Little Star Media, Inc.

Little Star Media, Inc.
Type	Private
ISIN	🆔
Industry	Virtual Reality
Founded 📆	2013; 11 years ago
Founder 👔
Headquarters 🏙️	, New York City, United States
Area served 🗺️
Members
Number of employees	20
🌐 Website	www.littlstar.com
📇 Address
📞 telephone
	;

Littlstar (Little Star Media, Inc.) ^[1]^[2]^[3] is a cinematic virtual reality network based in New York, NY. Littlstar has channels like ABC VR^[4], Showtime, Fox, Discovery, Nat Geo, and Esquire Network^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]. Littlstar was one of the first networks dedicated to immersive 360 degree content.^[11] It launched into public beta November 2014 and has apps that can be downloaded on iOS, Android, PlayStation VR (PSVR), HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and others^[12]^[13]. Littlstar's apps have content from brands like Visa, Red Bull, Mtn Dew, Volvo, Honda, Mini, and Lexus.^[14]^[15]^[16]

History[edit]

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 in mind about general social media campaigns. The introduction of Oculus Rift into the markte 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 Michael Eisner's The Tornante Company, Gree, Scrum, Colopl, Disney,^[17] VaynerRSE (Gary Vaynerchuk), Social Starts, Sterling VC (owners of NY Mets), Archer Gray, Techstars^[18], Sterling VC, Prospect Drive, and a small group of angels. ^[19]^[20]

July 2015 - Littlstar participated in the Disney Accelerator and Disney became an investor^[21]

August 2015 - Littlstar powers Discovery VR for Discovery Channel ^[22]

December 2015 - Littlstar launches 360 degree video on Apple TV, for the first time allowing 360 degree videos on the Apple TV ^[23]^[24]^[25]

August 2016 - Littlstar and Sony Music Entertainment Japan launch Littlstar in Japan, and Dolby partners with Littlstar. ^[26]^[27]

March 2017 - Littlstar and CJ Powercast launch Littlstar in Korea. ^[28]

June 2017 - Technicolor partners with Littlstar. ^[29]

Challenges[edit]

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.^[30] 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[edit]

In 2016, Littlstar developed patent pending heat map technology that allows content owners to see where inside the 360 content viewers are watching at a given time. This data is aggregated and delivered back through a heat map visualization to show what viewers find the most compelling inside 360 degree content. This information is utilized often by advertisers to see how their in-content ads are performing. ^[31]^[32]

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

International Expansion[edit]

Littlstar has recently expanded into Asia with the launch of Littlstar Japan with Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) and Littlstar Korea with CJ Powercast. ^[33]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Website

This article "Littlstar" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

[1] ttp://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:6q88vy.2.1

[2] ttp://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:6q88vy.2.2

[3] ttp://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:6q88vy.2.3

[4] ttp://abcnews.go.com/International/virtual-tour-chernobyl-30-years-worlds-worst-nuclear/story?id=38665693

[5] ttps://digiday.com/uk/the-economist-vr-reach/

[6] ttps://www.vrfocus.com/2017/07/dunkirk-save-every-breath-vr-experience-comes-to-htc-vive-oculus-rift-and-samsung-gear-vr/

[7] ttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pr/2017/06/28/usa-today-network-releases-latest-interactive-storytelling-project/103237880/

[8] ttp://variety.com/2015/digital/news/fusion-vr-virtual-reality-littlstar-1201652537/

[9] ttp://variety.com/2016/digital/news/bento-box-digital-animation-studio-littlstar-1201703522/

[10] ttp://variety.com/2016/digital/news/nashville-virtual-reality-music-seriesbluebird-cafe-1201771635/

[11] ttp://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/little-star-media-to-launch-social-portal-for-panoramic-video-and-vr-cinema-282735911.html

[12] ttps://www.fastcompany.com/3066160/how-the-virtual-reality-startup-littlstar-built-an-app-for-smart-tvs

[13] ttp://au.pcmag.com/apple-tv-2012/40871/news/watch-360-degree-videos-on-apple-tv

[14] ttps://venturebeat.com/2017/03/10/littlstar-has-carved-out-a-role-as-the-app-for-vr-entertainment/

[15] ttp://variety.com/2017/digital/news/littlstar-korea-cj-powercast-1202005878/

[16] ttp://www.alleywatch.com/2016/11/nyc-startup-littlstar-is-your-portal-into-the-vr-world/

[17] ttp://www.roadtovr.com/littlstar-joins-disney-accelerator-apps-coming-soon-to-rift-morpheus-and-vive/

[18] ttp://www.techstars.com/content/blog/meet-the-disney-accelerator-powered-by-techstars-class-of-2015/

[19] ttps://www.crunchbase.com/funding-round/0aafa493cd7f806672a82600d2d2ed99

[20] ttps://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1604356/000160435616000002/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

[21] ttp://variety.com/2015/digital/news/disney-taps-mind-control-robotics-startups-for-accelerator-program-1201536939/

[22] ttp://variety.com/2015/digital/news/sharks-survival-and-surfing-discovery-goes-virtual-reality-with-new-apps-1201579760/

[23] ttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-tv-getting-360-degree-130221196.html

[24] ttp://www.fastcompany.com/3054983/fast-feed/you-can-now-explore-360-degree-videos-on-apple-tv-no-vr-headset-required

[25] ttp://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/12/23/apple-tv-is-getting-360-degree-videos-courtesy-of-littlstar/#gref

[26] ttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/25/business/corporate-business/sony-launch-virtual-reality-video-service-japan/

[27] ttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160804005333/en/Dolby-Laboratories-Littlstar-Announce-Next-Generation-Linear-VR

[28] ttp://variety.com/2017/digital/news/littlstar-korea-cj-powercast-1202005878/

[29] ttp://www.technicolor.com/en/who-we-are/press-news-center/news/tec-and-partners-ignite-immersive-experiences

[30] ttps://code.facebook.com/posts/1126354007399553/next-generation-video-encoding-techniques-for-360-video-and-vr/

[31] ttp://marketingland.com/disney-backed-vr-startup-littlstar-can-map-where-vr-360-degree-video-viewers-are-looking-178016

[32] ttps://www.virtualreality-news.net/news/2016/may/23/vr-video-platform-littlstar-launches-analytics-platform-track-user-engagement/

[33] ttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/25/business/corporate-business/sony-launch-virtual-reality-video-service-japan/

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