  Social VR enables people to interact over distance with others in real-time.
It allows remote people, typically represented as avatars, to communicate and
perform activities together in a join shared virtual environment, extending the
capabilities of traditional social platforms like Facebook and Netflix. This
paper explores the benefits and drawbacks provided by a lightweight and
low-cost Social VR platform (SocialVR), in which users are captured by several
cameras and reconstructed in real-time. In particular, the paper contributes
with (1) the design and evaluation of an experimental protocol for Social VR
experiences; (2) the report of a production workflow for this new type of media
experiences; and (3) the results of experiments with both end-users (N=15
pairs) and professionals (N=25) to evaluate the potential of the SocialVR
platform. Results from the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews show
that end-users rated positively towards the experiences provided by the
SocialVR platform, which enabled them to sense emotions and communicate
effortlessly. End-users perceived the photo-realistic experience of SocialVR
similar to face-to-face scenarios and appreciated this new creative medium.
From a commercial perspective, professionals confirmed the potential of this
communication medium and encourage further research for the adoption of the
platform in the commercial landscape
