360° VIDEO

LEXUS + yellowBird + YouTube = WIN!

2011-03-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

"Standard" Video from the event is not 360, but provides a great comparison with the 360 experience.

A screenshot from http://www.youtube.com/lexusfrance showing the new LEXUS CT 200h in front of Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye that was the canvas for a spectacular special effects show.

It is not the first 360 video that yellowBird has placed on YouTube, but it is the first to show off their new hotspotting linkage to more video experiences. LEXUS choose yellowBird to document their Netherlands launch part of the new LEXUS CT 200h, the world's first full hybrid luxury compact vehicle. Document they did.

Visuals go off around the LEXUS CT 200h on the facade of the Chateau.

The project is home to at least eight different 360 video experiences, each accessible from the same YouTube page via the "L" icons placed around you from the start of the first video. As you click and drag to look around you, you see that you are in the middle of the event from the start. Before you, graphic projections dance across the facade of Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the new Lexus appears in the foreground illuminated by the light show. To your right, a small lit up tent seems to be where the pulsing drumbeat supporting the show is eminating. You click on the LEXUS icon above it and are taken inside the little tent to a viewpoint right on the drummer's set. With the 360 control, you can watch the drum solo rain down on the skins all around you.

Medi makes it rain beats

You have to back out to the previous video to proceed here, which I think is a flaw, but a very small one. The next icon you find in the original video leads you inside the big tent, where the party is going on.

There you are, in front of the showcased CT 200h. Lexus icons becon you to explore more. One sits above the car and one in the distance above the stage. Clicking on the car icon, you are taken for a drive down a European country lane with a beautiful driver. If you've ever tried to shoot video inside a car in the daytime, you know that contrast between light inside and briter light outside can be difficult, but the yellowBird shooters found a way around that with their new camera from Point Grey Research, the Ladybug 3. The experience is extremely immersive here.

There is even an option to go outside the vehicle as it drives down the lane. Clicking "VUE EXTERIEURE" will place you on the hood of the car for the drive. Clicking "RETOUR" will take you back to the party to check out the live music from Medi. They start the set with the first single, "How Would You Do It?" off the new album, You Got Me (Moving). The camera is well placed between the act and the audience, allowing you view whatever you want. Like all 360 videos from music events, the online viewer should have the best seat in the house. There is also another tune option, "Like a Runaway" to explore.

All together this LEXUS project by yellowBird for YouTube is one of the most immersive online experiences yet, will likely turn the heads of marketing executives around the world, and maybe even collect a few web awards. All involved certainly deserve too.

As an immersive video evangelist, I do have some criticisms of the project, however. First of all, this project has a limited field of view in that the viewer is blocked from looking straight up and on the initial home video, this design decision has consequences. The very top of the beautiful architecture of the Chateau is cutoff, giving me the sense that I can't really see everything including the very top of the amazing visuals that the project is build around in the first place. Dislike. My second issue is less severe, but odd none the less. For some reason, when the viewer pauses the video (say to grab a screenshot) the 360 navigation becomes locked and the LEXUS icons disappear. Both of these issues are new to yellowBird projects, and I hope they don't represent a trend.

When Immersive Media demostrated its live streaming 360 video capabilities, it reduced the zenith view in order to save on bandwidth for the stream, essentially determining that the view above the camera of the ceiling wasn't worth the transmission costs. Personally, I think it is the freedom of movement that engages the user and the zenith is a big part of that, it's another whole dimension to explore. Removing it didn't work for the now defunct Immersive Media and I don't think it works well here.

One reason yellowBird or LEXUS may have made this design decision is to aid first time users of the 360 video, who do tend to get lost around the zenith view as they learn the navigation controls. There has long been a learning curve to this new medium, and for some, like my mother, it is simply too steep. As a large commercial project, the reason would be understandable, but with many very inexpensive 360 degree "cylindrical" video technologies emerging, yellowBird may need to brand their offering in contrast to the cheap stuff.

More to come in the next post about some of those very cheap options for 360 video coming online, but here's a new one that has received a lot of attention today, which is good, because they are depending on crowdsourcing the development via Kickstarter.com - http://kck.st/hAJdUX. Considering that GoPano is already 15% to their goal in just half of the first day bodes well for the project. You might want to consider backing it, you know, since you're reading this blog and all...

BTW, thank you for reading.

Welcome to Immersive Video from Condition ONE

2011-03-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

My Freedom Or Death - Condition ONE Beta from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.

www.conditionONE.com

Taken from DSLR NEWS Shooter:

Fresh from his documentary win at Sundance, cinematic journalist Danfung Dennis has announced some early details of his next project called Condition ONE. It looks to be a highly immersive virtual reality video project which Danfung hopes will allow viewers to experience news events more fully.

Danfung hasn’t disclosed too much detail about the actual system used other than to say it is based on a Canon video-capable DSLR which can capture the entire human field of view as a distorted circular image. The image is subsequently projected onto the inside of a dome for immersive viewing. The same image can also be displayed on an Ipad app which allows the user to pan around the video image as it plays.

The video [above] shows just how it would work and was shot not in a sterile test environment but rather on the frontlines in Libya, by photojournalist Patrick Chauvel. The new technology gives the viewer a totally different sense of what is happening.

Danfung Dennis on the project - “Visual imagery can be a powerful medium for truth. The images of napalmed girls screaming by Nick Ut, the street execution of a Vietcong prisoner by Eddie Adams, the shell-shocked soldier by Don McCullin – these iconic images have burned into our collective consciousness as reminders of war’s consequences.

But, this visual language is dying. The traditional outlets are collapsing. In the midst of this upheaval, we must invent a new language. Condition ONE combines the power of the still image and storytelling, the emotional engagement of tactile experiences, and the compelling nature of being an active participant in an effort to pioneer a new language that is so immersive, that it will shake viewers out of their numbness to traditional media and provide them a powerful emotional experience. Instead of opening a window to glimpse another world, we are attempting to bring the viewer into that world.

Our early prototype camera uses a Canon DSLR to capture the entire human field of view. It creates a highly distorted circular image. Once that image is projected onto the inside of a dome (image a sphere cut in half), the distortion melts away, giving the viewer a visceral sense that they are in the scene- the traditional frame no longer exists.. We have developed a virtual version of this dome for the iPad, which uses the full capabilities of the device. Condition ONE is developing next generation stories for next generation platforms.

Through our work we hope to shake people from their indifference to war, and to bridge the disconnect between the realities on the ground and the public consciousness at home. By bearing witness and shedding light on another’s pain and despair, we are trying to invoke our humanity and a response to act. Is it possible that war is an archaic and primitive human behavior that society is capable of advancing past? Is it possible that the combination of photojournalism, filmmaking and technology can plead for peace and contribute to this future?”

About Danfung Dennis:
Danfung has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2006. His images have been published in Newsweek, Time and The New York Times. His footage in PBS Frontline Obama’s War was nominated for a 2010 Emmy Award. His documentary, Hell and Back Again, won the World Cinema Jury and Cinematography Awards at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. He is the founder and CEO of tech/media startup Condition ONE. His background is in Applied Economics and Business Management, consulting small and medium sized enterprises in emerging markets.

You can find out more about Condition ONE here.

LOUIS VUITTON brings Paris Fashion Week 2011 to you in 360° Video

2011-03-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Screenshot from 360° Video from the Front Row of the Louis Vuitton Fashion Show

yellowBird, the busiest 360 video production company alive today, has done it again, and this time, they've done it with serious style. Fashion icon Louis Vuitton tapped the Netherlands-based team led by Marc Groothelm to bring the world to the front row of its Fashion Show at Paris Fashion Week 2011. According to The Telegraph:

"Widely said to be a "money no object" event for the multi-billion pound French luxury brand, the show was staged in a massive black tent in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum, with a cast of saucy French maids with feather dusters, four hotel doormen, and 67 models, including Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. The models were ferried up to the stage in four gilded elevators, inspired by those in Claridge's Hotel in London."

The user experience is almost as elegant as one would imagine the actual experience of the show was. Once at the website, a full screen time lapse video begins panning the courtyard at The Louvre as the enormous black tent is erected. Upon entering the website, the user is provided with three options: Sit in the front Row, Watch the Show with [Designer] Mark Jacobs, or Enter the Insider's Experience. Sit in the Front Row is an incredibly immersive, 12 minute experience of the Fashion Show itself. Sitting in the front row, with the ability to watch the models from all angles as they file by is (almost) as good an experience as actually being there.

Watch the Show with Mark Jacobs is traditional video footage of the desginer and assistant watching the Fashion Show and providing detailed commentary on the designs. When you click on Enter the Insider's Experience, you'll be asked to login to Facebook and "Like" the Louis Vuitton Facebook Page in order to get the Insider's content, which begins with another 360 video.

This time you are outside in the Louvre Courtyard again, walking through swaying, black balloons towards the enormous black tent. You realize almost immediatey that you are being given the actual visitor's expereince upon entering the Fashion Show. As you enter the shadowy halls, the audio of the show's last minute preparations fill you ears. You pass through an empy hair and makeup area full of mirrors and the sounds of the dressing room during the show make a sharp contrast. A label appears in the middle of the screen, unmoved by clicking and dragging. When moused over, an HD video from behind the scenes in the dressing room begins. Each of the scenes throughout, have additional content embedded into the 360 video.

This is another brilliant use of 360 video that yellowBird has been employing lately, as a container for a larger media package. It's a logical layout and one that is intuitive with hotspotting and linkage.

Over all, I think Louis Vuitton will be winning website awards up and down the internets with this online experience and yellowBird is slated to release a number of new client works in coming weeks.

Can't wait to see what the future holds, but with Kolor announcing the launch of their own 360 degree video player requiring no plugin through WebGL and HTML5-based browsers, yellowBird seems to realize that staying on top is not going to be easy.

Congratulations to all involved on this incredible project!

Oscar Night in 360° Video: BigLook360 Scores the Big Gig!

2011-02-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

There have been some extraordinary 360 video projects lately from NorthStudio360’s Nimmo Bay Experience, which has gone organically viral with 25 million views, to Craig Werden’s surreal “Are We” concept music video.

If it doesn’t quite seem like 360 degree, interactive video technology is showing up everywhere yet, it just might after tomorrow night's 83rd Academy Awards.

from https://oscar.go.com/my-oscars/all-access"Oscar All Access is a new premium service that gives Oscar fans the ultimate view of Hollywood's biggest night. Beginning with the Red Carpet, and continuing through the Governor's Ball, Oscar All Access members will get unprecedented, behind the scenes access and see the event like never before. With exclusive access to our groundbreaking "360 cam" technology, members can direct their own Oscar experience with just the touch of a mouse."
[UPDATED 2-27-2011]

"It's like standing next to someone," said BigLook360's CEO and founder, Lance Loesberg. "You're right there."

I've blogged about some of Lance's work at BigLook360 before, both their excellent Travel Texas project and their recording of the Implosion of Texas Stadium. This time, they've landed the ultimate proof-of-concept project. The right clients, audience, and expectations, I think, will combine here to push the 360 degree, spherical, immersive (official term yet to evolve) video medium over the summit of critical mass awareness. It has been a long climb up, with several dangers along the way, but 360 video (the term I've settled on here) is almost there.

The new Lexus car ads are touting "a virtual 360 degrees of video" around their cars. Trust me this feature is awesome while driving. When I was on the road shooting content for Google StreetView with Immersive Media's Dodeca camera on the roof of the car, I could keep the viewer control pointed at my significant blind spot in the VW Beetle we drove (this was mostly due to the equipment in the back seat). As we drove, we also talked about how helpful the video would be if we had an accident. Sony has already produced the first consumer 360 degree video camera in the Sony Bloggie, and mobile apps from such mega-stars as the Black-Eyed Peas are featuring 360 video content. Now, with an all access pass the second biggest TV broadcast of the year available online, producers will find the perfect compliment to any live event.

So, what will Oscar All Access look like? Well, it seems that like MATIVision's Muse Concert at Wembley Stadium, the viewer will have a group of 360 cameras to choose from in addition the ability to look around in each camera position. Celebrities that seated near these camera's will get full-time camera time.

What kind of cameras will they be using on Oscar night? According to the press release that was picked up by the Associated Press and further distributed, "Inside each [camera] are 11 separate cameras feeding a constant stream of video online." The only 360 video camera out there (only two types were ever sold commercially) that functions on an eleven sensor array is the Immersive Media Dodeca 2360. Big Look 360 was a client of Immersive Media, working with their cameras on several projects (see links above), but where are they getting six Dodecas for this project?

