The first surprise for many people who buy a VR clip is the file. A ten-minute flat clip might be a few hundred megabytes; the same length in 8K VR can be several gigabytes. Knowing what to expect saves frustration, especially on a slow connection or a headset with limited storage.
How big is a VR clip?
As a rough guide, high-resolution VR180 uses somewhere between 300 and 800 megabytes per minute, depending on the bitrate the producer chose. A typical scene in this list therefore lands in the range of three to ten gigabytes. Shops often offer the same clip in more than one resolution; if your headset cannot play 8K smoothly, the smaller file will look almost as good and download much faster.
Download or stream?
Downloading is the reliable choice for VR. Streaming a high-bitrate stereo file needs a fast, stable connection, and any buffering is far more disruptive inside a headset than on a monitor. If you download on a computer first, you can copy the file to the headset over a cable or play it through a media server on your home network – both avoid tying up the headset during a long download.
Storage on the headset
Standalone headsets have fixed storage that fills quickly with VR video. Keep only what you are actually watching on the device and archive the rest on a computer or external drive. Name files consistently – producer, title, format – so that you can find them again and so that your player recognises the format. Many players read tags such as _180_SBS or _LR in the file name and switch to the right view automatically.
Before you buy
Check three things on the shop page: the resolution offered, the file size if it is listed, and whether the clip is a download or stream-only. With those in mind there are no surprises once you have paid. To see what is available at all, the complete VR list on the start page is the place to begin.