GoPro CEO Nick Woodman announced a spherical 6-camera device to capture virtual reality footage at yesterday's Code Conference. But today, the action camera maker is going a bit further and said it's also coming out with a 16-camera rig for VR content.
Announced today at
“GoPros are already the standard device for spherical content," said CJ Prober, a senior vice president of software and services at GoPro, in a phone interview. "There are rigs out there now that integrate 6 cameras together. The problem is that the cameras aren't synchronized.”
If you were to buy 16 GoPro cameras and attach them together yourself, it would hard to figure out how to turn them all on at the same time.
The 16-camera rig captures spherical footage as well as the depth of the image. Capturing depth is important for creating a 3D illusion.
The device was made in partnership with Google and its Jump platform, which Google also announced today. Jump processes and assembles the spherical footage from all the GoPro cameras to make it one file and then sends it back to the user as a file they can edit. Once the footage is ready, Jump allows users to share it on YouTube. People can view the content on their smartphones -- using Google Cardboard, which mounts a smartphone on your face for viewing VR footage -- or other VR goggles like Oculus.
The project began between GoPro and Google after the search giant had been ordering a ton of GoPros for capturing 360-degree footage, but were having trouble with synchronization. The two decided to work together on creating a device and a service for VR content. Clay Bavor, a VP of product management at Google and inventor of Google Cardboard, played a big part in this partnership between the two companies.
"Google created this platform for ingesting and publishing 360 degree content, and they were looking to accelerate the adoption of 360-degree content through that platform," said Prober. "We want our content creators making more spherical content, and so we decided we should work together to solve the pain points of capturing this kind of content."
GoPro has already shown interest in the VR market recently -- it acquired virtual reality software company Kolor in April. The French startup's software allows users to combine photos or videos to create 360-degree content.
GoPro's 16-camera array is definitely not something you can strap onto your helmet while riding down a mountain on a snowboard. It's big and weighs around six pounds. It could be strapped onto a heftier drone, the company said -- GoPro's Woodman admitted yesterday at the Code Conference that the company is working on its own drone. Instead, it will mostly be used for stationary shots with the array attached to a tripod. Prober listed off live theater performances, sports venues or even classrooms as being ideal scenarios.
“We're bullish on VR and how it's poised to transform a lot of different industries," said Prober. “This is a big long-term opportunity. I think it's difficult to predict how quickly adoption will happen. From our persecutive, we're not doing this as a near-term revenue opportunity.”
GoPro hasn't decided on a price yet, but early versions of the device will be available in July.