The reason I asked is that Immersive Media still has a website up, but is no longer an ongoing concern as the company changed its name and business focus (to "clean" coal investments, of all things) last summer. I know. I was an employee of Immersive Media until they suddenly pulled resources from the company to invest in energy sector enterprises. The marketing department was laid off/fired as well as several others in January 2008, at the extreme height of the global economic collapse, followed by round after round of lay offs of key positions in a very small business, until finally, change came to Immersive Media in June 2010. Everybody was let go and the doors were closed at the offices in Portland and Dallas.

The new company, Emberclear, has now resumed trading on the Toronto Venture Exchange and recently thanked two departing board members, Geoff Rhoads and Winston Guillory, who helped guide the company through its transition stating, "Both directors have been champions on behalf of our shareholders with their ability to embrace the facts and accept the logical conclusions no matter how difficult." Logical conclusions? What were those? Were they published? According Emberclear's own documents where it has repeatedly stated that the "camera business" has been undergoing a "strategic review" and all operations have been discontinued. No conclusions from this review have been revealed to investors in Immersive Media Corporation (now Emberclear) whose share value was significantly diluted in the awkward, year-long transition. The regulators who approved the transition might be interested to know what this Oscar announcement from Big Look 360 seems to indicate, that it is still doing “camera business” with Emberclear/Immersive Media. Something fishy there.

In fact, one would guess that since Emberclear has so publicly devalued its own "camera business", Lance Loesburg and Big Look 360 must have gotten a great deal on the six Immersive Media cameras they'll be using tomorrow night .

A great deal is about the only reason I can think of for Big Look 360 to use Immersive Media cameras on this project. Compared to commercially available Ladybug 3 cameras from Point Grey Research, the resolution of the now ten year old design of the Dodeca is terrible, with its eleven sensors being only of VGA quality. Resolution will be key to spotting celebrities and digitally stalking them. Ladybug 3 cameras have recently been used for tests on NASA's new Mars Rover, Google's Art Project, and even the new companies that Immersive Media's former CEO has started, Immersive Ventures and 3D360, which is a partnership with Edo Segal and Will.i.am and built the BEP360 iPhone app. It was used in the first 360 video on YouTube, Professor Green's "Coming to Get Me" which also has iPhone app for Doritos' multi-million dollar "Late Night" campaign. It is surprising that with an ultra-high profile event like the Oscars, Big Look 360 would not choose to use the current state of the art and resolution standard. Then again, this is a proof-of-concept project and a deal is a deal, and who knows, the curtains may drawback tomorrow night and we'll see six Ladybug 3 cameras around the venue.

Oscar Night's All Access "Invitation" will cost $4.99, and I think they have the right price point for this. My only question is in the complete exclusivity of the service to only paying customers. This is a new medium that most people have never experienced and you want them to give it a try, right? Give them a little taste... Open up one camera for free, and the content and human curiosity will sell many more subscribers. Once viewers have had a chance to explore a live event like this, they will pay five bucks to get five more camera feeds.

While I usually join the hundreds of millions of other viewers on Oscar night, I DVR it and come back later. I have to admit that this news gets me really interested in watching the live broadcast. They'll get my five bucks on Oscar Night, will they get yours?

Congrats to Big Look 360 on the big, big gig! Break a leg.

[UPDATE]
John Lasseter, a member of the Academy, creative officer for Disney and Pixar, said: "It's going to give the viewer at home more access to the Oscars ceremony than even people going to the Oscars".
from http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-02/25/oscars-360-degree-livestream

Christian Bale

Mario Lopez

Donald Trump

Helena Bonham Carter

Taking a Photo on the Grand Staircase

Some guy texting

The Smiths Johnny Marr spotted being interviewed right next to the 360 video cam

The Black Eyed Peas New iPhone App featuring 360° Video!

2011-01-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Look just about anywhere else to find out more information about the new BEP360 app. Check out TechCrunch, will.i.apps, or Twitter #BEP360 for the latest updates. The press release from the newly minted will.i.apps, a mobile app development company, is copied below. If you're hoping to learn more about the 360 degree video behind the app, then you found the right place.

On Monday, The Black Eyed Peas launched their new iPhone app. The world has been re-re-introduced to the new medium of 360 degree video. Congrats to everyone involved in the project, especially the dedicated team of engineers in Dallas that have really pulled off a real feat here despite some incredibily difficult situations over the last year or two or three.

The BEP360 app (available for $2.99 at the App Store here) was brought to you by a number of parties, will.i.am, Edo Segal of Futurity Ventures, a new company called 3D360 and, likely, a half dozen ad and pr agencies, but who shot the 360 video, and with what camera? Who developed the mobile app (which is the true tech breakthrough here)? Why can't I experience the 360 video for this project on my computer via a Flash player and embed here on the blog?

Readers will notice the name of 3D360's CEO, Myles McGovern, as the former CEO of the 360 video pioneering company, Immersive Media, which,in the last year, changed it's name to Emberclear and released Mr. McGovern of his duties. 3D360 is a joint venture of Immersive Ventures (where you can see a pretty great video of Fergie's first experience with 360 video) and Futurity Ventures (appears to be a placeholder website).

Myles McGovern (with Craig Adkins)
applying bubble gum to the problem

Full disclosure: I used to work for Mr. McGovern at Immersive Media and often admired his stamina when dealing with adversity. I was impressed once at a company picnic when we were trying to shoot a fun video with the camera's inventor, David McCutchen, and the camera malfunctioned. Among a group that included the head cameraman, several daily shooters, the camera's inventor, and the service team, it was Myles that saved the shoot by (and I'm not kidding here) making an electrical connection with a paper clip and chewing gum.

the bubble gum fix

Myles, David, and I in line with camera for rollercoaster

That's me upside down next to David's helmet 360 cam

Whether or not it was a good idea to put the camera on David's head for a G-force-based rollercoaster ride, is another discussion entirely. David suffered no ill-effects from the rickety old ride in Oaks Bottom Park in Portland, OR, and it made for a great demostration video. Unfortunately, like a lot of the good things shot for fun and profit at Immersive Media, I'm not able to share them with you as they are no longer online. The company's website is still up, but Emberclear (the new/old parent company behind it) has been very clear about its discontinuation of operations of what it calls (rather passive aggressively) "it's camera business" and is now a "clean coal" investment firm. I know, right? Investors who bought in during the heady days of Immersive Media's agreement with Google to provide content for Street View were left scratching their heads as the company fell apart, the stock price plummeted then flat lined, and eventually changed names and business focus entirely.

So, it seems that Mr. McGovern has embarked on a new venture with 3D360 and Immersive Ventures, and I wish him and the team with him continued great success, but what camera are they using? From photos on the Immersive Ventures web site, it would seem that they shot the BEP360 video with a Ladybug 3 Spherical video camera from Point Grey Research.

BEP360 appears to be powered by Immersive Ventures i360TM Player, which says it includes sample videos but lets you download and install additional media. It also says that it creates simulated 3D for stereo viewing mode and has anaglyph 3D playback. Both of these concepts have not been seen before. There is a software developr's kit (SDK) for i360 that lets developers create their own iPhone apps that provide smooth playback of spherical videos on mobile devices. It supports both finger drag and motion navigation. They also mention a desktop player for local viewing of spherical videos, but there is no mention of an online player, which may also be the reason they don't have any of their own 360 videos on their website or why there isn't an online version of the BEP360 video at blackeyedpeas.com, will.i.apps, or 3D360's site. Seems to me that the app is worth the $3 for the "motion navigation" alone, and giving users a 360 experience online (where they still have to use the mouse) would only sell more apps, but I could be wrong. More than likely, it's a timing call and the online version will pop up in one of these places, eventually.

The point is that the mobile device with augmented-reality-like "motion navigation" is a great user experience with 360 degree video. It removes the disconnect between the users eyes and the mouse and reduces the learning curve for the first-time viewer to about half a second. Just like head-mounted display devices like vr goggles, with the mobile device, the user only has to make a gesture to look around and immediately gets the fact that they are surrounded by video content for the first time. As you can see in the before mentioned video of Fergie being introduced to the content, the reactions are often those of amazement and excitement. Read the comments at any place discussing 360 video for the last three years, they are overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic. People love this stuff.

This may be the project that pushes 360 degree video out front for the critical mass of attention it has needed to gain wide-acceptance, but we have hoped for this before. There is no doubt that with will.i.am backing mobile development in this area, and suddenly being announced as Intel's new Director of Creative Innovation that 360 video's time may very well have come.

will.i.am rocking his new Intel badge

From the Press Release:

THE BLACK EYED PEAS DEBUT IN WORLD’S FIRST 360-DEGREE MOBILE MUSIC VIDEO CREATED BY will.i.apps

New ‘BEP360’ App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch Takes Fans Inside “The Time (Dirty Bit)” with 360-Degree Motion Control and Augmented Reality Developed by Peas Front Man will.i.am

LOS ANGELES January 24, 2010 - Music industry pioneer and front man of The Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am, today announced the iTunes App Store launch of BEP360, an iPad, iPhone and iPod touch app that immerses fans in a 360 degree universe of the legendary music group. Featuring the world’s first 360-degree view music video (“The Time 360”), BEP360 features the song “The Time (Dirty Bit),” the first single from new CD, “The Beginning”, now available on Interscope Records.

BEP360 is the first release from will.i.apps, will.i.am’s new digital media production entity dedicated to pioneering and producing application-based entertainment experiences. BEP360is the first in a line of upcoming applications that will converge the worlds of creativity, music and advanced digital technologies.

Thirty years after the first music video aired on MTV, the will.i.apps team has reinvented how fans can be further immersed in the world of their favorite artists by pointing and swinging an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad around a 360-degree axis that then changes the point of view. An entirely new form of music video, BEP360 uses digital teleportation to take fans deeper inside the world of The Black Eyed Peas. A demo of BEP360 app featuring The Black Eyed Peas and the making-of behind the scenes video can be seen at: http://www.williapps.com.

“will.i.apps and the BEP360 app have been established to help artists tap into the potential of our hyper-connected mobile world and bring fans deeper inside the music far beyond a four minute audio

recording. It’s a unique and completely new way to experience 360 degree music immersion that will bring artists and fans closer together,” said will.i.am.

Key Features of BEP360

•Point iPad, iPhone and iPod touch device at the cover artwork of the band’s latest album, The Beginning (Interscope Records) and watch augmented reality take form with BEP avatars dancing to the beat

•Direct a virtual photo session with Fergie, will.i.am, apl.de.ap &Taboo allowing users to capture their own shots and share them.

•Stay up to date on everything about the Peas via an aggregated Twitter feed

•Play an addictive Peas-inspired puzzle game

•View pictures and comments posted by other BEP360 app users on a virtual earth

The BEP360 app is available for $2.99 from the App Store on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, or at www.bit.ly/bep360app.

will.i.apps partnered with Metaio to facilitate the cutting edge augmented reality experience bringing the Peas into the fans world. 3D360, the technology leader in 3D360 video was also part of the team that pioneered this ground breaking platform allowing capture, and then play back of the unique 360 degree video. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to allow fans to get closer to The Black Eyed Peas and realize will.i.am’s vision of the first mobile 3D360 music video,” commented 3D360 CEO Myles McGovern.

About will.i.apps

will.i.apps (http://www.williapps.com) is a digital media company focused on delivering ground- breaking entertainment applications for mobile devices. Co-founded by music industry pioneer, producer and

The Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am and Edo Segal of Futurity Ventures, a New York-based Innovation Engine, will.i.apps partners with leading artists to bring their creative universes to life by embracing the power of mobile apps. Fans can also visit www.blackeyedpeas.com/apps to learn about futureBEP360 apps.

# # #

Media Contacts:

Rogers & Cowan for will.i.apps

Sallie Olmsted

310-854-8124

solmsted@rogersandcowan.com Interscope

Hillary Siskind

212-841-8055

hillary.siskind@umusic.com

Heli Hallelujah! 360° Video Over Nimmo Bay, Vancouver Island

2011-01-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

Click the FULL SCREEN ICON on the player for total immersion!

northStudio360 created this stunning 360° video for Nimmo Bay Helicopter Fishing and Wilderness Adventures

[UPDATE: Nimmo Bay Helicopters and northStudio360 have received over 2 million views on this video since it made the front page of The Huffington Post]

Sweeping through a high mountain landscape in a helicopter is an experience few will ever have. Hanging outside that helicopter with an unobstructed field of view, is an experience no one should have...in real life, anyway.

