F1: The Movie - Hot Lap Is An Immersive Teaser For Apple's Blockbuster

Apple Vision Pro owners can watch an immersive teaser for the F1 movie, putting them beside Brad Pitt for a lap.

As with all immersive content on Apple TV, it's not possible to record or cast F1: The Movie - Hot Lap, nor take screenshots.

Lasting 3 minutes in total, the first minute of the experience presents regular 3D footage on a curved virtual screen in front of you. Through a mixture of behind-the-scenes clips and shots from the movie, F1's director Joseph Kosinski talks you through some of the technical complexities of shooting on-location with the actors driving the cars.

After this minute, the main experience begins, immersive footage of Brad Pitt driving around the track for a lap, shot by a camera positioned on the right side of the car.

It isn't as technically impressive as true Apple Immersive Video. The scale is off, with the car and outside world appearing too big, and the footage doesn't occupy a full 180 degrees in front of you. It appeared to be around 140 degrees. The motion clarity also isn't great, suggesting a frame rate below Apple's usual 90 fps.

You can clearly see the camera in the rear view mirror, revealing it to be a traditional monoscopic camera with a fisheye lens. A full-size 180° 3D camera setup likely wouldn't have fit beside the driver of an F1 car.

There does appear to be some depth though, suggesting a 2D to 3D conversion, likely using machine learning.

F1: The Movie - Hot Lap is a reminder that the use of full-size immersive camera setups is constrained by portability, and suggests that work on more compact designs will be important for the future.

As for the movie that Hot Lap promotes, F1 hits US theaters on Friday and international theaters today.