Nokia Technologies announced the commercial availability of the OZO virtual reality camera. Nokia Technologies is Nokia’s Research & Development arm that invents new products and also licenses technologies to other companies under the Nokia brand.
Lately we’ve seen the announcements of several other VR cameras, including the Sphericam, Google’s Jump, Jaunt’s NEO, 360 Designs’ “EYE,” and the Lytro Immerge. The OZO counts among them butis targeted at professionals, which is why it has a price tag of $60,000.
Nokia’s OZO brings features such as real-time VR preview, wireless operation, and full 3D 360 audio and video broadcast capabilities.
"We're at the dawn of an exciting new medium that will transform the way people connect to stories, events, and the world around them," said Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia Technologies. "OZO is a powerful tool designed for the professional creators who will answer the most exciting and intriguing questions about the possibilities for virtual reality."
Although Lytro hasn’t announced pricing for its recently announced “Lytro Immerge” camera, the two are likely to compete in the high-priced, professional VR camera segment -- cameras for filmmakers, video ad-makers, game developers, and so on.
Jaunt, the VR production studio that provides both hardware and software support to its customers (and is also making the upcoming NEO VR camera), has also said it will support Nokia’s OZO camera.
There are currently no standards for VR video content, but Jaunt has received a $65 million investment from Disney and has announced partnerships that will make its content work with programs such as Final Cut Pro X, Nuke, RV, Shotgun, Maya, 3Ds Max, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Assimilate's Scratch, Lustre, and Avid. This should go a long way towards establishing a de facto standard in the industry, although it’s still very early days for anything VR-related.
If Jaunt’s content will become the standard, then Nokia’s OZO camera could be part of that ecosystem. It will also be one of the very first commercially available VR cameras, which could also give it some momentum in the market.
The OZO camera is expected to arrive in Q1, 2016.
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Lucian Armasu joined Tom’s Hardware in early 2014. He writes news stories on mobile, chipsets, security, privacy, and anything else that might be of interest to him from the technology world. Outside of Tom’s Hardware, he dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.
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