Online, the freedom of 360° video taken from such a vantage is breath-taking. Set to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as sung by The Canadian Tenors, this 360° video takes you to places normally reserved for eagles and gives you their field of view. Ryan Whitehead, of northStudio360, created the video by first designing a unique 360° camera rig from 6 prosumer grade cameras. He built the camera array solidly enough to withstand the rigors of external helicopter shooting, and evidently devised a means of dampening the vibration that normaly makes heli-mounted shooting so difficult. This was only his first acheivement as part of this project.

Next, Ryan had to "stitch" the imagery from all six cameras into a unified image. There are a number of excellent stitching software tools available for stitching still images, but stitching video is not a simple function command in those packages. northStudio360 seems to have also developed a new "video merging" software as their media release states.

Ryan told me via Facebook, "We constructed a aerial 360 camera rig built from consumer cameras and just stuck them on the end of a pole. I then took the videos and with my own workflow, stitched it all together". Sounds simple, right? Trust me, it's not. There are difficult challenges to that workflow that resulted in a spectacular experience here.

Delivering that experience required a unique video player also, and for that, Ryan turned to yellowBird, the Netherlands-based firm behind so many recent events in the 360° video world. The interactive, spherical yellowBird video player is social media enabled and powerfull enough to deliver a smooth experience with the content. In full screen, the viewer is immersed in the scenery and the sound, with video controls available when needed, but disappearing when not. Controlling the field of view in this video, following a mountain peak as the helicopter flys by, peering into a glacial crevasse as you float over it, swerving back and forth as you cruise upriver just feet over the water, all of it is simply marvelous to experience.

My hope is that everyone with an internet connection around the world gets to have this experience and what are sure to be many more from Ryan Whitehead, northStudio360, and yellowBird.

It is beauty for beauty's sake, and it is quite a ride. It will also, likely, sell a lot of helicopter flights.

Ryan's team has also put together a fantastic virtual tour for Nimmo Bay Helicopter, Fishing, & Wilderness Adventures

360° Video on YouTube!

2010-10-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

Taken from http://www.youtube.com/user/Doritosuk

Click on the full screen button for complete immersion

Doritos latest ad campaign allows fans to interact with their brand through music, and they chose 360° video to immerse viewers in engaging experiences from talented musicians around the world. The UK's Professor Green provided a specially written track, "Coming To Get Me", to accompany one of several 360° videos created for the campaign.

For the full experience, visit http://www.doritoslatenight.com/

This 360° video is ground breaking on a number of levels. First, it's on YouTube. I don't know how often YouTube allows for a custom player to play custom content of this sort, but Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb found that noteworthy. The player comes from yellowBird, who has produced a number of well-received 360° video projects over the last two years. The player, which is an embeddable widget, allows for easy navigation of the 360° content, full screen button, social media sharing options, and an "unwrapped" version of the video with the 2D button.

YouTube is the internet's biggest video distribution platform and acceptance of yellowBird's 360° video player there opens many doors for the Dutch startup and strengthens their position as the leader in the medium.

Also ground-breaking here is the resolution of this video. This is one of the first productions I've seen using Point Grey Research's Ladybug 3 camera, which provides significantly higher resolution despite a reduced frame rate. The production was apparently shot by Transmission TX in London, who have posted a number of production photos at their site of the swanky camera chair they have developed. Outfitted with LED lighting under the Ladybug 3, as well as an operator and the necessary hardware, the action was directed around the chair as it moved through the set in one continuous take .

"Coming To Get Me" has probably the highest production value of any 360° video made to date. The set was built specifically for the medium and considerable effort was made to stage a performance that fills the sphere of view with something worth watching...hot zombie girls!

Additional components of the effort include a Rihanna Augmented Realty music video that is "unlocked" with an AR code found on a bag of Doritos Late Night chips. The "Late Night" campaign is Doritos' first ever global promotion and was created out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners with AMV BBDO, who recruited director Chris Cairns.

A job well done from all of the creative teams involved that is sure to sell a bag of chips or two, but more importantly, leave a lasting impression on anyone who interacts with it.

Here is the behind-the-scenes video from the making of Professor Green's "Coming To Get Me" 360° Video:

GigaPan via PhotoSynth: A Walk in the Gorge

2010-09-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

Wahkeena Creek
See this Photosynth on Bing Maps

This image was one of the most precarious GigaPan placements I've made yet, in the middle of the stream near splashing cascades on a moss and fern covered stump.

Differing from most of the waterfall streams in the Columbia River Gorge in that it drains from a natural spring on the rim of the Gorge, Wahkeena Creek tumbles over a steep incline on its way to the spectacular Wahkeena Falls near the bottom of the Gorge. It is also spelled "Wahkeenah" or "Wah-kee-nah" or other variations. All spellings of this word are dubious, because the word is merely an English transliteration of a Pacific Northwest Native American (reportedly Yakama) phrase meaning "most beautiful". Wahkeena Creek is along the Historic Columbia River Highway, about 13 miles (21 km) east of Troutdale, Oregon. A short hike uphill from the parking lot at the base leads to the stone bridge that crosses the main part of the falls. That trail continues on east to Multnomah Falls, the next falls down the road.

BBC Brings Viewers Onto The Set of Ideal Via yellowBird 360 Video

2010-09-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Over in the UK, BBC Three, who pride themselves on never being afraid to try new stuff, has opened up the set of Ideal to the 360 degree video cameras of yellowBird.

Now in its sixth season (or series), Ideal is a sitcom about a small-time dope dealer and his strange collection of acquaintances who drop by to buy cannabis and chat or both. The title is a pun, in case you missed it, as in "I deal".

Through the yellowBird video, fans of the show are transported into the middle of the conversation in Moz's, the lead character, living room. As the actors banter their lines back and forth, the viewer can choose to follow the conversation or watch the reaction of the others in the room. It appears that this video was shot during a dress rehearsal and provided as a featured blog post at the BBC Three website. The show's crew can be seen throughout the video, and, thus, the "fourth wall" is broken beautifully which makes this intimate offering all the more endearing to fans of the show.

It is an excellent example of how engaging 360 video content can be when there is actual production value involved. It is also representative of the advancing quality that yellowBird's production platform is getting out of its Ladybug 2 cameras from Point Grey Research. The varying lighting conditions of the set are well handled and the resolution being delivered in the quickly loading Flash player from yellowBird is better than anything seen before in this new medium.

Today, yellowBird stands virtually alone in the production of quality spherical video content. With this summer's implosion of Immersive Media, the company that first brought spherical video to the web and recently decided to transform itself from a digital media company to an energy industry investment firm (WTF?), yellowBird is brilliantly positioned to expand its service base across a huge variety of industries. Hopefully, they will learn the lessons from Immersive Media's ambitious failures and continue to keep their focus on producing quality content, only entering a market once they have built a solid offering.

It seems as if they will continue to do exactly that. Another yellowBird project recently launched with in-video navigation to provide viewers with a virtual tour of a medical facility. It's not in English, but you can take the tour and see it all at this link.

There will be much more background on the implosion/conversion/sabotage of Immersive Media to come here on the 360 Video Blog as information becomes available, but today is all about congratulations to yellowBird for another job, very well done. Check out their company website at their famously long URL:
http://www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsbuttheyflytomakeyouexperiencea3dreality.com/
or just enjoy yellowBird's fantastic Showreel below

New York 360 GigaPans in HD View

2010-08-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

I took a recent trip to NYC (my first) and brought the GigaPan robot along to shoot some of what I saw there. Below you will find embedded versions of these high resolution 360 spherical images in Microsoft's HD View player. You will need to install the HD View player to explore, but it is quick and painless, I promise. Once you're set, follow these quick instructions for truly immersive experience:

1. Click on the grid icon in the upper right hand corner to change from a rectangular to a spherical projection

2. Click on the fullscreen icon to go to fullscreen mode

3. Use your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom way in or way out on the image, which should buffer hi res tiles in moments.

The Great Hall @ Ellis Island

Times Square

Brooklyn Bridge

The "World Trade Center Mosque" Editorial

The Sphere @ Battery Park

Bethesda Fountain @ Central Park

Thomas Paine Park @ NY Supreme Court

High Resolution 360° Spherical Images

2010-08-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

Let's take a break from chatting up 360 video for this post and return to the current state of the art of 360 still imagery.

To see what I'm talking about, you'll need to install Microsoft Research's HD View. It is quick and painless, but if the frame above doesn't offer you the option, click here

From the ongoing battle between Google and Microsoft to one up each other, a pleasant convergence of technologies has allowed a really great user experience to emerge.

Click and drag on the image above to look around.
Use your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
Go to full screen in the upper right hand corner.
Since the image is spherical, make sure to toggle from normal to fisheye lens(spherical projection)by clicking the grid icon to the left of the full screen icon.
You can even adjust the lighting of the image if its too dark when you've zoomed in.

I shot this at the downtown Portland REI store with some help from Google, and the embedded player experience is provided by Microsoft. You can take a look around the store and zoom in for incredible detail. You can also zoom all the way out for a unique look at the entire sphere of view.

I won't go into how this image was made just yet, but I will just say that with the right equipment, it only took ten minutes to shoot and an hour to process. With available tools, this image can be placed in either Google Earth or Bing Maps. It is over 200 Megapixels (562 MB) and is being served on demand as a tiled mosaic just like the satellite imagery on those mapping services. Currently, there are no hosting costs associated with this image. One of the big players is taking care of that.

It represents an evolutionary step forward for online marketing applications that have historically embraced the "virtual tour" experience.

Check out the same photo on Photosynth
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=d033b078-ed66-44e5-b55b-cd35394a5a03

Here it is on Bing Maps
http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#5872/style=a&lat=45.5287235346356&lon=-122.684516827671&z=7&pid=5874/5003/0.6793=ps::mode:Explore:cid:d033b078-ed66-44e5-b55b-cd35394a5a03&o=&a=0

Open this KML file to view the image with Google Earth
http://gigapan.org/gigapans/45506.kml

Isn't it fun when we all just get along?

Here's one from my neighbor's backyard:

yellowBird @ The Party

2010-06-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

yellowBird, the Dutch 360° Video provider that stormed onto the scene last year, is out and about in New York, talking to the people at Mill Creative, but they don't just show up and have a meeting, they bring a camera and put something fun online.

The video above is not ground breaking, it's not going to "go viral", or save the planet, but it is another in a steady stream of very good 360° videos that yellowBird has put out to increase the awareness of the technology. With awareness comes demand, and that makes seemingly frivolous efforts like this a very solid business decision in the long run.

yellowBird has broken new ground recently; however, with the launch of a virtual video tour that beautifully combines "standard" video and 360° video through the application of augmented hotspots.

BATAVIA STAD Virtual Video Tour by yellowBird

There are so many things done well here that it is hard to know where to start piling on the accolades. The client is Batavia Stad, a stylish factory outlet mall near Lelystad, Netherlands.

First, let's talk about production values on this project. They actually put some thought into shooting this walking tour around the shops, and they brought in four models to guide the viewer through the experience. Three women and a man, sharply dressed and very aware of their positions relative to the moving camera. They point at information kiosks and a billboard for the malls membership card. They walk briskly, popping in and out of shops and saying hello to friends. The experience leaves the viewer with a personal connection to the place, but there is another level of interaction as well.

Floating above the models' heads, rotating golden pentagons often appear. Sometimes the floating pentagons, which is the modified logo for Batavia Stad, appear above an information kiosk or a sign. When the user clicks on the golden pentagons, a "standard" video pops up with what I imagine is information partaining to the mall's offerings at that location. I don't know because I don't speak Dutch. This augmentation is revolutionary and has long been on my wish list of compelling tools for a Video Virtual Tour.

yellowBird is also promoting a new Live Broadcasting capability that it says hundreds of clients have been asking for. I've mentioned Immersive Media's successes with IM Live here before and the extraordinary experience of watching a 360° video of a live event, like a rock concert. I can't wait to see what yellowBird is going to do first with live streaming. Hopefully, there will be multiple cameras on stage that will be accessible.

Congrats to the yellowBird team on all of their success in their first year!

Texas Stadium Implosion - BigLook360

2010-04-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

The death of an iconic stadium and an Immersive Media Dodeca 2360 Spherical Video Camera.

