Reports surfaced this week that Nokia Technologies was preparing to unveil a virtual reality project, but few would have predicted the launch of Ozo – a camera for content creators looking to produce VR content with 360° audio and video. Make no mistake, this is not a consumer device – when Ozo is launched in the fall, it will come with an anticipated price tag in the mid-five-figures.
But it firmly stakes Nokia’s claim, even after divesting its handset arm, to continue to be a mobile R&D powerhouse, moving the goalposts in a VR segment in which several of its former rivals, such as HTC, have been developing devices in the hope of sparking new revenue streams. Launches like Ozo also help Nokia Technologies to dampen fears that it will become merely a patent generating engine, and even a troll, since it is applying its inventions to commercial products, as well as trying to maintain its old influence over the future direction of all kinds of mobile devices and experiences.
Ozo also builds on Nokia’s established reputation for camera excellence. Rival products mainly come from the specialist sector, not the handset world. Industry leader GoPro has already announced a similar offering, but aimed at the consumer sphere. GoPro’s rugged adventure cameras are very similar to the Ozo in concept, but more suited to being strapped to a parachutist. Custom rigs from RED, a company that makes cinematic cameras, also allow filmmakers to capture high quality footage, but when we saw them at the IBC conference in September 2014, those rigs lacked the upward and downward vantage points that the Ozo will have (the RED rig used three pairs of cameras facing outward to create a panoramic VR image).
The Ozo contains eight cameras with eight integrated microphones, and aside from the mount at the back of the unit to connect it to a camera rig, the unit is a grey sphere, with slightly protruding black eyes. The cameras will be manufactured in Finland, and are expected to ship in Q4 2015.
A real time playback option will allow directors and operators to see what the rig is capturing through a VR headset – the Ozo was demonstrated on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The preview mode stitches the feeds together at a lower quality so that it can be rendered in real time, while the full detail is used in post-production.
Jaunt Studies, a VR production company, was first to pledge support for Ozo, and says it will be offering the camera for use in its own studios, as well as support the post-production process for Ozo content.
“We’re thrilled to introduce Ozo to the content creation world, and to define a completely new category of virtual reality capture and playback solutions,” said Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia Technologies. “We expect that virtual reality experiences will soon radically enhance the way people communicate and connect to stories, entertainment, world events and each other. With Ozo, we plan to be at the heart of this new world.”
VR in the mobile arena:
That Nokia Technologies was preparing to unleash a VR project was first spotted by Re/code back in April. The plans were billed as the most significant consumer hardware launch from Nokia since it sold its handset business to Microsoft – a deal which was written off for nearly $8bn last week.
However, Ozo shows Nokia skirting around the mass consumer market which deserted it post-iPhone. The firm’s Here mapping division is on the verge of being sold to a consortium of German automakers, as part of their connected car ambitions. Aside from the N1 tablet – a Foxconn device based on the Nokia reference design and carrying its brand – Nokia Technologies has avoided developing consumer electronics products so far – though Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri has confirmed it may re-enter handsets next year, by licensing its name and designs to one or more partners on the same basis as the N1.
For now, Nokia Technologies is looking more like the Finnish giant’s labs of old, breaking new ground in hi-tech, with inventions that may find their way into mass market devices, but in the future. VR is quite a step away from Nokia’s current main business, which is selling networking infrastructure.
But Nokia’s past involvement with smartphones, and retention of significant engineering capability in this area, will have shown it the great potential that systems like Google Cardboard (at the very low end) and Samsung’s Gear VR (at the high end) have to turn smartphones into portable VR experiences.
But with Ozo, Nokia’s isn’t focused on devices that would display VR content, but on the capture itself. That is a little surprising, as from the outside at least, Nokia’s experience and assets would suit mobile devices more than film cameras. The Ozo units could be using cameras found in phones (perhaps linked through its relationship with Carl Zeiss), although that seems unlikely given the rumored five-figure price tag.
The gist of the mobile VR experience is that the phone is placed inside a headset adapter that positions the screen in front of the user’s eyes. The screen is then divided into two, and two separate stereoscopic images are displayed in order to trick the brain into seeing a 3D image. Cardboard just holds the phone in place, and as such can be assembled using only cardboard – hence the name.
The Samsung Gear VR adapter contains additional lenses, sensors, and a touch control interface – for which Samsung charges upwards of $200, and requires either its Note 4 or S6 flagships. It was developed in partnership with Oculus.
On the non-mobile side of things, Oculus’ Rift leads the way, with some $2bn in funding and a close-to-ready headset with which video gamers will be very familiar. A launch is expected early in Q1 2016, and of course, the company’s acquisition by Facebook highlighted another reason why VR is such a hot topic. The web majors are working it into their efforts to define the user experience of the future, for all kinds of screens, and believe that a VR-oriented interface can be extended from specialist uses into everyday applications, generating new services and targeted marketing opportunities.
Elsewhere in video gaming, dominant distribution platform Steam (owned by Valve) has partnered with HTC to produce the HTC Vive headset and the SteamVR developer kit.
The Steam-HTC device is very similar to the Rift, and was revealed at this year’s Mobile World Congress, some 2.5 years after the Rift burst onto the scene via Kickstarter. Plugged into a powerful computer, leveraging the heftier graphics processors found in dedicated gaming machines, both the Vive and the Rift will essentially tether a user to a PC – via a wired connection.
Sony is also involved in VR with its Project Morpheus device. An accessory to the PlayStation 4, Morpheus is very similar to the Rift and Vive – but uses the PS4 to render the graphics. Microsoft won a hardware deal with Oculus that will see every Rift sold with a bundled Xbox controller, and strong suggestions that the Xbox would eventually be able to be used with the Rift – which is radical, given that the intensive requirements of the Rift far outclass what is capable out of the current generation of consoles.
This suggests that streaming from a cloud-rendering environment to the headset via the console is a likely model for future, more intensive, gaming titles – given that console versions of current flagship video game titles suffer significantly in terms of playback benchmarks compared to the PCs that will be powering the Rift and Vive. Asking the consoles to do more rendering legwork isn’t feasible – but Microsoft has its Azure experience to bring to bear here, and Sony has now acquired the two-leading cloud-gaming companies OnLive and Gaikai.
On the software and applications side of things, NextVR announced the live-streaming of the International Champions Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barcelona – the first ever such broadcast of a soccer game.
With five different perspectives from which viewers can choose, the idea of VR is to provide a middle way between a very expensive ticket to an exclusive game or event, and the less compelling user experience of pay-per-view. NextVR has tested its live delivery platform with the NBA, NHL, MLB, Nascar (later this year) and US Golf Open – leaving only the NFL to win over.
Highlights from the game, as well as “other premium experiences” (think tours, backstage interviews are available, and this format looks like it will be a successful one. It gives the content owners, the sports leagues or music artists, ways of reaching audiences that are willing to pay more for a new and compelling experience, facilitated by the growing penetration of compatible smartphones. All the user needs is a headset and a strong WiFi connection, and they can immerse themselves in a VR environment with the phone they carry with them every day.