For months ahead of its spillage , people have asked if I thought theApple Vision Promight be the next frontier for determine movie and TV shows and playing video game . Will it be good than watching the best idiot box ? Will it be better than determine a movie on a projector and screen ? Is the Apple Vision Pro going to be better than the adept movie theater you could visit ?

My answer has always been a resounding no . My strong mogul of technical school punditry and prognostication allowed me to specify — without having try the Apple Vision Pro — that it wouldnever be able-bodied to exchange a lineament place amusement system , have alone a premium commercial theater of operations . And there was one very important intellect why .

Was I right ? Or am I about to eat a big fat slice of lowly pie ? Let ’s find out .

To be unclouded , this is not an Apple Vision Pro recapitulation because you do n’t needanother Apple Vision Pro review . At least not from me .

I ’m here to blab about the merits of the Apple Vision Pro as a replacement or alternative to your telly , projector , or home theater system in a way I ’ve not learn others do .

But there ’s more . See , the Apple Vision Pro is capable of doing something for watching movies that no other dwelling house amusement twist can do — yet — and nobody is lecture about it . But it ’s a game changer .

Before I talk about the quite a little and profound experience you get with the Apple Vision Pro and liken it to other forms of AV amusement , I need to tell you a fleck about my experience with this gimmick . It ’s crucial you understand that for context , but I also have a responsibility to distinguish you in the interest of healthy journalism .

Handoff headaches

The Apple Vision Pro I used is not my Apple Vision Pro . The headset was add to me by someone else because they wanted me to know something very specific — that matter nobody is talking about that we ’re going to verbalise about . And if you roll in the hay anything about the Apple Vision Pro , then you know this twist is n’t set up well for sharing . It does have a guest mode , yes , but that guest mode presumes the owner is around to make a handoff . And for the vast majority of the time I ’ve been using the Vision Pro — or at leasttryingto utilise it — the owner has not been here . And that ’s made using this thing challenging , to say the least .

I got to see what everyone else has been witness . And … wow . Just … wow .

The first few hours of using the Vision Pro were extremely unpleasant for me . So much so that for a distich of days , I dreaded the estimation of set up it on . I wanted so much to just pack it back in its box and send it on its rattling elbow room . But I ’m glad I prevent after it .

As you may have pick up , the $ 3,500Vision Pro is design to be customise for one user . From the light guard to the eye - tracking technical school to the Apple account it ’s tied to , it ’s really meant to be tailored for one . When I put this Vision Pro on , it ’s expecting someone else . The genus Lens inside are calibrated for someone else ’s heart , cautiously spaced to line up the focal point of the lens to that person ’s pupillary distance , or PD — a condition I teach in a prior life as a licensed optician . ( Yes , really , I was a licenced optician while in college . )

Anyway , just entering the PIN codification to unlock this thing was among the most frustrating and infuriating experience I ’ve ever live because it could n’t track my eyes correctly , and I could n’t pinch on the correct numbers . Even when I managed to get it unlocked , it never felt like it was work right . It always feel like it was for someone else . Like wearing someone else ’s prescription medicine glasses , even though this Vision Pro does n’t have ethical drug lenses you’re able to put in . It justfeltlike putting on someone else ’s glasses .

It get to the point where fag the Vision Pro made me feel ghastly . And I do n’t mean just a little queasy , I signify that I was fundamentally useless for a couple of hours after wearing this matter for just 10 minutes .

There were time I desire to throw it across the room , especially because if I dared take it off , I would have to go through this whole song and dance from the very beginning . finally , though , I got it dial in . It took me four times longer than it should have , but I finally develop to see what everyone else has been seeing . And … wow . Just … wow .

The AV experience

The video display and see professional in me is tempted to break away down a listing of the Vision Pro ’s technical hit and misses . I could babble at length about chromatic aberrancy , landing field - of - aspect limitation , and perceptual quantisation writ of execution , but I do n’t think that ’s worthful . Instead , I want to home in on the audio recording and video experience . And to do that , I want to start by discourse how the Vision Pro delivers its environments .

you’re able to go to Joshua Tree , the lunation , or even Mount Hood , Oregon , which sits just 54 mi as the gasconade flies from where I ’m sit right now . I ’ve sat aright about where the Mount Hood image above was made and enjoyed this panorama in genuine aliveness . And I ’m not overstating things when I say that , visually and audibly , this is about as close-fitting to actually being there as I can imagine experiencing without actually being there .

Of course , I do n’t have sex what it would be like to be on the moon . But the opinion I get when I stretch up that surround is — it ’s eerie . Isolating , almost . It ’s not laborious to suspend incredulity , which I consider is the primary reason why you ’re hearing so many multitude raving about how the Vision Pro looks .

Display

But how is Apple pulling this off ? Well , here is where I will get into some of the technical stuff a little . The display Apple is using here are excellent . The pixel pitch — the cramming together of tiny , tiny pixels — is so minor that there ’s no chance that you ’re going to see individual pixel . There are some 11.5 million pixels for each eye . And this is why you take heed others speak about the perfect lack of screen - door effect . That ’s a vast contributor toward creating a convincing representation of realness .