From Dallas, TX, where both BigLook360 and Immersive Media have offices, comes a video that is grabbing the attention of sports fans, concert goers, tech geeks, and fans of destruction alike. Sometimes you just have to say, "Let's go for it!" to make something that will appeal to a broad audience. In this case, one very special camera had to be sacrificed so that we could get a view from inside the destruction of Texas Stadium. RIP Texas Stadium and Dodeca 2360 Camera number ???

Chances are, that camera was one of the cameras I had on the VW Beetle I drove across the continent for the Google Street View project. Only one camera was lost during that project when the team drove into the parking garage at their hotel while having an argument and forgot to take the camera down first. The footage survived that incident, too, and we all had a good laugh at their expense.

BigLook360 has worked with Immersive Media before on a project for the State of Texas Department of Tourism, called Texas On Tour, that I wrote about in this blog here and here. That project remains one of the best examples of what I believe is this new medium's greatest application - virtual tourism. SlopeView's has taken the virtual tourism concept one step further by referencing the 360° video to custom map with OnSnow@Whistler.

Having grown up in Dallas, watching Texas Stadium go down came with a mixed bag of emotions. I was there when the Cowboys of the 90's launched their dynasty in front of Monday Night Football fans by whipping their rivals, the Washington Redskins, in the season opener of 1992. I was also there in 1984 when the Jackson 5 Victory came to town. The later was my first concert experience (at only 10 yrs old), and like so many other kids my age, I was a big fan of Michael Jackson. Disappointment came only from the horrific acoustics inside of Texas Stadium that even a little kid could determine that the building was no place for music.

RIP Texas Stadium and Dodeca 2360 Camera number ??? You served your functions pretty well.

What's New...

2010-04-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Readers! It's been awhile since my last blog post because I've been offline for nearly one month. So, how does one go completely offline for a month in the age of wifi, iPhones, and the rest? One must go into the wild... and stay there.

If you read my post from 3/7/2010 (Grand Canyon GigaView), you know that I've been on a Grand Canyon river trip in which I endeavored to create the first virtual tour of the Grand Canyon by river. Well, mission accomplished...almost. It's not online yet, but the images are turning out really well and they should be complete sometime in June.

The 360 degree video world has been busy over the last month with some interesting new developments. Just before we launched our rafts down the Canyon, SlopeViews launched OnSnow@Whistler, a virtual video tour of Whistler Mountain and Village. This represented a quantum leap in virtual tourism and is a project very close to my heart. Having built the project from the raw video files by accurately geolocating them on the Whistler Trail and Village Maps, I was pleased to finally be able to show the power of 360 degree video on a local level.

SlopeViews' OnSnow application is based on a new technology platform from Immersive Media called IM OnScene. According to Immersive Media's website, "IM OnScene™ pairs immersive video with an existing floorplan, blueprint, map or other document, allowing the user to follow a map visually through 360° video. IM OnScene™ works for indoor and outdoor areas, and can be referenced by any image or document."

They posted several examples at their website, but my hands down favorite is a virtual tour of the United States National Ignition Facility.

The picture above doesn't do this virtual video tour justice, but this tour gives you a rare view inside one of the most advanced facilities in the world where scientists are working on perfecting laser fusion. This image is a screen shot from inside the Target Bay area where the magic happens.

There are two new 360° videos now available from both MATIvision and yellowBird, too, but those updates will have to wait for tomorrow. I'm still on rivertime.

Cheers.

SlopeViews Launches OnSnow@Whistler: 360° VIDEO MAP

2010-03-11T13:42:00.000-08:00

Go to OnSnow@Whistler

[Full disclosure: I, Thomas Hayden, known here as UnderCam, contributed to the building of this product in coordination with Immersive Media and SlopeViews

Today SlopeViews launched OnSnow, a 360° VIDEO MAP that lets online users explore and experience a ski resort as never before. By clicking on any of the ski runs, ski lifts, or mountain facilities, the user is transported into a 360 video that allows them to look around where ever they choose.

They get to know the mountain online, where the steepest pitches are, where the best bar is at, etc. OnSnow(TM) influences the purchase decision for skiers that have a choice of several resorts to go to. They will go to the one they know.

Last month Google Maps brought StreetView to the slopes of Whistler Mountain just in before the opening of the Winter Olympics, but, for the first time ever, their map just didn't do the job. The satellite imagery doesn't mark the ski runs, lifts, or amenities. It just draws a line across a mountain and fills it with still images.

OnSnow@Whistler is alive with 360° video that can be filled with the brand message of the resort itself. The camera operator, Craig Adkins, is constantly being asked what he is doing and the experience of his breaking the "4th wall" (outdated term with this medium, I know), is kind of surreal, like eaves-dropping.

On the Village Map, the user takes a stroll past all of the hotels, condos, shops, and restaurants that Whistler has to offer.

Virtual Tourism will never be the same.

Grand Canyon GigaView

2010-03-07T14:02:00.000-08:00

On March 29th, nine friends and I will launch rafts on the Colorado River on an incredible journey. As a former whitewater raft guide and Google Map Street View imagery producer, I want to capture this journey and share it with the world.

I will be shooting GigaPan images at every stop along the river for 18 days. Taking advantage of the 360 degree panoramic range-of-motion of the GigaPan Epic 100 robotic camera mount, I intend to capture the most detail-rich and immersive images that ever been taken at the bottom of the Canyon.

With a big box of batteries and Secure Digital memory cards, I will bring back thousands upon thousands of images from all of the most amazing points of interest including hikes, beaches, geology, vistas, and waterfalls.

Using GigaPan's software to stitch these into ultra-high resolution mosaics upon my return, I will build a website, upload the images to www.gigapan.org, and to Google Earth (where GigaPan has a layer). Visitors will be able explore Grand Canyon GigaView in all of its rich detail at a number of locations online...for free.

My expenses for this project are primarily hard costs of digital storage via at least 20 Secure Digital Cards (16 GB minimum) at $1,200, $200 worth of AA batteries, and $1,100 for the boat rental for a total of $2,500. My travel and trip expenses are self-funded.

Last year, the first image that photographer David Bergen shot with his new GigaPan imager of President Barack Obama's Inauguration introduced the world to this incredible new way of seeing. Explore that image (http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/15374/) or take some time to explore the 20,000 or so GigaPan images that have been uploaded so far.

Backers for Grand Canyon GigaView will be rewarded with a virtual tour worthy of America's premier natural attraction. With successful funding, backers who contribute $50 or more to this effort will also be rewarded with the addition of their own image (subject to approval) into one of the GigaPan images as an "Easter Egg" to encourage further exploration. Those images will be featured as "Snapshots" on GigaPan.org. A corporate-level pledge of $500 will get your company logo on every GigaPan image that is published in this highly visible project.

Your support of Grand Canyon GigaView today will pay off tomorrow with hours of exploration as you and virtual tourists from around the world come along with us on our journey of a lifetime via the camera's lens.

See you on the river.

Thomas Hayden

NBC's TODAY Show in 360° Video Brings Viewer's To The Set

2010-02-16T23:02:00.000-08:00

UPDATE 2/17/2010 5:30am PST: LIVE STREAM: Interview with James Cameron, director of AVATAR, from Grouse Mountain Lodge.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35372905/ns/today-today_in_vancouver/
ARCHIVE: Matt Lauer's interview with Seth Westcott from yesterday was a great moment on the set. Check it out now in the 360 degree video.

It would seem that Immersive Media's admirable donation of services down in Haiti with CNN.com (and many other orgs) has paid off quickly with access to America's #1 Morning TV Show for NBC.com.

Check out Matt Lauer's interview with hockey legend Wanye Gretzki in 360°, interactive video, which happened earlier today, but went online tonight (Feb. 16, 2010).

Tomorrow morning (Feb. 17, 2010), NBC.com will be streaming 360° video LIVE from the set of the TODAY Show throughout the broadcast. This represents a watershed moment for the medium of 360° video and for Immersive Media as the medium's founding pioneer. Never before has 360° video been introduced to such a large audience as NBC's TODAY Show and its Olympic coverage provide.

“TODAY is known for providing its audience with a window to the world. We are thrilled to give viewers a new way to experience TODAY with imLIVE 360-degree web videos. This technology truly puts the viewer in the director’s chair,” said Larry Logan, chief marketing officer, Immersive Media. “The audience will see interviews with athletes, on-set antics amongst the anchors and more in a fresh new powerful way.”
"TODAYshow.com offers viewers exciting ways to immerse themselves in the news. With the live video stream on the set in Vancouver, they can experience one of the biggest events of the year in a very personal way,” said Catherine Captain, VP of Marketing for the Msnbc Digital Network. “We love giving viewers an insider’s perspective that they won’t find anywhere else.”

In a broadcast first, TODAY is giving viewers unprecedented access to its set at the Olympics Winter Games. TODAYshow.com will feature live, 360-degree, interactive video that allows consumers to view the TODAY set on Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain. Viewers can enjoy the Olympic set from the same perspective as Matt, Meredith, Ann and Al. TODAYshow.com will feature the live video stream from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. (EST) on February 16 and 17, 2010.

TODAYshow.com will feature one live video stream that alternates between two 360-degree cameras. One live stream provides viewers with interior views of the TODAY set in Vancouver and the other live stream captures the action outside the Grouse Mountain studio. In addition to live streams, selected segments will be available on TODAYshow.com following each broadcast. TODAYshow.com is using new imLIVE technology, created by Immersive Media, which allows viewers to see what's happening in and around the TODAY set – right from their computers. Immersive Media is a pioneer of 360-degree video, and its technology is helping TODAYshow.com deliver a one-of-a-kind interactive experience to its audience.

Congratulations to Immersive Media's Chief Marketing Officer, Larry Logan for the inspired job he and everyone in production have done to bring this new visual medium to the world's attention in recent months.

Full disclosure: I again work directly with Immersive Media as a part of SlopeViews, licensed agents of Immersive Media's technology. SlopeViews will be bringing the next generation of mountain trail maps to the ski industry as well as the next generation of "virtual tours" to the wider travel industry in days to come using Immersive Media's geodesic cameras to provide 360° video messaging and relation to the online audience.

Be sure to check out www.SlopeViews.com in the next few days to feel like a local at Whistler Mountain after exploring our SlopeView's OnSnow@Whistler 360° Video Map.

Here's a toast to the athletes of the Winter Olympics of 2010, including those courageous camera people who bring us the experience from Vancouver. Here is to many more online experiences from fascinating locations around the world in 360° video!

Cheers!

CNN Haiti: 360°

2010-01-21T16:06:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Immersive Media is now populating a BING map with 360 degree video "routes" driven with the cameras that are in Haiti and sending experiences to CNN.com.
http://www.immersivemedia.com/haiti/map/index.html

Use your mouse to click and drag around the video to change the view. You can also zoom in and out.
The video below was shot on Sunday, January 17, at 3:53 p.m. EST in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/index.2.html
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/index.html

New videos are being loaded @ www.immersivemedia.com each day. Here is the latest.

“All of us at Immersive Media are terribly saddened by the events of January 12th and want to do whatever we can to help improve the immediate and long-term situation in Haiti,” said Myles McGovern, president and CEO of Immersive Media. “As previous natural disasters have shown, detailed imagery and assessments of the affected areas are critical to relief efforts and future planning. Since many of the first responders and government organizations are not on-site in Haiti, these 360-degree videos give them an unprecedented view of the devastation from the ground level.”

Not long after the images started coming to all of us around the world from earthquake-ravaged Haiti, I started getting questions from readers, friends, and family about getting a 360° video camera down to Haiti to document the destruction and the relief efforts that we all want to help with in some way. My new coproducer at SlopeViews, James Hay, and I talked late into the night on strategies on getting to Haiti with our camera, but word came that a team was already on its way.

Today, CNN posted 360° video from that team on the ground that was shot on Sunday and Monday in Port-au-Prince. One video is very Google-Street-View-like, but it's in video. Shot from a vehicle traveling through the city, the viewer can clearly see that everything is not destroyed, but those buildings that did fall, collapsed completely. Last time, I complain about building permits.

The second video that I've embedded above is a walking tour of one of the city's parks where thousands now make their home. This new paradigm of virtual tourism allows the viewer to go inside the experience, but this is not intended as voyueristic. None of us has been able to look away from the images that have come from this disaster, nor should we. We need to this heartache to empathize and be compelled give as much as we can to the rescue and relief efforts.

