Samsung Launches Milk VR Video Service For Gear VR

Gear_VR_Still_2

Now that it’s got a consumer-grade virtual reality headset on the market, Samsung is launching a service of its own to provide 360-degree video content so users have a reason to slip on the Gear VR on a regular basis.

Taking its name from Samsung’s streaming music and video services, Milk VR will feature downloadable and streamable content free-of-charge to Gear VR owners. The company says that it wants to make Milk VR a “daily habit” for its customers, much in the same way that YouTube hasĀ built an ecosystem that brings users back for more with a variety of content from known personalities.

That may not be the case for the service’s first users, however. The service is launching today as a technical preview with a limited library of content, so the most avid users may binge their way through it before the service gets regular content updates. That won’t take long, as videos released for Milk VR are said to take 1-10 minutes to watch. I don’t have a Gear VR on-hand to jump in and check out the content, but there should be videos featuringĀ music, sports, action and “lifestyle” in resolutions that you can stream all the way up to huge “4K x 2K” downloads.

While Samsung announced their own 360-degree camera for capturing video content for display on virtual reality headsets at its developer conference this year, Samsung says that its sourcing 3D and wrap-around video from artists using a variety of cameras.