Your eyes drift off toward the horizon. In the distance, two figures stand atop a concrete block wall, ramrod straight, watching you carefully. Both of them are green. It’s obvious who they are. You’ve seen them a thousand times before, but never in person. It’s the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or at least two of them. You take a few steps forward and wave. Donatello waves back. Michelangelo smiles and turns to show off that stunning Turtle profile of his. They speak to you.

“Hey,” Donnie says. “How are you doing? I hear you’ve got some questions to ask us.” You take another step forward and glance down at your feet. A wide puddle of water spreads across the cracked concrete floor and you catch a glimpse of your reflection. It looks like you, but somehow, your head has morphed into… Hey Arnold. Awesome. You love Hey Arnold.

This is the experience journalists and a few choice super fans were treated to at this year’s Comic-Con Convention in San Diego, thanks to an incredible virtual reality environment cooked up by the talented staff of Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab. And at the heart of the experience, working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to allow layers of disparate technology to interact seamlessly with one another, NewTek’s NDI® was doing the heavy lifting, bringing the new world of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to life in a way that’s never been possible before.

Chris Young, Senior Vice President of the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab, headed up this virtual reality project, designed to create the ultimate PR splash to publicize the reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Nickelodeon’s new turtle series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a prequel to the original show, and features the TMNT crew before they became crime fighters. The new show is set in a dense, urban background reminiscent of New York City, along with NYC’s mythical, hidden underground worlds. By creating a virtual press junket, Young was hoping to be able to immerse journalists into the Turtles’ new world. “At the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab, we believe the future is rendered in real-time,” Young says, and at 2018’s Comic-Con, he and his crew of engineers and dreamers set out to prove it…read more

While Facebook has been fine tuning its Oculus Headset into a more affordable virtual reality option, the one thing missing from the equation has been content creation. While the company closed its VR studio back in 2017, it’s now looking to create a virtual reality camera, and is joining forces with RED to do it. Could this the next module for the Hydrogen holographic mobile phone?

“We’ve been on a quest to build immersive capture technology for years,” said Facebook director of engineering Brian Cabral in an interview with Variety.

Outside of sheer speculation, that’s all we have at the moment. There’s no details other than what Facebook announced this week at the annual f8 Developer Conference. The prototype was showcased back in 2016, and a second generation highlighted at the conference last year. At that time, Facebook told developers that it was looking to partner with several hardware manufacturers to produce them. Now it looks like they’ve found a major provider that not only can produce the VR cameras, but take it to a level unseen until now.

“Depth reconstruction is only as good as the image data that you can capture,” said Cabral this week. “The pixel quality matters a lot (and RED) is a partner that has on-set experience….read more

The esports hype is at a fever pitch after Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) launched its much anticipated Overwatch League in January. Management has said that Overwatch League will turn a modest profit in 2018. It’s still uncertain exactly how big esports will become for the gamemaker, but in his 2017 annual letter to shareholders, CEO Bobby Kotick gave investors some clues. Let’s review what he had to say.

Overwatch League is making a lot of money

So far, the bulk of revenue that Activision has generated from the league is from selling team ownership to entrepreneurs in major cities around the world. The most noteworthy businessman to buy a team has been Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, who over the last few decades has created one of the all-time great dynasties across all sports.

Activision sold 12 teams last year to owners who either have experience in traditional sports or understand the esports market.

In his letter to shareholders, Kotick said, “we have sold the first 12 teams for almost a quarter of a billion dollars … and expect our league to eventually grow to 28 teams.”…read more

NABShow 2018 with Samsung 360 Round / Stereoscopic Livestream in 360 VR

Much like a traditional live television production, a control room will be available for attendees to witness a live and seamless production process overseen by directors, producers and technical personnel. Attendees will also be able to see what translates from a traditional live broadcast to a 360 live and complete VR experience. Content will be streamed in-booth to Samsung’s Gear VR and HMD Odyssey virtual reality headsets and will also be broadcast live online.

Genius Marketing will provide a combination of 3D and 2D interviews from the exciting show floor surrounding new technologies featured during NAB.

Next Computing will support the real-time broadcast with their high-end hardware, including purpose-built live stitching and streaming systems.

With the growing popularity of virtual reality (VR), demand for 360 video production is also on the rise. Whether you run a video production company, you’re a marketer looking to create experiential brand content or you want to tap into the potential of VR for employee training, now is a great time to get the ball rolling on 360 video production.

