Littlstar

Littlstar (Little Star Media, Inc.) is a cinematic virtual reality network based in New York, NY. Littlstar has channels like ABC VR, Showtime, Fox, Discovery, Nat Geo, and Esquire Network. Littlstar was the first network dedicated to immersive 360 degree content.^[1] It launched into public beta November 2014 and has apps that can be downloaded on iOS, Android, Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and the forthcoming PlayStation VR (PSVR). Littlstar's apps have content from brands like Visa, Red Bull, Mtn Dew, Volvo, Honda, Mini, and Lexus.

Name

The name Littlstar was chosen for a number of reasons to represent the company. It draws meaning from immersive technologies like Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, selfie culture, and the memorable children's song Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Littlstar's tag line is "The World Revolves Around You", meaning that in Virtual and Augmented Reality, there are literally worlds revolving around you. Worlds revolve around stars like Earth revolves around the Sun. This also has a slightly self-centered meaning, in that YOU are the important part of the equation. You are the star, and a critical part of the show. This meaning also carries over into the obsession with selfies and the cultural shift of putting yourself at the center of the picture. This is all tied together with another cultural reference in the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It is instantly memorable and is a reminder that stars are a shining and guiding light.

History

Littlstar was founded in August 2013 by Tony Mugavero, Matt Collado, and Dominic Giglio. They were joined at the founding by Vanessa Kincaid and Joseph Werle who would eventually leave their positions at DKNY and Spotify respectively to join Littlstar full-time. Littlstar was originally founded with a much broader vision around general social media campaigns. The launch of Oculus Rift prompted Littlstar to incorporate virtual reality as part of the offering, which ultimately led to a pivot into an exclusively immersive network.

Littlstar has investors including Disney,^[2] VaynerRSE (Gary Vaynerchuk), Social Starts, Archer Gray, Techstars, Sterling VC, Prospect Drive, and a small group of angels. Littlstar participated in the Disney Accelerator in July 2015.

Littlstar was the first company to launch 360 degree video on Apple TV in December 2015.^[3][4][5]

Challenges

Displaying 360 degree video across multiple devices presents a number of challenges. Each device supports different levels of video decoding and codec support, and each distribution endpoint for playback requires technologies like WebGL, OpenGL, Unity, Objective C, and Java. Encoding and streaming of 360 degree content must also be optimized, since each stream presents a substantial amount more data than a traditional video. Cube maps help decrease the bit rate and save storage, all while maintaining the video quality and resolution. These technical hurdles are amplified when viewers play 360 video in VR. The maximum visual resolution in the Samsung Gear VR, for example, is 6K — and that’s just for one eye. A 6K stereo video at 60 fps is roughly 20x larger than a full HD video, with an average bit rate of 245 Mbit/s.^[6] In addition, there are new forms of storytelling that don't fit within traditional video, which include branching video, hot spots, and varying camera angles.

Technology

Littlstar has developed proprietary heat map technology that allows content owners to see where inside the content viewers are watching. This data is aggregated and delivered back through a heat map visualization to show what viewers find the most interesting inside 360 degree content.^[7]

Littlstar Heat Map Visualization showing viewership in 360 degrees for VR, mobile, web, and smart TVs.

References

External links

• Website