The other most pregnant agent is that these areOLEDdisplays , which means there are no light-emitting diode backlights to muck up the trope . Black are dead black , so the demarcation is off the chart . It ’s technically infinite .

Brightness

Also , due to the law of proximity of the eye to the screens and the utterly dark surroundings — dare you have a good fit — these displays do n’t have to get nearly as bright as a TV or supervise for be perceived as bright . In fact , I imagine that was one of Apple ’s slippery challenges when fine-tune these display . There ’s a razor - lean lineage to trample between map realism and maintaining comfort . In real life history , spectral highlights can be uncomfortably vivid . If you ’ve ever trance the sunshine off a wavelet in a lake , you know that glint of light can be too much . I do n’t think Apple want to typify world quite tothatlevel , and so the ocular experience is n’t exactly like world — more of a safely comfortable version of it . But it ’s impressive and pleasurable all the same .

I should observe , though , that Apple has headroom here . These displays could get much burnished than they are being allowed to . So , I suppose that asHDRcontent mark evolves , these displays could appear even more hyperrealistic than they do now . That ’s exciting to remember about — that improving HDR images themselves could result in even more telling visuals for the Vision Pro .

Color accuracy

I ’m not able to evaluate the output of these show with the equipment I ’ve have , nor do I think I could afford the spectrometer that could do it . But subjectively — based on over 15 year of evaluating display — I feel pretty well-to-do saying that the Vision Pro have remarkable color truth . I ’m not trusted it ’s point D65 white head , – but that ’s probably for the better , at least in terms of try on to mime reality with its displays .

Audio

The visuals are just part of the surroundings experience , though . Audio recreate a huge role as well . I ’ll get into the fidelity of the so - called audio pods here in a moment , but right now , I just require to pass along how integral the spacial audio recording experience is to the environments Apple has created .

Audio can make , give out , or transform how we perceive images . I think we ’ve all see viral video where some striking , dark , or even shuddery movie scene is made comical just by substitute the soundtrack with joking music . It works the other way around , too .

Apple has done a masterly caper of creating audio attendant to images that really pose you there . The grit of shifting sand below your feet while the wash of malarky vortex around overhead . The eery lifelessness of the air sprinkled with the chirping of Bronx cheer on Mount Hood . It ’s all very enveloping . No doubt , Apple ’s effectuation ofspatial audiois the unsung paladin of the Vision Pro experience .

The cinematic experience

But how does all of that translate to watching movies and TV ? Is the three - dimensional reality of Apple ’s environment successfully transfer to 3D movies ? And how does 2D content look ? How does it sound compared to a surround phone system ? Can the Vision Pro replace or even best a quality home dramaturgy ?

I spend several hours equate the Vision Pro pic - watching experience to the home - field of operations experience I have available in our studio . I ’ve got theSony A95L 65 - column inch TVhere , along with a98 - inch TCL QM8 TVand aSamsung Q990C soundbar environs organization , which I can use as a reference percentage point since I ’ve compared it to much more elaborated Dolby Atmos surroundings systems .

Let me tattle about musical scale . The thought is that the movie covert you see inside the Vision Pro can be scaled up to what should look to be a 100 - foot across-the-board cinema CRT screen . It can patronize multiple aspect ratio and formats , include Super Panavision 70 mm .

Now , I wonder if there ’s something wrong with me . I keep learn folks raving about how it ’s just like being at a theater , with the scurf just being off the charts . But perhaps it ’s something about see the screen in an “ environment ” that throw it off for me . It did not have the same effect as going to a theatre with a huge screen that exceeds your arena of vision .

I just could n’t get around the flavour that I was really looking at a small blind that was very faithful to my eyes .

And it ’s hard for me to square that with how naturalistic and enveloping the environs seemed to me . I do n’t cognise . perhaps in clip , I ’ll relax into it . But I just could n’t get around the intuitive feeling that I was really looking at a small screen that was very unaired to my centre . Maybe the problem is that the spatial astuteness of the environment threw off my perceptual experience of the size of the screen . But all I can say is that , for me , it did n’t feel the same as being in a big elbow room , search at a big screen .

It ’s not the spacial audio ’s fault , though , that ’s for sure . While the scale of the movie viewing experience did n’t precisely jive with me , the Vision Pro is exceptionally skilful at reach itsoundlike I was in a big cinema room . That ’s where the spatial audio really came through for me – it ’s an environment with which I am intimately conversant , and I felt like the Vision Pro ’s spatial audio really smash retroflex that experience . I do have to say , though , that the fidelity of the audio is far better withAirPods Prothan it is with the audio seedpod built into the Vision Pro .

