The Technology of VR Cameras by Nokia, Kodak & Sphericam – ON THE COUCH ep. 30, part 2

by Nino LeitnerMay 21^st, 2016

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In this second part of our first VR themed episode of ON THE COUCH, we talked again to Kodak, Nokia and Sphericam about their VR camera and software solutions.

If you missed the first part of this episode, click here to watch it!

In this part we focused on the concrete technical specifications of the different camera solutions between the Kodak SP360 4K Action Cam, the Nokia OZO, and the Sphericam.

There are multiple challenges when it comes to the still evolving VR landscape: There are few software standards right now for finishing formats, yet both Facebook and YouTube now support uploading VR videos to their sites and make them accessible to a wider audience. Recently even Adobe introduced VR editing support into Adobe Premiere.

Kim Gronholm from Nokia, George Krieger from Sphericam, presenter Nino Leitner from cinema5D and Kevin Cruz from Kodak (from left to right)

Another big challenge is the stitching between the cameras a VR camera has. As George from Sphericam pointed out, this is still one of the biggest pain points, and it requires a lot of software to do this in realtime and as accurately as possible. There are very different challenges with different cameras as they have different amounts of camera lenses in different distances on them as well – for example the Kodak solution has only two wide angle lenses while the Nokia OZO has many more.

We also covered how easy it is to disorient the audience if the VR experience isn’t completely seamless and immediate – and how this is the reason that it’s only been possible with recent technology that is advanced and fast enough to provide the VR experience. Kim Gronholm from Nokia pointed out that there is also a learning curve and that audiences develop a higher tolerance over time as they are getting more used to Virtual Reality experiences.

George Krieger from Sphericam mentioned how Virtual Reality is about to revolutionise many industry apart from entertainment, including architecture, archeology, medical applications and many more.

Please visit our sponsors’ websites to keep new episodes of ON THE COUCH coming! Thanks to G-Technology and Røde Microphones.