Please Donate Again and Again to Help with Recovery Efforts

I have been looking forward to CNN's first use of 360° video for years now. I just wish it didn't have to be for something like this. My sources tell me that this is combined effort from several organizations and that services have been donated from all.

The thing I notice in this video is how relatively calm and normal everything seems. Perhaps, this will contribute to a reduction of the security requirements for relief workers that have slowed the flow of aid in recent days.

I have to wonder...Would we Americans do nearly as well given our anarchal fetishes and proclivity toward gun justice if we found ourselves in the same position?

To the Haitian people and anyone in the earthquake zone, please hold onto hope. The whole world is watching and stands with you.

To learn more about the technology and to see the latest videos as they come in from the field click here

If you have a project, idea, or application for 360 degree video, talk to us at www.SlopeViews.com

Here is this morning's press release from Immersive Media:

Media advisory: Immersive Media makes available 360-degree, geo-coded web videos of Haiti to help relief agencies, first responders, government departments and news organizations
Full-motion, interactive videos of earthquake devastation provide detailed views to aid emergency planning and response efforts

CALGARY, Jan. 22 /CNW/ - Immersive Media Corp. (TSXV: IMC www.immersivemedia.com) the world leader in 360-degree, interactive video, today announced the availability of 360-degree, interactive, online video footage of the earthquake devastation in Haiti free of charge to relief agencies, government departments and news-gathering organizations involved in the ongoing recovery efforts. The interactive videos can be seen at www.immersivemedia.com. The website shows an initial sampling of location sites in Port-au-Prince, with new video being captured and made available on an ongoing basis in the weeks ahead.

Immersive Media cameras capture 100 million pixels at 30 frames per second for high-resolution detail. Due to the number of agencies expected to access video over low-speed connections, the video quality has been optimized for lower-bandwidth web viewing. The video can be freely embedded into other websites and also be shared via Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

High-resolution, 360-degree video footage of the destruction in Haiti is also available upon request via the Immersive Media website.

The videos place viewers in the middle of an environment, giving them full control over what they see in a scene. With a simple click and drag of a computer mouse, online viewers can look sideways, up, down or all around in 360-degrees, while also pausing or zooming in and out. Each frame of the video is geo-coded, which will enable the planners and operations teams to pinpoint exact locations for relief, recovery and rebuilding operations. The video footage can be integrated with ESRI and other standard mapping applications.

Capturing and making the videos available has been a team effort, involving Immersive Media and IMTS (www.imtacticalsolutions.com), an Immersive Media Authorized Agent that specializes in working with military and special operations teams. The DRC Group (www.drcusa.com) and Integrated Electronic Technologies have been handling logistics, transportation, operations and government relations.

IMTS has significant experience in gathering surveillance video data for military, law enforcement and security applications. It has captured 360-degree video data in Iraq and elsewhere for advanced monitoring, protection and response. The 360-degree videos help operations teams identify risks and threats, monitor hostile environments from afar, and maximize the safety and understanding of their operations.

"All of us at Immersive Media are terribly saddened by the events of January 12th and want to do whatever we can to help improve the immediate and long-term situation in Haiti," said Myles McGovern, president and CEO of Immersive Media. "As previous natural disasters have shown, detailed imagery and assessments of the affected areas are critical to relief efforts and future planning. Since many of the first responders and government organizations are not on-site in Haiti, these 360-degree videos give them an unprecedented view of the devastation from the ground level."

About Immersive Media Corp.
---------------------------
Immersive Media Corp. is the pioneer and leading provider of 360-degree, full-motion, interactive video experiences. Its one-of-a-kind geodesic camera and full production services - including rental equipment, training, filming, post-production and distribution options - create high-resolution, immersive video for a variety of uses. From mapping and exploration to monitoring and surveillance to branding and entertainment, Immersive Media customers and agents produce the deepest, most engaging video experiences possible.

Immersive Media is a publicly traded company that is listed under the symbol "IMC" on the TSX Venture Exchange. For more information, please visit www.immersivemedia.com.

(C) 2010 Immersive Media Corp. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

%SEDAR: 00021691E

For further information: David G. Anderson, Investor Relations, Tel: (866) 333-8817; Larry Logan, Media Relations, Tel: (503) 863-2940, llogan@immersivemedia.com

Colorado Ice Climbing with Will Gadd

2010-01-09T06:49:00.001-08:00

SlopeViews' Jason Rhodes interviews multi-sport athlete, Will Gadd, over the top of the ice wall he is climbing today in a 24 hours straight to benefit the dZi Foundation, who are working for the people of remote Himayalian communities. Learn all about Will's Endless Ascent.

Check back for 360° video OF THE ACTUAL CLIMB! That's right. Will Gadd tried on the 360° video camera for one of his 70 pitches today.

Become friends with SlopeViews on Facebook for an update when the video goes live online.

Here are some photos of one of Gadd's climbs with SlopeView 360 degree video camera.

MapQuest 360 View with Immersive Media

2009-12-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

MapQuest surprised the online mapping community yesterday with the reveal of "360 View", providing 360 degree panoramic imagery of an impressive starting coverage area. 30 US cities now have 360 View coverage in an online interface similar Google Maps Street View and Bing Maps Streetside.

At the Mapquest Blog, they describe the process involved in creating the new feature:
"We have studied our industry, gleaning tidbits here and there, and polled our customer base in creating a simple, easy-to-use interface that fits seamlessly into the MapQuest mapping experience you have come to know and understand."

I have to say, I like it. The spherical orange breadcrumbs in the middle of the lane are handy for jumping a precise distance between images and the large format, side to side layout of map and image is straight forward.

The images are supplied by Immersive Media and their logo is watermarked in the corner. Immersive Media also originally supplied the imagery for Google Maps Street View, but Immersive Media also shoots 360° video, as I've mentioned here many times. Here’s a 360° video I shot while paragliding in Alaska with their Dodeca 2360 camera mounted to my helmet:

""

Full disclosure: I am a former employee of Immersive Media and currently work with SlopeViews, a new partner in Immersive Media's "Agent Program".
My first role at Immersive Media was as a "GeoImmersive Data Producer" on what we termed the City Collect Project. Teams of two were dispatched around North America to shoot 360° video, matched frame by frame with precision GPS coordinates. The equipment was mounted to vehicles that we drove through a carefully planned course. I shot this picture of the Immersive Media VW Beetle in Arches National Park while passing through Utah on our way from Denver to Las Vegas.

Somewhere along the way, we learned that the major corporate customer we had been doing this for was Google. In early spring 2007, my City Collect partner and I drove around the Google Campus in Mountain View, CA as part of our San Jose assignment. We were kind of wondering why there was no coordinated effort (like this one) to say hello to the Google Maps users.

On May 27, 2007, I was in an Oakwood corporate housing apartment with three other Immersive Medians preparing to head back out on to the streets of San Antonio, when we got the call that Street View had gone live. We took the day off to watch the response online. I did take the Beetle and its roof rack camera mount out to get some groceries. Only three hundred yards away from the condo, I was flagged by someone in another vehicle asking if I was working for Google. The job had changed significantly. For months we had roamed the cities, day after day, as efficiently as possible, without being noticed by anyone. Interestingly, it was mostly the homeless people that we drove by that noticed our equipment. One guy even shouted, "Big Brother is Watching!" in downtown Denver well before Street View was launched.

Shortly after, I was brought into Immersive Media's Portland offices as one of two marketing coordinators, so I didn't have to deal with the new paradigm on the road too much. After we found a blog in which someone had followed a Google Maps Street View car back to the Google campus where they were storing over thirty new Ford Focus vehicles with roof rack camera mounts, we realized that the Google deal had ended for Immersive Media.

As one of the original drivers on what became an extraordinary feature, I am elated with what Google Maps Street View, what Bing is doing with Streetside, and, now, what MapQuest has rolled out as 360 View with Immersive Media. Congratulations are indeed in order for both MapQuest and Immersive Media on staying in the game.

This development does beg the question here at the 360° Video Blog:

Will MapQuest be utilizing Immersive Media's 360° video capabilities?
Your guess is as good as mine.

Bandwidth for video on a scale that large must be a concern, but I would certainly like to see MapQuest give it a try. A portal where 360° video providers could sell rich content would make for an interesting advertising model for destinations and retailers alike.

As with all of the street-level imagery projects before MapQuest 360 View, the real congratulations go to the people in the vehicles capturing the imagery. It is not an easy job. Well done, Street Teams all. This video by Dan Meth at College Humor is for you guys:
*****Video Here****

Dan, you really nailed it.

SlopeViews @ Birds of Prey

2009-12-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

Careful observers might have noticed 360° video cameras all over the television last weekend. Immersive Media had cameras at both the MTVu Woodie Awards and Hockey Night In Canada on Friday night. Immersive Media’s new agent, SlopeViews, lived up to their name at the Birds of Prey World Cup Ski Race event at Beaver Creek Ski Resort. I’ll be posting about each of these projects in 360° video this week, but today, I want to discuss SlopeViews.

Focused on destination resort marketing, SlopeViews is a relatively new arrival on the 360° video scene, but they have hit the ground running on a number of projects. The Birds of Prey Ski Race was an opportunity to showcase their capabilities to the snow sports industry that is gearing up for the Winter Olympics in February.

James Hay, SlopeViews CEO, tells me that they captured some amazing imagery that will bring audiences all of the energy of the event. They shot the initial build up and transformation of Beaver Creek Ski Resort, who already has some fantastic 360° video virtual tours on their website, into a World Cup venue. The Vail Valley Foundation has the time-lapse piece from the building of the Finish Stadium here and will be featuring more content in days to come.

We can look forward to seeing athlete interviews, fan rowdiness, and much more from the Birds of Prey via the SlopeViews 360° video camera and their crew of Immersive Media Producers. With backgrounds in adventure sports, media, and travel industry marketing, the SlopeViews’ team is ideally suited to bring clients and their prospective visitors the ultimate experience of a destination online and, finally, fulfill the promise of the term “virtual tour”.

And here are some photos that SlopeViews provided via their active Facebook page.

360° Video of the Day: YEASAYER "Ambling Alp" will Freak You Out!

2009-11-20T12:57:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Yeasayer "Ambling Alp" Video

So that was the "standard" video. The rest of the post below is about the 360 degree video that was produced to coincide with this video release. This marks the first official use of 360 degree video as part of the transmedia package for a property. Congrats to Bill Meikle and Kirby McClure/Radical Friend for an excellent collaboration.

CLICK HERE for an EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE, but/and/or it does Contain Nudity

YEASAYER's 360° video teaser for the new album, "Ambling Alp", is an intoxicating trip into new territory for the medium.

This online experience matches Yeasayer's experimental, subconscious-tapping music as it takes you through a series of five scenes in which you are among a group of naked people. The user will quickly learn that by simply rolling the mouse over the circular video frame that there is more to see. Clicking the image will load the next video scene, transporting the user into another dream-like scenario in a deliberate effort to disorient and add to the compelling nature of the interface design.

The user wants to figure this out.
In the meantime, the audio/visuals sink in.

Riding a black horse through black volcanic tuff

Running to the Silver Fist

Close Around in a Mirrored Room

Hands Out Stretched

Lying Down

Hopefully, you've had the experience now. If not, go to http://www.amblingalp.com/ right now and spend some time exploring the scenes, let the music effect you...

Ok? Now we can talk about it. I don't know about you, but I think this is going to give me strange dreams tonight. No, it's not the nudity, although I am rather proud of this new 360° video medium for it's first public nudity being of the artistic variety. There has always been speculation that it would go the other way. It's just so trippy and a big part of that is the user interface.

I can't get over the idea of using deliberate disorientation to drive the experience. Genius! Absolute genius, in my humble opinion.

Congrats to Yeasayer and all who were a part of this project's creation. Bill Meikle's 360° video imagery, shot with the Point Grey Research Ladybug 2 camera is exceptional for this piece. The effects usage to irregularly warp the image periodically lends to digital dream-like quality and the graphic design of the loading images also deserve real credit.

Although, this has already been tagged with a warning at bit.ly, I think the public will quickly get over their puritanical impulses and accept this for what it is, really good art.

360° Video(s) of the Day: Mount St. Helens by Helicopter

2009-11-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

Three different 360° videos for you to explore today that will take you on an exclusive helicopter tour over Mount St Helens and its blast zone created by the massive eruption in 1980.

Created last year for the United States Forest Service by Immersive Media, these short edits were taken from a larger GIS project in which Immersive Media comprehensively "video mapped" the area while testing a prototype helicopter mount for their camera that was custom designed in Portland, OR.

