What she sees is what you get
With the Sphericam 2 launching on Kickstarter, panoramic photographer and 360º video maker Jeffrey Martin is improving on a product he created three years ago, the Sphericam 1 (also successfully launched through Kickstarter). Having incorporated his company in Delaware (USA) but operating from Europe (with most of the engineering in the Netherlands and himself being based in Prague), he is now raising the bar for all previously crowd-funded 360º video cameras such as the Bublcam or the Giroptic.
The Sphericam 2 will boast a 4K resolution (4096×3072 pixels) spread across a fully stitched spherical view from six camera sensors and four microphones, but what will you get in any given direction?
"That’s typically the equivalent of High Definition for any given view in today’s virtual reality headsets", Martin told eeNews Europe, "and that’s primarily the market we are targeting with the Sphericam 2", he added.
But with a 360º view, you could be looking at the same video a thousand times and yet never watch the same thing, depending on the viewing directions you choose to adopt as the video stream unfolds. Selfie videos are already a difficult thing to watch, but 360º ones, that’s probably too much except for the subject itself if he/she felt absent most of the time.
In fact, the promotional video on Kickstarter shows a man sleepwalking through different places and events while holding a Sphericam, blissfully unaware of his surroundings until he wakes up and checks his video log later (maybe an unintentional metaphor for digital zombies, persons literally abducted from real life by their electronic devices).
Like in this video, the camera could be strapped to the back of a dog, so in effect, what she sees is what you get, raw and unedited.
So where should you be looking? Can there be any story telling using such a video stream? We asked Martin.
"It is a new media, so creative film makers have yet to find ways to use 360º video in a narrative way" admitted Martin, "the location of the camera will impose certain view points, but directional audio is one way to tell the viewer where to look", he added.
The Sphericam 2 will pick up sound from four directional standard microphones to output a 5.1 surround sound format, but then, professionals could mix in additional sound recordings and design the directional effects later.
Other likely applications for 360º video include live events video streaming (from one fixed viewpoint), but total video conferencing and law enforcement are also promising markets.
The 68mm diameter device features eight tripod mounts, a GPS, automatic stabilisation and WiFi streaming, among other things, but the most challenging part according to Martin is the camera’s global shutter feature that gets all six sensors synchronised for a seamless spherical image stitching.
"We use proprietary software for the image stitching, but in order to lower the price point and to address even higher resolutions, we have an ASIC on our roadmap" said Martin.
The Sphericam can capture six individual videos at up to 60 frames per second (fps) in CinemaDNG, up to 2.4 gigabits per second bitrate total, or deliver the six individual videos compressed in H.264 (mp4 file) at up to 600 megabits per second (100Mbit/s per camera). For simpler consumer-level use, the camera could deliver one single 30fps stitched panoramic video in realtime at a 4096×2048 resolution, in 10-bit color.
With 23 days to go, the Sphericam 2 had already gathered its USD 150,000 goal from 160 backers.
Visit Sphericam at www.sphericam.com
Related articles:
Tactical panoramic video ball creeps in
Webcams move to 4K panoramic video
Panoramic throwball camera explodes crowd funding goal
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
