180° vs 360° VR porn: which is better?

Most VR porn is filmed in 180°, and for good reason. Unless a scene really uses the space behind you, 180° looks sharper at the same file size.

The difference

• 180°: the scene fills the half-sphere in front of you. You can look left, right, up and down, but behind you is black.
• 360°: the scene surrounds you completely, so you can turn all the way around.

Why 180° usually looks sharper

A video has a fixed number of pixels. In 180°, all of them go into the half in front of you. In 360°, the same pixels are spread over a full circle, so the part you actually look at gets about half the detail. An 8K 360° scene looks closer to a 4K 180° scene where it matters.

That is why studios that focus on picture quality, such as VR Bangers, shoot mostly 180°, and why resolution matters even more for 360°: 8K vs 4K.

When 360° is worth it

• Scenes built around the whole room, with performers moving around you.
• Group scenes where the action is on more than one side.
• When you watch on a swivel chair and enjoy looking around.

Which to choose

• Most people: 180°, at the highest resolution your headset handles well.
• 360° fans: pick 8K or higher, and watch on a sharp headset such as a Quest 3.

Other formats you may meet, such as fisheye, side-by-side and 6DOF, are explained in the VR porn glossary.