a overly complicated substitute for video? If the "magic" of Matterport is the ability to "Explore" a home and experience it as if walking around... is high quality video maybe something buyers might prefer once they become accustomed to browsing homes with both options? I understand that Matterport allows viewers to self guide their tour, and video only allows them to follow, but how many people prefer to "work" at checking out a house? I mean DVDs were supposed to be better than VHS because they have all kinds of options and menus and extras... but who actually used all that stuff? I maybe did a couple times, mostly I just watched the movie. My gut says that most people might prefer the passive solution (video) that currently has higher quality, doesn't require you to click all over the place, doesn't require you to buy and wear a goofy headset... etc. |
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UserName private msg quote post Address this user | |
| This morning I asked a similar question while watching this video I hadn't seen before. It's a 360 VR video of a realtor walking through a home and pointing out its features as if you were walking with him as a potential buyer. View it in a VR headset -- or in your browser -- and you can look around anywhere, just like you'd do while exploring a regular VR tour composed of static images or a Matterport 3D model. To open it in Gear VR, you launch the Gear VR browser, visit YouTube and launch that video. The benefits of this type of guided tour 360 video home tour are .. * Like with a 3D model, you can move "into" the view in addition to panning left and right. If the videographer walks straight ahead, you move straight ahead too. * You can pause it anytime. At that moment, it becomes just like a static 360 image you'd look around in see on a VR tour or a Matterport model. You can even back the video up if you like in your browser or VR headset. * The realtor can take you outside. Video cameras have no problem with outdoor shots. Outside, you can see what the real neighborhood looks like in real life since things might be moving. Just because the realtor is talking in front of you, you can look behind you or at point that you find interesting. * You have an actual human guide who points out a home's important features you may miss if you explored a home alone. The fact that a real person is there seems to make a big difference in the immersion factor. In addition since a video has a set length, you won't spend forever exploring a home simply because you have the ability to go wherever you like. The downsides of a 360 home VR tour video are that you can't move to places the video camera did not move to. However, you can still look around in 360 degrees whenever you like and pause the scene. Also, the quality of a 360 video may not compare to that of photographs. Those DVDs you mentioned are another option. A DVD could contain 360 Video you could view on a computer. You can adjust the quality of the YouTube video by clicking the player's gear icon and selecting a higher quality. But when you do that, it takes longer for the video to buffer and begin playing. Since you can copy 360 videos from a computer to phone folder that stores Gear VR videos, you could use that method to view large high-quality 360 home video tours. For me, one of this 360 video's selling points is the presence of a real realtor interacting with you for a limited time as you both explore a home in virtual reality. As you noted, you won't be able to move to any point in a room, but that may be a good thing -- especially if you have a dozen more homes to see that day. Maybe 360 video tours will take off when everybody gets super high-speed Internet connections. Homebuyers then won't have to work at touring a house. They simply sit back, enjoy the guided tour and move on to the next house on their list. On the flip side, VR producers are going to spend money shooting VR somewhere. They'll have to buy high-quality video equipment, shoot the videos and edit them or purchase a Matterport camera, scan homes and let Matteport create the 3D models. |
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Frisco, Texas |
Metroplex360 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by kevshed I'd love to provide some useful perspective on the price of the Matterport Camera. Consider that you are joining an exclusive club with a high entry fee and risk. Consider that the price PROTECTS you from market saturation. Consider the value in the camera being out of reach to some amateurs. When you buy the Matterport, also feel lucky to get the $900/off deal Most of us here didn't get that -- although we certainly made money in the time between our initial purchase and the discount -- so while we might grumble -- we paid a $900 fee to be a first adopter and to get ahead of the game!I absolutely love my Matterport! One of the best choices I've made -- and I swapped over from VERY VERY good DSLR HDR panoramic photography for all of the positive reasons given here. |
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Helen private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I love Matterport but it is a very dry, sterile, technical, unemotional media form. Where video can help create emotion and connect with a viewer. Viewing or buying a home is emotional. It needs music or a way to add voice like @Metroplex360 demonstrated as a possibility awhile back. | ||
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LilyCollins private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Helen Аbsolutely agree with that. Buying a home is first and foremost a sense of comfort and coziness, but may be it's only for me. It could be really interesting to add some kind of human presence or something. Sorry if i wrote something wrong ) |
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UserName private msg quote post Address this user | |
Here's my VR realtor tour guide discussing the home's kitchen as seen in my Gear VR.  That "human presence" seems to be important. One real estate videographer/realtor I've followed says this about regular 2D videos .. "Videos are not one-dimensional because they are seen, HEARD and sometimes felt as well" "Video evokes emotion. People buy emotionally and justify rationally later." "If you're in a video, perspective buyers are listening to you. They're forming an opinion about you, your professionalism, your knowledge, passion and expertise. They're starting to build a relationship with you. But that can't happen unless you're in the video." == He's obviously sold on video because of it's ability to elicit emotional reactions and appeal to the senses. Maybe that's why movies may be more popular than slideshows. == Re 360 VR videos Because that 360 VR video had a human tour guide, he was able to say things like this .. "Here we have the back deck. As you can see over there you have lots of trees. Here on the deck you have lots of rooms for tables, chairs and an umbrella." After he took us through the back door, I viewed the back deck as he suggested. However, I was still able to look all around me and even pause the video if I liked. Metroplex360's audio feature adds a striking touch of realism to PC-based Matterport tours. It could explain that deck as we approached it. But even then, a physical human tour guide/companion is not our visible tour companion. Realtor Video's have a big downside. You must watch it all to see an entire home. In Matterport, you can use the dollhouse to jump anywhere instantly. A solution to this problem would be to create a video player that displays thumbnails the way the Matterport Showcase does. The YouTube API, for instance, lets you customize a player that lets people jump to specific locations in a video. Add thumbnail images and there's your dollhouse equivalent. If your website hosted a video, you could put any kind of WebVr player you liked on it. In a browser or a headset you could then select a room to jump to that part of the video. There, your human tour guide could "show you the room." I see a need for static Matterport-type VR tours and video home tours that have human guides. Dan has shown us some 360 videos, but those didn't take us on a home tour. Lots of 360 realtor videos are on YouTube but most of them either play music, have voice narration or don't have any sound. A few have actual human tour guides. |
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