An artificial reality system and method provides immersive digital content to a user via a device with limited capabilities. A digital content processor generates a video stream of a real-world environment in a first video resolution regime. The digital content processor identifies static regions across frames of the video stream. The digital content processor applies one or more of a stitching operation, a blending operation, and a layering operation to replace static regions of the video stream with still image pixels. The digital content processor transmits the modified video stream to a display unit of a virtual reality (VR) device at a second video resolution regime of lower resolution than the first video resolution regime.
