Virtual reality has a reality problem–as in, it doesn’t always feel that real.
Until now, many camera systems used to produce VR have created 360-degree video by stringing together a number of individual cameras. Now Nokia has created a purpose-built system that captures not only 360 degrees of video, but also sound. The Finnish company–once a global giant dominating the cell phone market, but more recently an afterthought in that business–has built the Ozo, a brand-new high-end, professional-quality camera it hopes will become the standard for shooting VR in the film, sports, news, and music businesses, among others.
The $60,000 Ozo is being unveiled this evening at a glitzy press event in Los Angeles complete with a live VR broadcast of a rock show being played on the rooftop of the famous Capitol Records building in Hollywood.
For VR to succeed, it’s essential that those aforementioned industries have access to good tools for creating top-notch content. With the release earlier this month of Samsung’s Gear VR, and the launch over the next half-year of higher-end systems like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Sony’s PlayStation VR, we’re on the precipice of the consumer VR era, and users will demand content that justifies their purchase of VR hardware.
A PiperJaffray report estimates that the market for VR content will be worth $5.4 billion by 2025, while a study from Digi-Capital suggests that the entire VR industry will be a $30 billion annual business by 2020. PiperJaffray says that number will be $62 billion by 2025.
Nokia is aiming for the Ozo to be an essential tool in the creation of those billions of dollars in content by combining the ability to record both video and sound in 360 degrees. That’s something Nokia Technologies president Ramzi Haidamus says will make the Ozo a “category-definer,” and a “game-changing” device that “enables a deeper human connection and empathy between storyteller and the person seeing the experience.”
Sound is at least 50% of that dynamic. “What we’ve been saying,” Haidamus says, “is that the only way for me to get you to look behind you, or to the left of you or the right of you” in VR is with directional sound.
