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Rain and the Gear 360

Byrichard

Rain and the Gear 360 are well suited to the weather we are currently subjected to in Switzerland. For the past month and a half we have had rain almost every single day. As a result of this it has limited the number of opportunities to go out and get 360 footage.

360 camera rigs are not designed for rain. Most 360 rigs involve at least six non weatherproof cameras and rigs that are designed for dry rather than wet conditions. To go out in this rain would drown the equipment. With additional funds you could film in these conditions with weatherproof gear but the cost increases. Add to this that camera systems like the Ricoh Theta S prefer clear skies and nice weather for taking video and you see that it is not really worth the effort.

By the end of September the Samsung Gear 360 should provide us with a simple to carry, weatherproof 360 camera which could be fun to take canyoning (if they make a specialist housing) or hiking for doing other sports activities where weather proofing is a useful feature. The trend to make devices at least splash proof is good.

Another nice feature of this camera is the ability to use 200 gigabyte SDHC cards. with these cards you can record for hours. When the card is full or when you’re changing location you can change cards in seconds and continue working on a project. With the Ricoh Theta S you can record for 45 minutes before you need to transfer the footage, clear the memory and start recording again.

With 200 gigabytes of storage one concept that I would love to test is 360° time lapse videos. You could fix the camera to your bike, to a canoe or to some other object and set it to take a picture at regular intervals. So far I have not seen a mention of an interval recording mode but with 200 gigabytes you can record for hours without worrying about storage. You could change the speed in post production.

This camera records in UHD rather than HD quality. Video recording is at a resolution of 3840×1920. 360 videos taken with this camera should be more pleasant to view as a result.

The 360° video eco-system is still in it’s infancy and most 360 video solutions require people to use a number of cameras. Both Samsung and Ricoh provide all in one solutions along with software to stitch the images ready for post production. They are helping to democratise the medium both by making production cheaper but also by enabling people to produce content. This increase in content will encourage more people to get VR goggles which in turn will justify increasing the budget of 360 video production budgets. It will go from being a niche product to being mainstream.

The Immersive Video market is coming of age
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The Immersive Video market is coming of age

Byrichard

I see this as a good, not a bad thing. It means that 2016 is the year where we can experiment on what content and story types work best for VR. It gives us time to establish workflows and intuitions about what subjects will work in VR and which ones are better left to UHD HDR.

People did speak about how VR is more demanding, how short content currently works better than long form content. I think that adventure sports will fill the demand. Climbing videos are five to ten minutes long. They’re ideally suited for VR goggles because content is usually short and the content is dynamic. Base jumping, rock climbing, windsurfing, kayaking, snowboarding and other sports are well suited to the format.

Immersive videos are coming of age with dozens of headsets being made available. Samsung Gear VR costs 109 CHF, the Homido 79 CHF and the tepoinn around 19 USD. HTC Vive and the Oculus rift in contrast cost hundreds of CHF each and can be driven by one percent of computers currently on the market. (source)

The Gopro Omni, currently available on Pre-order is being launched at 5400 CHF. Contrast this to the Ricoh Theta S, available from about 390 CHF and you see why I settled for the cheaper solution. The Theta S is ideal to have with you at all times to experiment with whereas the Gopro Omni is ideal for facilities to rent out with an experienced camera operator. Software has been written specifically for this hardware solution which will simplify the workflow.

I look forward to when this technology comes of age, when people feel normal about watching certain types of content via VR goggles. I could easily see events where there is a VR goggles experience available. I also see content and goggles being made available at climbing gyms and sports shops to inspire people to make purchases based on the experiences they would like to experience themselves.