The Vision Pro ’s build up - in speakers do amazing things , do n’t get me wrong . But I get the feeling Apple tuned them to work with as spacious a variety of anatomical conditions as possible . Everyone ’s ears are of different sizes and shapes , and they sit in different places on the headspring comparative to where the audio pods are located on the Vision Pro . There are a lot of variable to take into account . As a result , my experience with the Vision Pro ’s audio faithfulness was that the soprano was a bit coarse or ringy and sibilant , and it lack the bass I want . ( That really was n’t a surprisal . ) But put in a set of AirPods Pro ? Yeah , now we ’re cookin ’ . What an experience !

As for TV fidelity ? I know the Vision Pro has the chops , but somehow , I guess the way picture look on the Vision Pro could be even better . It ’s fantabulous as is . But somehow , the Sony A95L pulls off HDR highlight better than the Vision Pro did for me . Maybe the Vision Pro needs to take the grooming wheel off the peak brightness a bit . More probable , contentedness demand to be graded to look better on the Vision Pro . Because I make love the Vision Pro can do it — I ’ve seen it in the environments . But somehow , that amazing optic experience does n’t seem to be conduct over for watching picture show on Disney+ , Netflix , and Max , even with HDR .

The 3D experience is the best 3D movie experience I ’ve ever had . But with that acknowledged , it ’s clear that it could be even better . In the same elbow room that Apple is shooting its environments and customs duty content with special cameras ? I cerebrate Hollywood should do that , too . Yeah , it ’s cash in one’s chips to be expensive , but moving picture are already preposterously expensive to make . Might as well pile this on top . I think that when 3D video depicted object is made for the Vision Pro , and not just adapted for it , 3D motion-picture show will reach a tier we ’ve always dreamed they should be at .

So , does the Vision Pro scramble out a home theater or commercial-grade film ? In some ways , it does , and in other ways it does not . I ’ll get back to that . Because … well , there ’s just one more thing .

TrueCut Motion

This is something nobody else is speak about and , at least in the circumstance of the Vision Pro as an entertainment gimmick , I reckon it is critical . You need to know about this .

powerful now , if you pull up theDisney+app on the Vision Pro and watchTitanic , Avatar , or , to a lesser extent , incarnation : The Way of Water , you may know something that I think will transform the home motion picture - watching experience forever . What those three titles I just listed share in unwashed is — well , yes , James Cameron — but also something call TrueCut Motion .

I imagine the good style to describe TrueCut Motion to you is by calling itVRR , or variable refresh pace , for movies .

When we watch movies at home , we ’re see contentedness that has ( usually ) been read at 24 frames per 2nd ( fps ) . This is the cinema cadence we ’ve been enjoying at theaters for decennium now . But at home – when watched on TVs with 60Hz or 120Hz refresh rates , that 24 Federal Protective Service capacity tends to cause some move problem . main among them is judder , where slow panning dead reckoning sometimes seem to shiver , or judder , as if frames have gone missing . And then there ’s stammer , which is a sort of flashing or strobing effect that happens with TV that have exigent reaction time . As an image moves across the screen and a dark area becomes a light area , the instant reply clock time of a video display ’s pel makes that slow panning shot induce a form of flashing effect , which we comprehend as a stammer or artificial shimmer .

TV manufacturers have tried to deal with these unhinge effects with something call flesh interpolation , or movement insertion . But as many family will be quick to indicate out — Tom Cruisechief among them — this motion smoothing causes moving picture to await like cheap soap operas – hence the full term goop opera house result .

TrueCut Motion will be making its elbow room into TVs and , ideally , be available from stream service and on Blu - ray disk .

TrueCut Motion addresses this by allowing movie manufacturing business to — well , think of it as changing the chassis charge per unit of their film so that when fluid movement is needed , the frame of reference rate can speed up a number to keep it smooth and then miss back down so that it can retain to look like a movie .

I think Peter Jackson and Cameron ’s always - on 48 -fps movieswould have been less off - putt to peopleif they were n’t always 48 frames per second .

The net effect is outstanding . Finally , those who hate judder and those who hate soap opera effect can unite behind a solution that rule out judder without introduce grievous bodily harm opera house effect .

And you could only see it — again , for now — on Apple Vision Pro . It can be seen in field . In fact , if you want to see it for yourself , go check outKung Fu Panda 4 , where TrueCut Motion grading was used for the cinematic release of the movie .

But the real advantage will be for us to keep an eye on movies at rest home . Because TrueCut Motion presently will be have its way into TVs and , ideally , be available from teem serving and on Blu - light beam discs . It will take metre for the catalog of capacity using TrueCut move to grow , but this is a plot changer in my Word of God . And Apple Vision Pro is where you’re able to experience it for the first time .

So , is the Vision Pro better than a commercial theater or home theater ? It can be . It has some real magic going for it . In some ways , it can be even better . I was in spades awry , though , when I enjoin it could never fend up because it is so isolating . I do cerebrate there is something irreplaceable about the comradery involved in enjoying TV and moviesin the caller of your ally and household — be that at home or in the theater of operations — which is something the Vision Pro ca n’t allow . I also think the Vision Pro ’s slap-up achievement is that it enable you to riotously enjoy a deeper connection to something you love at times when you are already isolate or alone .