30 frames per second 360° video was captured by the Dodeca 2360 camera and the GPS coordinates of the helicopter's position were imbedded into each frame of the video. Rendered together with detailed maps in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, the project will provide a user detailed visual information of any area that the helicopter passed over. By simply clicking anywhere on the path of the helicopter on the map, the user will be pull up the 360° video from that exact location, be able to look around from a view point below the helicopter skid, zoom in on an area of interest, and control the video play from that point.

With a comprehensive flight plan, the entire National Monument land area was efficiently documented in this manner. In dynamic landscapes such as the interior of the crater, the imagery captured in this project will help volcano researchers determine change over time in areas of interest, like the volcano's growing lava dome that has split the crater's glacier into two lobes.

360° Video Maps like this are the future of the online virtual tour and the race is on for the first provider of 360° video to release a functional application that has both exceptional user-interface design and a distribution model that makes sense. Map data need not be restricted to GIS level, but an application should also be versatile enough to function well when positioning from GPS and other sources aren't available, such as indoors. In those cases, visual acuity is sufficient to identify the position the camera was in when imagery was recorded on a floor plan or artist drawing. The application should allow lines to be drawn to indicate the route taken by the camera through a building interior. An application to incorporate 360° video with a floor plan or map would elevate the medium to a position as a useful tool over a visual novelty.

Immersive Media describes such an application as "coming soon" on its website, calling it IM OnScene. I know, because I wrote and narrated the video that describes it (not my best work, but it was tough to get excited by video of a grade school and the benefits to first-responders instead of the bigger picture applications like online destination marketing). That video went up publicly on the Immersive Media website almost a year ago, but there has been no publicly released usage or testing of the IM OnScene application since.

Question for Immersive Media representatives: Is this product or service currently available for online distribution?
If not,
Question for Immersive Media management: Why not?

360° Video of the Day: South Pacific Journey

2009-11-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

It's tough work, but somebody's got to do it. In this case, most of the "work" was done by the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation, a dedicated organization that has just completed its fourteenth year at sea on its mission to preserve coral reefs through innovative programs in science, education, and technology. With a 360° video camera provided by Immersive Media, the PCRF crew provides us first with a few glimpses of their journey and then with an amazing perspective on indigenous South Pacific culture.

The first 360° video we begin with a view from the deck of the SV Infinity in the tranquil waters of the South Pacific. This 120ft ketch is a home at sea for researchers and volunteers of PCRF for months at a time. One of their missions is to create a baseline map of coral reefs and to grade the degree of health of the reefs they encounter. The images from their research have been used to demonstrate the degree of damage that the bleaching phenomenon represents to world reefs and were featured in Vice President Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Underwater sequences were accomplished with a custom built underwater housing by Ken Sexton of Salem, Oregon that has since been tested in the heavy surf Tahiti's Teahupoo by Red Bull athletes. Pictured below, Craig Adkins readies the Immersive Media camera with surf housing for surfer Jamie O'Brian.

The coral reefs featured in the 360° from PCRF surround an island in Fiji and are among the healthiest and most diverse on the planet. The second half of the video takes the viewer through a day at an island market to see the colorful fruits and flowers available.

The second 360° video takes you on a privileged island adventure aboard a hand- built outrigger canoe of original design in Papua New Guinea. Off the Trobriand Islands, the traditional Kula Canoe, built to transport significant goods for trade with nearby islands, slices low through the water. Men in traditional sailing attire hold a tight thatch sail and constantly shift their weight to maintain stability with the wind.

The people of the Trobriand Islands invited the PCRF 360° camera crew to enter the center of several of their traditional dances and canoe launching celebrations to give us a unique view of their culture. Thanks to them and to PCRF for the experience and to David McCutchen of Immersive Media for making this imagery available to the public.

Because a South Pacific dream vacation is out of reach for most in this economy, a 360° video experience online from the world's most amazing destinations seems like a winning proposition. Who ever is working on that project, do you need any help on your crew?

360° Video of the Day: Among Giants: An Immersive Experience with National Geographic

2009-11-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

Today's 360° video holds a special significance for me as it represents an incredibly complete documentation of the most amazing experience of my life.

In late summer 2007, National Geographic's Crittercam inventor, Greg Marshall, invited Immersive Media to join a research team in Southeast Alaska and document the deployment of Crittercam on to the backs of humpback whales in 360° video.

Craig Adkins and I got the assignment, but had little idea of what we were in store for. We would be aboard an 18ft inflatable boat for up to ten hours a day in the cold and wet Southeast Alaskan marine environment, while getting up close and personal with some of the largest creatures on earth. As a former whitewater rafting guide, I'm pretty comfortable around inflatables and the water, but the idea of attempting to reach out and touch something so powerful, which would be necessary to attach the Crittercam to the whale, both intrigued and intimidated me.

National Geographic's Crittercam has been providing wildlife researchers with a window into the worlds of their subjects. In the case of the humpback whale in Southeast Alaska's Chatham Straight, researchers with the Alaska Whale Foundation study the unique feeding behavior that these whales employ here and nowhere else in the ocean.

Dr. Fred Sharpe uses the term Social Foraging to describe the cooperation observed between the whales when they corner a large school, or bait ball, of herring against the surface of the water. Their prey is further restrained with a constant and deliberate stream of air bubbles blown by the lead whale as it swims a tight circle around the fish. The herring will not swim through the curtain of bubbles as they travel to the surface. Once the "bubble net" is closed in a circle and arriving at the surface, all of the adult whales in a group will come together and swim to the surface, opening their enormous jaws and breaching the surface at exactly the same moment to swallow the sea out from under the herring. Moments before the whales "lunge" at the surface, the seagulls overhead will concentrate on the location of the bubble net, the whales' high-pitched song fills the air, and a mountain whale maws erupts as silver herring scatter through the whitewater.

Dive, organize, lunge, regroup, dive...every fifteen minutes this feeding routine cycles, over and over again, day and night (for there is little difference here during the summer) for a month. Hundreds of tons of fish are consumed and the humpbacks pack on reserves for long months of migration across the sterile open ocean. The population of humpback whales that visits these quite backwaters of the northern Pacific each summer are the only humpbacks in the world known to feed this way and the Alaska Whale Foundation needed the Crittercam footage to learn more about how the animals are organizing underwater.

The strategy for deploying the Crittercam onto a whale's back was to follow the group at a safe distance until they lunge on a school of herring and then race in while they are at the surface catching their breath and regrouping toward the next feeding. Time and again, attempts were made, but each time the nearest whale would avoid us nimbly at the last moment or Dr. Sharpe, whose research permit allowed such close proximity to these endangered marine mammals, would call off the chase, not wanting to stress the animals to the point that they would stop their feeding and miss out on critical resources. "It will happen," he said after each failed attempt while watching the tails or flukes of the whales disappear as they dove again. Indeed, it did happen eventually.

Everything finally did come together as Dr. Sharpe motored the boat among the giants and audio researcher; Sean Hanser readied the suction needed for Corey Jaskolski's Crittercam cam at the end of the long deployment pole. Like an Inuit hunter, Corey steadied himself as one whale approached the boat from the port side. When the whale's dorsal was within feet of the four of us, he gently dropped the Crittercam onto the whale's back and the suction running through the cup clasped it tightly tot he animal before disappearing below the bow. Scanning the surface for confirmation that we had managed a successful deployment, we spotted the whale as it came up for its next breath. The Crittercam was there attached like the remora fish on which its design was based. The researchers would have more video data to analyze and a bit more about these amazing creatures would be brought to light.
Read Crittercam 5.7 Tech Specs

The Crittercam provides more than just great imagery, though. Also onboard its waterproof housing are sensors for recording depth, temperature, and velocity, as well as an accelerometers and a compass. All providing the researchers with deep knowledge about the journey it takes with its host animal, but only if it is recovered.

At a pre-programmed time, the suction on the cup is released and the Crittercam floats to the surface with its delicate radio frequency antennae pointing up. The team tracks it with radio telemetry and can tell by the signal that is has come off the whale. Finding the little data package on the surface of the water can still be very difficult in the flat evening light of the northern latitudes.

It was right after we recovered the Crittercam that we were rewarded with closest whale lunge of the trip. We were sitting quietly talking about the adventure of the day when the first bubbles hit the surface right next to the boat. The eerie song from the deep called out just as the quiet was shattered by the five leviathans lunging for another meal within ten yards of our raft. This time we didn't need to rush in, but could just stand there and watch with our mouths, too, wide open.

All of the experience I've described here was documented in 360° video over the three days we were with the humpbacks of Chatham Strait, and much more. Let's just say that there is a whole other story about the Alaskan Brown Bears of Chichagof Island that got up close and personal with the Immersive Media 360° video camera.

360° Video of the Day: In the Crowd at the Obama Inauguration

2009-11-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

""
01-20-09
President Barack Obama takes the oath of office and becomes the 44th President of the United States. Immersive Media's inventor and Chief Technology Officer, David McCutchen, was out of his hotel room at 2:00am that morning to wait in long lines of happy people to find his place on the lawn among almost two million others to celebrate the Presidential Inauguration. Like almost everyone else there, David brought his best camera to document the occasion.

This is the kind of 360° video I really enjoy the most. It captures a significant moment in time from a very natural perspective. The emotion in the crowd is captured as much with the camera's 4 microphones as it is with the eleven video sensors. Despite Chief Justice John Robert's failure to remember the proper phrasing, the new president managed to take the oath and be sworn in. The crowd, as they say, went crazy.

Thanks to David's hard work, this 360° video allows you to experience that moment again as if you were a part of that historic crowd. It is also the first time (online) that David has appeared on camera in one of the 360° videos he has pioneered. He is the one with the biggest smile on his face. Good times.

360° Video of the Day: B.A.S.E Jump

2009-11-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

Before we take the plunge, I wanted to introduce a new feature here at the 360° Video Blog that I have been doing for sometime via my @video360 Twitter account: a semi-daily 360° Video for you to sink your teeth into. Mostly, it's because I'm beginning to see some real traffic to this blog and I feel a bit guilty that there is not always consistent stream of content, but I also can't deny that now that I have some traffic, I want more. You'll always get as much of the background as I know or can share about each video and a link to where I found it.

Because I prefer to embed videos here (instead of sending you elsewhere) and the majority of 360° videos currently out there with available embed codes are from Immersive Media, you'll find that the bulk of the content is theirs. It is my hope that all 360° video providers will see the benefit in allowing others to share their content and provide embed codes for their content as yellowBird and Immersive Media have so wisely done. All right, let's jump off a building, shall we?

360° Video of the Day
B.A.S.E Jump off the Kaula Lumpur (KL) Tower

Last year, Immersive Media's senior cameraman, Craig Adkins, was invited to join Red Bull Air Force member, Miles Daisher, in Kaula Lumpur, Malaysia. While Craig has logged a lot of time strapped to the side of helicopters and skiing powder while managing to get great shots with the Dodeca 2360, he wasn't about to throw himself off the KL Tower's 1,099 ft perch (this time) so he rigged the 360° video system up to the athletes and, literally, let it fly.

Thanks to Miles Daisher and the Red Bull Air Force for doing what they do and letting the rest of us live vicariously through them. CAN NOT WAIT to see Human Flight 3D next summer!

Thanks also to my friends and former colleagues at Immersive Media. I will, from time to time, have criticisms for the videos that I review here and for things that I see the company doing, but most of you know how much I believe in the good work you are doing to broaden the online video experience.

That said, here is my issue with the piece embedded above and most of the demo pieces you currently have online. The idea that the optimal length for a 360° video is around 30 seconds does your content and your entire value proposition a disservice. The majority of first time users of 360° video must overcome the learning curve of becoming comfortable using the control of the point of view, as NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes recently pointed out. 30 seconds simply isn't enough time for many of them and for those of us who know how it works, I'll tell you a secret: we want to see more, explore more, and see it again. That's not a bad thing. After all, the landing is a really important part of a successful BASE jump.

If you ever do add more content to your set of online demos (there has only been one addition this year), I hope it gives the viewer a little time to look around. That is the point, right?

As always, your comments are welcomed here.

More Great Press For yellowBird

2009-11-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

Great BBC explanatory 360° video for yellowBird

If only those that are so far ahead in 360° video development did as well as yellowBird at marketing themselves, the medium would be much farther down the road to wide acceptance.

Today reporter Dan Simmons of BBC Click, the BBC's flagship technology program, put up an excellent report on yellowBird, the new Dutch company that has made great strides with Point Grey Research Ladybug 2 cameras.

