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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here. Welcome back to Dope Tech.
00:03We already know tech and production value is already some of the most fun stuff we do here.
00:08And I remember one of my favorite episodes of this we ever did was playing with the cinema robots in Portland.
00:13And by the end thinking, this is crazy, but I think we might have to get one of these things.
00:18And I have a sneaky feeling that might be happening again on this shoot,
00:21because, well, this isn't my normal studio, as you may have thought.
00:26It's gonna get interesting.
00:31All right, welcome back to another episode of Dope Tech.
00:34I've got three really interesting things I want to show you guys for this one.
00:38The first one, as you can probably already tell, is a piece of video production tech.
00:42I get unnecessarily excited about the bleeding edge of production video stuff.
00:47But this, this is a whole different kind of production.
00:51This would be what's referred to as virtual production.
00:54So let's rewind for a second.
00:56So let's rewind for a second.
00:57I want to oversimplify, but I think there's basically three different types of, three different levels of production.
01:03Level one being everything is practical.
01:05Everything is real. It's exactly how you see it.
01:08The background, everything you see in this frame, a YouTube video, for example, might be totally practical.
01:13That's level one.
01:14Level two is where some of the things you're seeing in the video are virtual.
01:19Maybe it's a blue screen or green screen.
01:21Maybe it's a virtual animal or some magical video animation or some motion graphics or things like that.
01:28But then number three, the top level, would be fully virtual, completely unreal, as I would say.
01:35Think like the Lion King or Avatar.
01:38So I recently got to visit a studio space in Brooklyn, New York, called Zero Space, that has something called an XR stage.
01:44And this thing is somewhere right on the border blurring the line between level two and level three.
01:52It's kind of real, but technically not real.
01:54So there are a whole bunch of shows and things you probably watch right now,
01:58The Mandalorian being probably the most famous among them, that use this version of virtual production.
02:03So I mentioned the green screens or blue screens earlier.
02:05These are obviously cool because in the edit, you can replace anything that's the color green with whatever you want.
02:12Maybe a new background or environment.
02:14And then if the actors are good enough, they can act like that environment is really around them.
02:19But this is next level.
02:21So this is the XR stage.
02:23What you're looking at is a 50 plus foot, 8K video wall.
02:27Very expensive, but absolutely loaded with tech when you point cameras at them.
02:31And the advantages are very real.
02:34So number one, the actors or anyone in front of the screen can actually have an easier time interacting with their environment
02:40because they can actually see it.
02:42Instead of imagining a totally different environment when there's just a bunch of green and some trackers.
02:47Then number two, the camera's position in space is actually tracked with this little piece here from Red Spy on top of the camera.
02:54And that information is relayed in real time back to the display.
02:59So the background actually moves when the camera moves.
03:04Now this is huge.
03:06So if you build a volumetric environment, a 3D environment in something like Unreal Engine,
03:11the camera movement maintains this parallax effect and looks super realistic.
03:16Like you're actually in a new space.
03:19Unlike what I did in the intro which was just sort of like a taste of what it's capable of with a flat image.
03:24So then number three, and this is actually a huge one if you're an editor, there's no green spill.
03:28Like if you've ever tried to edit green screen video, you already know it takes a lot of talent and editing
03:33to fully remove the background green.
03:36And even still there's occasional green light spilling onto fabric and skin and like glass and reflections and things like that.
03:45The last 2% of green.
03:47But with the video wall, there is no green spill.
03:50Well actually there is spill but it isn't green.
03:52It's just light that perfectly matches your environment.
03:56There's actually all kinds of extra lights and things like that around the set as well.
03:59Even a ceiling display to make this happen.
04:02So all of the lights and all of the colors of light hitting the person in the environment
04:07will look just exactly like they're supposed to as if they were actually in that space.
04:12So all of that is awesome.
04:14But the most impressive thing that I learned while I was there and this really blew my mind
04:19is you already know you can have a camera and then a person and then a background video wall.
04:26And then as the camera is moving around, the parallax effect matches to show what the camera should see.
04:31In real time.
04:33But this setup can actually do more than one camera at the same time.
