GoPro officially reveals six-camera 'Omni' VR rig

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Extreme sports aficionados will soon have an official GoPro answer for capturing 360-degree spherical video and still images of their adventures, as the action cam company has finally taken the covers off of its new "Omni" rig.




Omni appears to be GoPro's in-house answer to the burgeoning virtual reality recording market, which it first entered in a tie-up with Google last year. GoPro's version uses six of the company's Hero4 Black cameras in a custom cube-like housing.

GoPro says that it has developed special technology that allows for "pixel-level synchronization" between all six cameras. The company has yet to explain that technology in more detail, but it's likely designed to reduce the amount of post-processing required to get a usable spherical video.

Pricing has yet to be announced, but the Omni will almost assuredly come in at a lower cost than the $15,000 Odyssey unit that's designed to work with Google's Jump platform. The Odyssey uses 16 Hero4 Black cameras.

GoPro will show off the new Omni unit at this month's NAB show in Las Vegas, where pricing and availability will likely be confirmed.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    These guys have had a bunch of 360 GoPro mounts for a while (including 3D rigs):
    http://shop.360heros.com/category-s/1817.htm

    (I am not affiliated with them in any way).
  • Reply 2 of 8
    dig48109dig48109 Posts: 14member
    There are better cameras from Jaunt VR which has global shutter and eliminates issues like rolling shutter and is full stereo 
    cinematic VR.  16 cameras around, 4 up and 4 down. Using the camera array to give left and right eye binocular disparity. 

    https://www.jauntvr.com/technology/

    The Omni from GoPro is okay, but there is another camera from Nikon Keymission 360 which is ruggedized and water resistant and smaller.
    Then there is the Samsung Gear 360 camera too.  
  • Reply 3 of 8
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    dig48109 said:
    There are better cameras from Jaunt VR which has global shutter and eliminates issues like rolling shutter and is full stereo 
    cinematic VR.  16 cameras around, 4 up and 4 down. Using the camera array to give left and right eye binocular disparity. 

    https://www.jauntvr.com/technology/

    The Omni from GoPro is okay, but there is another camera from Nikon Keymission 360 which is ruggedized and water resistant and smaller.
    Then there is the Samsung Gear 360 camera too.  
    Interesting, thanks.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    mtbnutmtbnut Posts: 199member
    Here's to hoping that battery life will be more than 17 minutes. 

    EVERYONE has had their Hero camera go dark 17 minutes into a mountain bike ride due to low battery. It does about 1% of what an iPhone does, yet can barely get any decent battery life. 

    Maybe GoPro should spend more on hiring battery engineers, not rockabilly surf braaahs into Big Head Todd and the Monsters in the marketing and sales departments. 
    edited April 2016
  • Reply 5 of 8
    dig48109dig48109 Posts: 14member
    mtbnut said:
    Here's to hoping that battery life will be more than 17 minutes. 

    EVERYONE has had their Hero camera go dark 17 minutes into a mountain bike ride due to low battery. It does about 1% of what an iPhone does, yet can barely get any decent battery life. 

    Maybe GoPro should spend more on hiring battery engineers, not rockabilly surf braaahs into Big Head Todd and the Monsters in the marketing and sales departments. 
    17 mins! Wow mine lasts 4 - 5 mins with a brand new Hero GoPro I bought. It was my 2nd one I bought after the first had issues. GoPro quality control is quite poor. I also met a GoPro engineer in Hong Kong while I was on vacation partying at a club. He was from Miami and had some business in mainland China regarding their factories. Needless to say I'm not too impressed with the QA of GoPro. Of course your mileage may vary as I'm sure there are other GoPro owners who didn't have the same problems that I have. I just don't trust their products 
  • Reply 6 of 8
    staticx57staticx57 Posts: 405member
    dig48109 said:
    mtbnut said:
    Here's to hoping that battery life will be more than 17 minutes. 

    EVERYONE has had their Hero camera go dark 17 minutes into a mountain bike ride due to low battery. It does about 1% of what an iPhone does, yet can barely get any decent battery life. 

    Maybe GoPro should spend more on hiring battery engineers, not rockabilly surf braaahs into Big Head Todd and the Monsters in the marketing and sales departments. 
    17 mins! Wow mine lasts 4 - 5 mins with a brand new Hero GoPro I bought. It was my 2nd one I bought after the first had issues. GoPro quality control is quite poor. I also met a GoPro engineer in Hong Kong while I was on vacation partying at a club. He was from Miami and had some business in mainland China regarding their factories. Needless to say I'm not too impressed with the QA of GoPro. Of course your mileage may vary as I'm sure there are other GoPro owners who didn't have the same problems that I have. I just don't trust their products 
    Honest question. How do you think GoPro made any kind of name for themselves with cameras that last 4-5 minutes?
  • Reply 7 of 8
    boltsfan17boltsfan17 Posts: 2,294member
    mtbnut said:
    Here's to hoping that battery life will be more than 17 minutes. 

    EVERYONE has had their Hero camera go dark 17 minutes into a mountain bike ride due to low battery. It does about 1% of what an iPhone does, yet can barely get any decent battery life. 

    Maybe GoPro should spend more on hiring battery engineers, not rockabilly surf braaahs into Big Head Todd and the Monsters in the marketing and sales departments. 
    You must have a defective battery I assume. I've never had any battery issues with any of the GoPro cameras I have. This past summer, I did a lot of filming with my Hero 4 while driving and my battery would last hours. 
  • Reply 8 of 8
    dig48109dig48109 Posts: 14member
    staticx57 said:
    dig48109 said:
    17 mins! Wow mine lasts 4 - 5 mins with a brand new Hero GoPro I bought. It was my 2nd one I bought after the first had issues. GoPro quality control is quite poor. I also met a GoPro engineer in Hong Kong while I was on vacation partying at a club. He was from Miami and had some business in mainland China regarding their factories. Needless to say I'm not too impressed with the QA of GoPro. Of course your mileage may vary as I'm sure there are other GoPro owners who didn't have the same problems that I have. I just don't trust their products 
    Honest question. How do you think GoPro made any kind of name for themselves with cameras that last 4-5 minutes?
    GoPro made a name for themselves with a wide open market for action cameras that were durable, relatively cheap and didn't need a range finder nor screen at the back. ie. No need to review footage on the field. There wasn't much or any competition in this market space when they started off. 

    Obviously my post has to do with quality control , rather than the design. It's their manufacturing or quality assurance that's the problem. Motorola developed six sigma methodology when their manufacturing couldn't measure defects in the thousands and needed to be even more sensitive in the one in million defect. 

    Plus GoPro makes very catchy videos of what you can do with their camera. Which is why I bought one. After going through two cameras I was disappointed. I order large numbers of computers so measuring DOA is a mark of QA on the manufacturing and supplychain issues. Which Apple is generally pretty good. Vs buying say a bunch of pimped out BOXX computers.  
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