The BBC and yellowBird have put together something I've wanted to see for some time...an explanatory video that uses both 360° and "standard" video versions to tell the story. On the BBC Click post, you can watch a "standard" version of the video that does a great job of showing how the technology works and the above 360° video (which can also be found at yellowBird's website)uses Mr. Simmons description ahead of some of their best demonstration footage. The skiing and helicopter footage is really impressive and the best I've seen from mobile Ladybug 2 cameras.

It mentions that it takes yellowBird about a week to turn around an hour long 360° video, which is actually quite fast even when compared to a standard production studio. To ensure the best quality of image for their clients, they are not above doing some of the "stitching" of components by hand, which is truly essential for some environments.

Marc Groothelm, yellowBird's CEO, discusses some future applications for their platform, including live broadcast and multiple 360° camera streams. It is good to hear that they are working towards those goals, but it must be mentioned that Immersive Media and MATIvision are well ahead of them on those developments. Immersive Media, the original provider for Google Map's Street View, has been broadcasting live feeds from their own 360° video cameras for several weeks from the set of MuchMusic's pop music TV show, Much On Demand, and even streamed an entire hour-long concert by Billy Talent.

MATIvision is the only provider of 360° video that has been successful in integrating multiple 360° video cameras to record an event. The user simply picks which camera they want to view the show from a diagram of the stage setup. This functionality brings an incredible sense of freedom to the user who can see just about anything at anytime happening on stage or in the venue. According to the MATIvision homepage, they have recently completed a project with MTV Studios in London to record a live session by UK rockers, Biffy Clyro.

While both companies seem to be much farther along than yellowbird, neither has been able to grab nearly as much media attention this year. A TechCrunch post in August about yellowBird was awash in comments from amazed readers that had never seen a 360°video before despite the fact that Immersive Media has had its demos online in a Flash player since January of 2008. Today's BBC piece has had many similar reactions being shared via Twitter and Facebook. Immersive Media was recently featured in WIRED's Epicenter blog for it's new live streaming capabilities.

Each player in the 360° video arena will need to find the appropriate balance in its marketing efforts, but congratulations to yellowBird for getting the message out so well. Any increase in awareness of the medium is to the benefit of all.

Stay tuned to the 360° Video Blog for more information about the newest player, SlopeViews, an Immersive Media "agent" company specializing in virtual video tours for facilities such as resorts, campuses, golf courses, and sporting events. Based in the mountains of Colorado, these professional outdoor enthusiasts promise to deliver the most engaging 360° content yet for clients and their prospective customers.

Part of making engaging content is the ability to tell a good story. Until one of these companies finds the right project to use their platform to do that, acceptance and the demand that will come from it may be still be a long way off.

Experience MuchMusic's Much On Demand 360° LIVE

2009-10-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

WATCH MOD 360° LIVE @ 5:00pm EST (2:00pm PT) EVERY WEEKDAY
Have you ever been part of a studio audience for the taping of your favorite TV show? Neither have I, but I would enjoy seeing what goes on behind the camera during The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or Saturday Night Live, but I live a long way from New York.

Well, fans who live a long way from Toronto where Canada's MuchMusic tapes Much On Demand, a show very similar to MTV's Total Request Live, can now tune in LIVE online to a 360° Video feed from the set. Viewers can watch their favorite VJs and celebrity guests or just people watch as the show goes out to its Canadian and worldwide audience. It's not a purely voyeuristic experience either.

With a social media live discussion running alongside the interactive video experience, MOD fans can join the discussion among other viewers of the 360° cam via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or Yahoo. Last week, an MOD audience member sat close to the Immersive Media camera, blocking much of the view for a few minutes (picture above). Facebook commenters bombarded the feed, asking him to move. During the next commercial break, a production crew member could be seen coming from the wings and directing him to another seat. Celebrations among the Facebookers ensued and quickly returned to who was the best VJ on MuchMusic. Looks like the MOD crew was paying close attention to what their audience was saying and responding accordingly.

A few weeks ago, MuchMusic also provided a 360° video feed for a Billy Talent concert (see previous post).

The MOD 360° LIVE cam has been a daily component of the MuchMusic online experience for the past weeks, but is not loading for me as I type this post at 2:00pm PT. It may have been an experiment for the music network since no press release has come out yet, but it did provide a glimpse into a future where a diversity of content delivery methods are bundled to get passionate audiences engaging through multiple technologies.

One Facebook commenter admitted to skipping school to get on the new 360° cam. With direct evidence of audience interest like that, I think it's safe to assume that the experiment is a success.

Microsoft's "Street View" in 360° Video?

2009-10-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, video is better than still imagery. Yes, Google Map's Street View started out as Immersive Media's 360° Video. Yes, Google had good reason not to invest in the bandwidth that Street View in 360° Video would have required when they rolled it out in the spring of 2007. All of this is true, but what if a Street View-like application was launched using 360° Video instead of still imagery? What would it look like? How should it be implemented?

"Clearly no one would want to sit through a twenty minute video to prepare for a twenty minute drive...", states the narrator, who goes on to describe how a logical user interface has been built with the ancient secrets of common sense and fast forward.

Microsoft's application, as described at the ACM event, User Interface Science and Technology (UIST) 2009, and titled Integrated Videos and Maps for Driving Directions, provides an excellent visualization that will help us avoid getting lost on the way to our destination as much as Google Maps Street View has been helping us recognize our destination when we have arrived.

Score one for Bing.

Due credit for authors Billy Chen and Boris Neubert and Eyal Ofek and Oliver Deussen and Michael Cohen

MuchMusic Presents Billy Talent LIVE 360° Video!

2009-10-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

Something happened in the world of music yesterday that just may have changed everything.

In celebration of Canada's Thanksgiving, MuchMusic held another of its Live in the Lot concert series near its offices in downtown Toronto. Featuring Canadian rockers, Billy Talent, this concert was free to anyone over 14 years old and owned a Rogers Mobile phone. It was broadcast on CTV's MuchMusic, but it was also broadcast LIVE online in 360° video so the online viewers had a seat on stage between lead singer Ben Kowalewicz and bassist Jon Gallant.

With Immersive Media's 360° video camera visible to TV cameras on stage and multiple references to MuchMusic's Live In The Lot 360° website, viewers were able to tune in for a look around on stage for the entire hour long performance.

The experience was really very cool and marks the first time an event of any magnitude has been streamed LIVE in 360° video. Here are some screen grabs from the 360° camera mashed to some twitter posts it garnered and quotes from the show:
@justinerdman: My friends @muchmusic have THE coolest 360 degree video streaming happening here: http://bit.ly/72wGh for the Billy Talent Live In The Lot!
@ThatsSoLope: Dude the 360 camera for the Billy Talent show is insane! Sooo cool Ben Kowalewicz gets up close and personal with the online audience, "This is a 365 degree camera aimed right at my crotch. It's a World Wide Ball View!" Days in a year...Degrees in a circle...whatever...Thanks for the shout out, Ben.

So, that's the good stuff. Now, here are the bad and the ugly, because there is always room for improvement, people. The stream was mentioned to be freezing on many users' computers, probably low user bandwidth, but still. The sound was really pretty bad for a music show, although that could just be Billy Talent's music, I'm not really sure. The new Immersive Media live player rolled out for this event is an excellent experience because it shows the full image available to the viewer while focusing on the viewer-selected portion, and it has the much needed full-screen option. The only problem there was that the full screen option highlights the poor resolution and becomes a bit sticky when navigating.

All in all, this show was a break-through that can only be matched (and possibly surpassed) by having multiple 360° video cameras on stage and in the crowd at an event that the viewer can choose between (See MATIvision Rocks!)
Congrats to MuchMusic, Immersive Media, Billy Talent, and Canadian Music fans for an incredible online experience.

Now, let's see some more!

Vail Resorts Go Big In 360° Video!

2009-09-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

It has been a slow month in the world of 360° Video. . . until now! A project three years in the making went live this week in all of its 360° Video glory. Tons of content, 48 different 360° Videos in all, is now available to virtual visitors of Vail Resorts. You've got to dig a bit into each of the resorts' websites (which you can reach via snow.com), but the experience is well worth the effort.Those familar with the world of 360° Video will recognize the technology behind this unprecedented leap in virtual tours as that of Immersive Media. They've updated their Flash player with a desperately needed full screen option that is a bit sticky on my machine, but allows for a truly immersive experience.When looking at the project at large, the viewer can actually experience the evolution of this new medium by watching the learning curve that the production obviously went through. One would guess that they shot Vail Resort before they went to Keystone, because while the videos are fairly flat and prosaic at Vail, the Keystone material is absolutely inspired! Compare the dining experience at Beaver Creek's Saddleridge, an empty (although beautiful) restaurant to Keystone's Der Fondue Chessel dining experience, which surrounds you with happy guests dancing, laughing, and enjoying themselves. The latter shows the real power of the 360° Video medium to share an experience that has been branded by the client to show its product in the best possible light, being enjoyed by happy guests.Congratulations to everyone involved in this excellent online experience, especially Immersive Media cameraman extraordinaire, Craig Adkins, who designed and built the stabilizing contraption you can see in shadow of each of the skiing videos. It worked extraordinarily well to deliver a smooth experience for the viewer even while flying down the slope with each gang of skiers and snowboarders. It's easy to be jealous of a guy whose job it is to go skiing at the best resorts in the world, but getting great material like this takes a lot of dedication, hard work, and a little bit of luck! Great job!It's all enough to make me want to buy my season pass today! Let's hope it boosts sales for Vail Resorts in the difficult ski season ahead, because that will be the ultimate critique for a project like this. Everyone in the 360° Video production business should support such a high profile project, because it is exactly the kind of project that will lead to a greater demand for everyone. Please share this with your network at the button below.

Unique Experiences Online from the University of Plymouth

2009-08-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Karol Kwiatek, PhD researcher at the University of Plymouth's ICCI (Innovation for the Creative & Cultural Industries), has been working hard since becoming responsible for the University's wise investment in a LadyBug 2 camera from Point Grey Research.

With a unique take on story-telling through immersive experiences, Karol's projects provide the viewer with not only the look and feel of a place today, but also often incorporate a view of the past using historic panorama photographs, CGI, and audio dialog for contrast. Using Jason Vilmer's Lucid Viewer, the user experience of each project is unique and represents what can and will be done with this new medium.

Take a tour of a Polish Heritage Site, experience the memories of a couple with an extraordinary wedding story, or just feed the pigeons at the link below:

Karol Kwiatek's 360video

Thanks Karol, for sharing your work, keep it up!

yellowBird Captures T-Mobile Sing-Along 360° Video Experience

2009-08-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, Tech Crunch had a piece about yellowBird, the Dutch startup employing LadyBug 2 cameras from Point Grey Research. Glad to see so many comments in favor of the 360° video platform, I chimed in on the discussion and mentioned that I had not seen much from yellowBird since it's initial demo was released last January. Well, thanks to another commenter, I was pointed to T-Mobile's Sing-Along 360° Experience. This is just good fun.

Apparently, the team at yellowBird were invited to Trafalgar Square by Saatchi & Saatchi London to shoot this T-Mobile brand-affirming event. 13,000 people gathered to sing Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in front of a larger video display of they lyrics. This sort of branded flash mob sing-along has been quite popular with the people in attendance, on YouTube, and with T-Mobile as a way to connect with customers with little fun. It's great to see a company like T-Mobile wanting to take the concept still further. By documenting the event in 360° video, they gave the rest of us the opportunity to see and hear what it was like in the crowd.

It's also great to see a renowned creative team like Saatchi & Saatchi continue to bring 360° video to its clients. Saatchi & Saatchi teamed up with Immersive Media earlier this year on it's work with Armani Jeans in a guided 360° video brand experience for its new website.

Congrats to yellowBird on garnering significant attention for their work with 360° video. Apparently, the TechCrunch article (spread widely on Twitter) drew enough interest to overload their servers this week, those are growing pains that I'm sure they are happy to deal with. Here's the video that got people talking.

You can also experience a hot-air balloon ride with yellowBird's founders over the Dutch country-side while they interview for a TV news program here
Here's a photo from the Trafalgar Square event

Texas On Tour Update: 360° Experience Is Now Online

2009-08-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

Big Look 360 has uploaded their kayaking adventure for everyone to experience online in 360° Video! As a kayaker who began my outdoor adventures in the Big Bend Country of southwest Texas, I am especially appreciative of the opportunity to relive my best memories of the Lone Star State through the Texas On Tour experience.