04:40And if you're thinking, wait a second, how can two different cameras,
04:45how can that background moving effect work with two different camera angles at the same time?
04:51Won't one of them always be wrong?
04:53What happens if they overlap?
04:56And this is where it gets crazy.
04:58So this giant 8K video wall is refreshing at 120 frames per second.
05:04So as there are two different cameras pointed at it, each camera is shooting 60 FPS,
05:11but they're synced up so that they're actually each shooting alternating frames.
05:17I'm going to say that again.
05:19Each camera is shooting 60 FPS, but they're not shooting the same 60 FPS.
05:25So it's almost as if one blinks while the other shoots a frame,
05:28and then the other blinks while the other shoots a frame,
05:30and they go back and forth.
05:32And so both cameras can be pointed at the same wall at the same time
05:37and see completely different things.
05:40So that solves the problem for two different video cameras,
05:43both motion tracking correctly at the same time.
05:46Matter of fact, this particular display, this Zero Space has,
05:49can go up to 180 FPS,
05:52which can accommodate six different motion-tracked cameras
05:56all shooting 30 FPS, their crack frame rate,
05:59all at the same time and all seeing six different things.
06:03So I got to explore the space with fellow creator Cleo Abram,
06:07and she's put together an awesome video on her channel, huge if true.
06:10It really blew our minds that this worked so well,
06:13and that even to our natural, our naked eye,
06:16like things could kind of blend,
06:18and you can kind of see that two things are happening at once.
06:21But absolutely nothing that one camera sees
06:24bleeds into what the other camera sees.
06:27We literally had them light up the display behind us,
06:29and it showed up as a perfectly blue blue screen on one camera
06:33and a perfectly green green screen to a different camera at the same time.
06:39And it just showed up as like kind of bluish greenish to our eyes.
06:42So seeing this then, all the gears start turning about all the ways you could use this.
06:46I just imagine you have, you know, the crazy desert background of the Mandalorian,
06:50but the lines for the actors to read are on the wall,
06:53but the cameras can't see them, or tracking points,
06:56or just all kinds of, it's just so many things you can do with it.
06:59It really got me thinking if there's a way that we could use some sort of,
07:03some parts of this in our own space.
07:06Obviously we build, these are real sets, they're not virtual sets,
07:10but I just, you know, I want to think about ways that maybe
07:13I could do something like this in our own space.
07:15Anyway, do yourself a favor and watch Cleo's video,
07:17which is also going live today.
07:19We got even way more into the details and some real world examples of the XR stage,
07:23plus a bunch of other interesting examples of virtual production techniques,
07:27complete with animations and more mind-blowing video facts.
07:31Literally, as soon as you finish this video, it'll be the first link below the like button.
07:34Click that, watch hers, it's so worth it.
07:37And shout out again to Zero Space for letting us explore.
07:39Again, I'm going to probably be back in touch with you guys.
07:42I'm going to try to figure out a way to make that happen here, somehow, someway.
07:48Okay, next one.
07:49Hard Pivot to a piece of tech that I've been using actually for a while.
07:53It's a piece of home tech, that's why I'm home for this one, and sleeping tech.
07:57Actually, when I was first told about the existence of this piece of tech,
08:00I was kind of surprised about it, but then I had a lot of questions.
08:04And so when 8Sleep reached out and wanted to sponsor this video,
08:07and they had all the answers, well, I was very interested.
08:10So you might have heard of 8Sleep.
08:11They're kind of blowing up recently.
08:13But basically, the main thing they make is a temperature-controlled bed.
08:18Actually, it's a topper.
08:19So what it does is it wraps around your current mattress.
08:21It's called a pod cover.
08:23And the main feature, the idea, is it completely controls the temperature
08:27of the surface of your bed.
08:29So it can be nice and crisp and cool when you first climb into bed,
08:32and then nice and warm in the morning and make it easier to get out of bed,
08:36which is pretty awesome.
08:37I feel like there's two types of people.
08:39People that fall asleep instantly in like five minutes,
08:42and then people who think it's like a superpower to be able to fall asleep instantly.
08:47And that's me.
08:48I'm in the second group for sure.
