Arcturus Vision Camera Tested: Steam Frame vs. XREAL Beam Pro and Quest 3

I tested Arcturus Vision Camera on Steam Frame against XREAL Beam Pro and Quest 3: image detail, noise, LED flicker, recording controls and playback on other headsets. The official Arcturus player has an unusual feature: its virtual screen follows the camera orientation recorded in the video. I also look at converting the original fisheye recordings to SBS and MV-HEVC, and try accessing the cameras from other software on Linux and through Android/Lepton. Companion article with link to downloadable test media: https://immernews.com/arcturus-vision... Download media easily in immerGallery: Download, Custom URL, enter "arc", press Go! I'm Daniel Pohl from immerVR and immerNews. I develop immerGallery, which I use for Quest 3 capture and playback in this comparison. The findings describe the recordings and software tested in September 2026. I have not tested the Arcturus Gaussian-splatting workflow yet. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 00:55 Three different ways to capture stereo 02:51 Recording modes and controls 03:59 Keeping the camera level 05:05 What the original file contains 06:32 Playback that follows the recorded view 09:09 Why fisheye, and converting for other players 13:06 Image detail comparison 14:11 Square versus widescreen 15:24 Noise and image quality 17:30 Lighting flicker 19:01 Where the videos play smoothly 21:15 API access for integrating Arcturus? 23:11 Full media sample download 23:51 Pros, cons and recommendations 26:35 Outro LINKS Concept for Rendering Optimizations for Full Human Field of View HMDs Daniel Pohl, Nural Choudhury and Markus Achtelik, IEEE VR 2018 (PDF): https://www.qwrt.de/pdf/Concept_for_R... Earlier Steam Frame versus Quest 3 playback tests: https://immernews.com/steam-frame-sta... Background on headset-based spatial cameras: https://immernews.com/spatial-cameras... Arcturus camera app and conversion tools: https://arcturus.vision/apps immerGallery: https://www.immervr.com/ More immersive-media coverage: https://immernews.com/ Small corrections: 11:08, 128°; 15:21, about 65% more pixels. Would you rather record stereo video with a headset or a separate handheld camera? How would you use playback that follows the recorded camera direction? #SteamFrame #ArcturusVision #SpatialVideo #VirtualReality