All over the country this year, the State of Texas's Tourism Office and Governor's Office of Economic Development and Tourism have sponsored a travelling exhibit to promote travel to the state. One of the most popular pieces of the exhibit has been the virtual kayaking experience produced by Big Look 360, in which prospective visitor's are seated in a kayak and, through head-tracking, head-mounted display devices, are taken on a kayak tour of Texas waterways.

According to Lance Loesberg, Executive Producer for Big Look 360, the 360° Video experience is also combined with a variety of sensory components, including vibration, smell, and wind, to further immersed participants. Now, the visual experience is available to the rest of us online in an excellent, full-screen, Flash player that appears to be the Lucid Viewer referred to elsewhere in this blog. I just love it when great things come together!
Experience the Texas On Tour kayaking adventure now!

360° Video Powers A Serious Game To Train US Army, Wins American Business Award

2009-08-01T17:41:00.001-07:00

The YouTube video above describes RealityV, a 360° Video platform built by InVism, a simulation and visualization services company, in partnership with EffectiveUI, an award-winning user experience design and development agency.

The project effectively employs 360° Video in a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style training program for US Military personnel to put them into photorealistic experiences that they are likely to encounter overseas and aid them in effective and culturally-sensitive decision-making. Deployed as Army 360: Immersive Cultural Simulation the RealityV platform also incorporates "emotionally charged high-definition video" in combination with 360° Video. Marking the first publicly discussed use of actual actors, scripts, and production values for a 360° Video project, Army 360 appears to be a highy effective training tool.

You can see a rather long and slow to load trailer for the project here. Below is a simple screenshot from the trailer.

The project won a Stevie Award in the "Interactive Multimedia - Training" category from the American Business Awards according to Fox Business News on July 22 in New York. Read the full story here.

It is worth noting that the 360° Video content seems to have been captured with a GoPano optic from EyeSee360° on an HD video camera. This is the first time I've seen a project use this single-sensor system, and I am intrigued.

Congratulations to InVism (formerly Intelligence Gaming), EffectiveUI, and The US Army on an innovative and effective program that will saves lives, both military and civilian. I, for one, hope to see much more of this type of focused effort to create engaging, educational, and entertaining projects in the powerfully interactive 360° video medium.

360° Video with Custom Built Players - Imatronics Interactive Video

2009-07-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

•Transform your video files into compelling multimedia presentations
•Control what you view and how you view it - in full motion, vivid color and rich sound
•Navigate your video with full pan, tilt and zoom controls
•Use any video files you have. Use any standard or panoramic video camera you have. Use any spherical video system you have
•Add captivating motion effects to your interactive video virtual tours
•Create your entire interactive video virtual tour in just one step -- simply open your video file and all the rest is automatically taken care of for you
•Save tons of time and money. Focus on the creative aspects of your work
•Select from a very wide variety of spectacular transtion effects and/or create your very own transition effects
•Play your interactive video presentations anywhere on the Internet. Reach the widest possible audience
•Burn your packages to CD/DVD-ROM. The "autorun" feature permits you to instantly immerse yourself in the exciting new world of interactive video as soon as you insert your interactive video package into your computer
•Share your creations by e-mail, web, CD/DVD-ROM, self-contained multimedia presentations or export them for stylish viewing in the stand-alone OmniViewer
•Create and distribute as many packages as you like. NO KEYS. NO ROYALTIES
•Leverage the power of automated and user-activated multimedia popup windows with movies, pictures, text, 3D visualizations and animations to create the most engaging multimedia experiences
•Save time and money by using visual high-speed batch processing to design compelling multimedia experiences
•Package your interactive video tours in attractive, fully customizable cute skins with dynamic resizing capability
•Use the integrated professional Cute Skin Editor to create, edit and manage your cute skins
•Interactive Video is great value. Enjoy these and many other great features

Finally, a 360° Video with a STORYLINE

2009-07-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

GlobalVision Communication, a Swiss company, has produced a 360° Video using a LadyBug 2 camera from Point Grey Research that follows a REGA (Swiss Aerial Rescue Guard) helicopter team through the operation of a helicopter rescue from scramble to primary care delivery. Although there are some obvious issues, it is an extraordinary experience for the viewer from start to finish.

You can join the crew onboard the helicopter here.

So here's the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good: 1. There is a sequence of events in a logical order, it's not much to ask for, but it is the first time I've seen a 360° Video online that makes the attempt. 2. The "story" is told from a number of positions. First you're in the pilot's seat, then you're on the back of the rescuer being lowered to the victim, and then you're on the victim and seeing the rescue from that perspective. The transitions are orderly and make sense in relation to the story. With the camera they are using, these changes aren't easy to make, but the producer pulls it off here.
The Bad: 1. Load time - There's no counter on the player, but this is one of the longest 360° Videos on the internet to date. So it takes a long time to load - totally understandable, but worth noting. 2. Poor Quality video - again understandable considering sensors, format, and bandwidth considerations, but worth noting. 3. Stitching issues - Viewers will notice areas throughout were things just don't line up all the time. I'm not saying it distracts from the experience much, but it's there. All 360° Video cameras suffer from an issue called parallax that is especially noticable when objects are in close proxity to the camera.
The Ugly: The player and player window. Great to have a fullscreen option and when in fullscreen the controls aren't quite as annoying, but I'm not a fan of having player controls on top of content. The seperate window in which this video opens doesn't even have a url that I can point to for this blog. There is no embed code or any other means of sharing. No need to hide this stuff guys.

My review: Considering this is the first story told (online) in 360° video, I give it my highest rating.

My Suggestions: Less Music and more narration, maybe even someone speaking to the viewer. Tell us what is going on, what to look at, etc. Guide us through the experience.

MATIvision ROCKS!

2009-07-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

There have been a lot of concerts shot in 360° Video and it's always pretty cool, but MATIvision (Multi Angle Totally Interactive Vision) has ROCKED me with their GUI and it's seamless integration of multiple LadyBug 2 cameras. 2009 is turning out be the year of MATI (formerly known as iam-360.com) as they have been out shooting concerts and festivals across Europe. Their 360 Video pages must already surpass even Immersive Media's demos in terms of sheer quantity of content online. With four camera streams associated with each song from each band in the line up, the shear quantity is astounding.

If you are a fan of live music, do yourself a favor and check this out now!

Say you spot a "person of interest" in the front row or on stage. In 360° Video, you have the power to aim your POV directly at that person and zoom in for a better look. It's likely though that the person you are interested in seeing closer is too far away from the camera for a good view. In MATIvision's setup, you can simply switch views to another camera closer to the person of interest, or maybe even a better angle.

MATIvision is an amazing example of what a focused effort in any one of the thousands of applications of 360° Video can become. Congratulations, MATIvision, and thank you for giving us the best seats in the house.

U2 360? Are you listening?

Dr. Robert Ballard sees a 360° future

2009-07-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

On NPR's "Science Friday" yesterday, Dr. Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic and Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, discussed his upcoming expeditions, his efforts to wire the scientific community to exploration in real time, and his vision of the future with Ira Flatow.

Here's the NPR link

As I was driving through Oregon's Coastal Range and losing reception, it was nice to hear one of my personal heros mention his vision for "electronic travel". It's a future in which a family would come together in a spherical entertainment room and rent a virtual experience from some far flung travel destination. Bravo, Dr. Ballard. That future is on the horizon, and it starts with 360° Video, captured with multi-directional cameras, distributed over the web, and currently displayed on our personal computers, but I can't wait for that high-definition, spherical entertainment room.

Until then, the best we have is Immersive Media's collection of short 360° demonstration videos at www.immersivemedia.com

Enjoy the journey and have a great Fourth of July!

NYC Gets Immersed in Texas

2009-06-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

To show a side of Texas that too few get to see, Texas Tourism and the Governor's Office of Economic Development and Tourism have employed a 360° video exhibit for it's Texas On Tour (TOT)traveling promotion. Last week, TOT's dusty trail was in New York City, giving residents of the Big Apple a realistic experience from several Texas waterways. Potential visitors from NYC climbed into kayaks and put on head-tracking video display systems to become immersed in 360° videos from locations around the state.

Running the rapids of the Rio Grande River in the depths of the canyons of the Big Bend region, virtual visitors of the Texas on Tour experience traversed the line between the US and its southern neighbor, Mexico. In the Gulf of Mexico, they virtually explore the Corpus Christi coast, visiting historic aircraft carriers and getting to see, first-hand, the surf of America's "Third Coast". Among the Spanish Moss covered Cypress trees of Texas' only natural lake, Caddo Lake, virtual visitors enjoyed an adventure typically reserved for its most adventurous residents. With 360° video delivered with head-tracking HMD's, participants could look in any direction and see the scenery passing by exactly as if they were actually there.

From exit surveys, the promotion was a huge success because it improved the New Yorker's perception of Texas as a travel destination by 22 percent. A natural application for 360° video, such destination promotion campaigns benefit hugely by taking potential visitors exactly where they want to go and delivering an exceptional experience. Now, Texas Travel simply needs to put these experiences online via available Flash players, so that those of us who weren't lucky enough to be near a Texas On Tour exhibit can check out all we don't know about the Lone Star State. I mean, I want to see Caddo Lake, too. Until then, here's a photo of NYC residents getting immersed in the Texas On Tour experience to give you the idea:

New Players Under the Camera!

2009-06-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

Two new companies have joined the world of 360° Video production:

ChaseVision360
ChaseVision 360 is applying 360° Video to the commercial real estate, civil engineering, and asset management realms. Using a Ladybug camera from Point Grey Research, they're providing a view of assets that was previously only available with a field trip, saving client's precious project resources. They appear to be using the Lucid Viewer (at least for demonstration) which I've linked to in a previous post here. The large window and fullscreen options are great for 360° Video and the "Unmanned Asset" demo has an excellent usage of 3D Objects as hotspots linked to 360° still images. For commercial use, this works well to take to user exactly where they want to be without scrubbing back and forth to find it. The advantage of 360° Video, in this case, is a matter of production. Instead of setting up a 360° still pano in multiple locations, it looks like they simply made a pass around the tower with the 360° Video camera and pulled the needed stills in post. Excellent demonstration! Question to ChaseVision360: Any embed codes available for these demos?

yellowBird
Also using Point Grey Research's Ladybug 2 cameras, yellowBird wants to take 360° Video into the advertising and entertainment spheres, where Immersive Media has gotten its feet wet with Red Bull, Armani, and Mercedes-Benz.
They appear to have designed their own Flash player that has an excellent user experience, but full screen would be nice, too. Looking forward to seeing more from yellowBird soon. They've taken their demo off their site, but it's still playing here

Good to see organizations with targeted, attainable goals.

360° Video Fullscreen! Check out the Lucid Player!

2009-06-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

www.lucid.it

There's no audio, but this clip from a Malaysian boat ride really doesn't need it. The visuals are fantastic and well represented in the Lucid Player.

Created primarily for 360° video files from Point Grey Research's Ladybug cameras, this new player is a fantastic, full screen user experience. All of the demo clips found on the lower toolbar are worth the small loading wait.

Wanna Go Paragliding?

2009-06-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Launch off Mt. Alyeska over Girdwood, Alaska in one of my favorite shooting experiences with Immersive Media

Special thanks to ace pilot Nik Peterson and the crew at both Alyeska Resort and Alyeska Paragliders. Oh, and the crew at IM360 Studios for the editing.

Humvee Tour in Utah

2009-06-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

This 360° Video is not embeddable yet, but you can go on a Humvee Tour across the Utah desert and listen to the tales spun by one of Moab's best tour guides. Shot by Brad Trites of 360 View Productions this spring, the experience is like Google Maps Street View, but it's on a 4x4 trail over the slickrock, you can hear the roar of the engine, and (of course) it's in video!

Check it out here

360° Video from the Grand Canyon

2009-06-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

From the rim of the Grand Canyon at Guano Point on the Hualapi Nation's land. The steel structure looming overhead was used to run a cable to the large cave on the far side of the canyon (look for it using the zoom tool in the upper left). The operation mined bat guano from the cave until an F-16 running the canyon well below the rim sliced through the cable at some point in the 1980's, at least that was the story that our guide told us. That's his white Hummer parked under the structure. If you get a chance to visit the Grand Canyon Skywalk, Guano Point is just a short hike away and offers a bit more rustic view.