08:50I've historically took at least half an hour to fall asleep any time.
08:53But science shows pretty definitively, you've probably heard this before,
08:56that cool temperatures are pretty ideal for falling asleep quickly
08:59and then staying asleep and being well-rested.
09:02Basically, that temperature is one of the absolute top factors for quality of sleep.
09:07So the 8Sleep, basically what it is, it's this box next to the bed
09:10which has a bunch of stuff in it, a compressor, a reservoir, and a whole computer.
09:14It barely makes a whisper of noise, and that connects to the bed via tubes.
09:18And then the whole top of this bed, this cover, is lined with these capillaries
09:23through the whole thing, these veins for either the warm or cooled water to flow through.
09:28And importantly, there's two halves.
09:30So if you sleep at a different temperature from your partner,
09:33which let's be honest, I feel like everyone says they do,
09:36then you can have each side of the bed be a different temperature.
09:40And then the piece that brings it all together is this app on the phone.
09:43It lets you basically turn a dial to bring it between minus 10 and 10.
09:47Those are the levels of temperature.
09:49And that signifies basically 55 degrees Fahrenheit all the way at the bottom,
09:53which is pretty chill, all the way up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit at plus 10,
09:58which is straight up hot.
09:59So I don't need nearly that much range, but it's nice to have.
10:02I go to sleep at minus 4, and I warm up to plus 2.
10:07That's as warm as I really ever need it.
10:09But yeah, I guess now I can say this bed is literally water-cooled.
10:13So that's pretty sick.
10:14So the thing is once you've used it for I think about a week,
10:17basically it settles into a routine where it cools down before you get into bed
10:22and slowly adjusts temperature over the course of the night.
10:25They call it autopilot, I think.
10:26But there are different stages of sleep where it will slowly warm up overnight
10:30until it's at the temperature that you want to wake up at.
10:32But then on top of that, there's a host of other features
10:34that are in the Eight Sleep membership,
10:37which is a monthly subscription, which I don't love,
10:40but it actually has a bunch of really useful features.
10:42So the first is autopilot, which I talked about.
10:44But then the second, there are a bunch of these sleep tracking features.
10:48I typically warn the Apple Watch to sleep for the past couple months.
10:52And it's on your wrist, and it can read a bunch of things about you from your wrist.
10:56But clearly the best thing to measure your sleep would be the thing you sleep on,
11:01so the mattress itself.
11:02So it can tell when you get into bed, of course, when you get up.
11:05And it graphs out when you're in these different stages of sleep through the night.
11:08It even somehow measures your heart rate and breathing rate if you want it to.
11:12And then it does a good job in the UI of highlighting with little green or red markers
11:17when things are going well and when things are a little bit off.
11:20So you can see here on this terrible night of sleep I had
11:23there are certain things clearly that I didn't do well.
11:26Like I went to sleep late despite waking up at a normal time.
11:29And I fell asleep quickly, but I took a while to get up.
11:32So the next night of sleep you can see was much better.
11:35A whole bunch of green here. Basically flawless.
11:37It also has a vibration alarm.
11:40It will literally lightly vibrate just your side of the bed to wake you up silently,
11:46which is pretty sick.
11:48And it also gets continuous software updates over time.
11:50Honnestly, this thing has been pretty awesome for me personally
11:52over the past couple of weeks that I've had it.
11:54Like I said, I've had it for a while.
11:56The one thing that I feel like is pretty definitive proof for me anyway
12:00that it's working or helping me sleep better,
12:03the Apple Watch likes to tell me when I have a low heart rate.
12:06When I go below 40 beats per minute for a long time,
12:10it gives me a low heart rate notification.
12:12But that's actually potentially a good thing if you're recovering well.
12:15And the first week or two after I started sleeping well with the cooled mattress,
12:20I would wake up with like 10 to 15 low heart rate notifications,
12:24which meant that my heart rate was getting lower
12:27and I was recovering better and sleeping better,
12:29which is pretty cool.
12:31So in an age where humans are basically sleeping worse than ever before
12:35with all the tech around us, all the screens that are around us every night,
12:38it's pretty cool to have a piece of tech that actually helps us sleep better.
12:41At least it helps me anyway. You can try it too if you want to.
12:44If you can get $200 off by using the code MKBHD on their site,
12:48I definitely think this qualifies as dope tech.
12:51Okay, last but not least, how about a little bit of an exclusive?
12:56This is your first look at the Nothing Phone 2,
13:01which looks a lot like the Nothing Phone 1,
13:04but you guys have heard a lot of the hype, you've seen some of the teasers,
13:07so let me show you what I am allowed to show you of what's new.
13:11This is the Phone 1 here with the glyphs and the lights on the back.
13:14And this is the Phone 2.
13:17Slightly tweaked design, definitely nothing dramatic at first glance here,
13:21since they're trying to establish their visual design as a young company.
13:24You know, you can't go dramatically changing it every time.
13:26But same shapes, slightly lighter gray,
13:30slightly more rounded glass actually on the back.
13:33But we'll get to all that in the full review video of this phone.
13:35For now, in this exclusive, I can show you what's actually new
13:38with the glyph interface, the actual lights on the back.
13:41So first of all, Nothing Phone 1 had 5 strips of white LEDs with this pattern.
13:47With this new one, the shapes are in the same place,
13:50but there are some tweaks.
13:51You can see the arc around the camera is split into 2 strips.
13:54And the big one in the middle is now separated out into 6 pieces.
13:58These are all still white LEDs, no color or RGB or anything crazy.
14:03But the main improvement is actually just that there are more addressable LED zones
14:08inside of each of the strips, which is kind of fun.
14:11So you probably remember you could already use the bottom exclamation mark
14:15as a charging progress indicator.
14:17That does still work.
14:18So before, the entire back of the phone had a total of 12 different LED lighting zones
14:24controllable by the software.
14:26This new one has a total of 33 across the back.
14:30And just this strip up here at the top gets 16 to itself.
14:35So it's much more precise and granular.
14:37And so they've designed some features actually around using that as a progress indicator.
14:41So there's a volume indicator now.
14:43So when you have media playing, it literally just shows your volume level.
14:46And as you move it up and down, you can see that light go up and down with it.
14:50There is a glyph timer built in.
14:52So you can set a timer to a predetermined length of time using the UI,
14:57then flip the phone over to start the timer.
14:59And you can see it slowly rolls down through the LEDs to count down
15:04and give you a visual indicator of when the timer will be over.
15:07I kind of like this one for working.
15:09Those of you who use the Pomodoro technique will probably find this useful.
15:12And there's also plans for this to be addressable by third parties.
15:15So you can imagine Uber and Zomato are the only two that are signed up right now,
15:21but kind of the same way Apple had to get developers on board with their live activities in iOS.
15:27Same idea. You can imagine waiting for an Uber and turning the phone down
15:30and sort of seeing the progress of when the car gets closer and closer until it arrives.
15:35Things like that.
15:36Ideally, they can get more on board for things that just make sense for progress bar stuff.
15:41Now, you might remember last time I was specifically asking for more customization stuff
15:46so I could tell what app I was getting a notification from without flipping the phone over.
15:52This is still all white LEDs, so there's no colors or anything like that.
15:56But there is one new feature called essential notifications,
16:00where basically if you have a certain app that's important to you that you get notifications from,
16:04it'll stay lit up in this corner strip.
16:07And this stays lit until that notification is addressed.
16:11So it's not fully customizable.
16:13Like I can't assign a different app to each of the different lighting zones.
16:17But for at least this one app, you'll always know when you've got a notification from it.
16:23And then they also added this neat little glyph composer.
16:25So if you want to literally design your own ringtone, you can go full DJ mode.
16:37So that is your first look at the glyph update on the back of the new Nothing Phone 2.
16:43Still sort of like on the borderline between gimmick and useful for a lot of people,
16:47but it is at least a little bit more customizable.
16:49And you'll have to get subscribed to see all the rest of the new stuff with this phone.
16:53So that you'll know what I've been finding in my testing.
16:55That's coming up. The sub button is below of course.
16:58But that's been it.
16:59Thanks for watching Dope Tech.
17:01Catch you guys in the next one.
17:03Peace.