Here are 10 reasons why you should invest in 360 video:

1. 360 Video Is More Engaging

360 video is immersive in nature, allowing the viewer to explore outside the frame and experience each story in a different way every time they view it. This immersive medium encourages viewers to explore. Compared to standard video, 360 videos can command more earned interactions, increase retention and have a lasting impact.

2. The VR Audience Is Growing

As VR reaches mainstream adoption, the 360 video viewing audience grows larger and larger. IDC forecasts 43 million VR headsets shipping annually by 2022. The price of VR headsets, such as the Samsung Gear VR, have come down significantly since early models were released, and new headsets are making it easier for consumers to afford and discover VR as first-time users.

3. 360 Video Is Easy to Distribute

Users can watch 360 video on any capable mobile device, with or without a VR headset. Viewers can simply move their phones to explore the 360 content, like a window to another world. It’s just as easy to view content on laptop and desktop computers, where you can click and drag to change the perspective of the 360 scene. The content can easily be adapted to all platforms and devices — it’s easy to shoot once and deploy to various platforms and devices. Tethered VR headsets and powerful computers are not required.

4. 360 Camera Tech Has Matured

360 cameras have become more affordable and easier to use at the consumer level. It’s easier than ever to shoot and stitch 360 footage with inexpensive entry-level cameras like the Samsung Gear 360. On the professional level, there are turnkey solutions for cinematic quality 360 video with bundled software for stitching and live streaming. Today’s 360 cameras give you the ability to live monitor everything you shoot, just as you would with a traditional video camera.

5. A Wealth of 360 Production Tools Are Available

Many of the top production software companies are jumping on the VR bandwagon by offering solutions for editing and applying effects to 360 video footage. VR support has come with offerings from Adobe, Final Cut, Foundry and Blackmagic Design, to name a few. Many of these tools are capable of working in both monoscopic and stereoscopic VR footage. There is also growing support from visual effects plugin makers for rotoscoping and compositing 360 video.

Professional grade 360 cameras like the Samsung 360 Round include full-featured software suites to guide every step of the creative process, from import, to stitching, to live broadcast. Many of these cameras can easily be added to existing production workflow with Ethernet and SDI connections.

7. VR Enables Immersive Experiential Marketing Campaigns

For destination marketing, 360 video and VR can take experiential marketing to the next level. This new medium is transportive, giving your viewer the next best experience to actually being there. Whether you aim to book vacations, find that perfect summer rental, or explore new and exciting tourist destinations, 360 video can take you there.

8. 360 Video Has Exciting Applications for Training

360 video can create immersive and distraction-free environments for trainees. Businesses in various industries can bring VR training to learners anywhere in the world, without the need for additional travel and personnel costs. Organizations can also eliminate risk by allowing learners to experience tasks before trying them in the real world.

9. 360 Video Is a Truthful Medium

There’s no better way to be transparent with your clients, shareholders and investors than to create facility tours in 360 video for VR. Corporate offices can dazzle new prospective hires with VR experiences in company culture. Potential buyers from all over the world can tour commercial propertieswithout having to get on a plane. Showing your state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in 360 video can help to persuade those clients who are on the fence.

10. 360 Video Can Be Delivered in Real Time

Advanced VR cameras like the Samsung 360 Round let you livestream immersive 3D 360 video in real-time, in 4K per eye resolution with minimal latency. You can broadcast directly to platforms like Samsung VR, YouTube, Facebook or through your own media servers.

Without a doubt, 360 video can be useful for just about every type of industry, and it’s one of the easiest ways for your organization to join the cutting edge. If you’re ready to begin producing content for this popular new medium, the time to start is now.

Ready to start creating content — or just curious to learn more? Download our free Ultimate Guide to 360 Video Production.

More and more enterprises are finding new and innovative ways to use 360 video and virtual reality technology for marketing, training, healthcare and entertainment. For many of these organizations who have already discovered the benefits of VR experiences for their customers, the question is now whether or not to bring content production in-house.

Working with an experienced VR production company certainly has its benefits, especially when first getting started — including the peace of mind that your project will be done right the first time. But in the long run, it may prove more efficient and cost-effective to implement 360 video production in-house. And, as the technology improves and the cameras and software become easier to use, the barriers to entry are lower than ever.

Here are several real-world use cases of VR experiences to give you some ideas of how 360 video technology is being used in various industries, and how you might integrate it into your own business.

Event Production and Live Entertainment

VR is great for immersive live events, and 360 video is one of the most compelling ways to bring your virtual audience into your production. Whether it be live music, a conference keynote or a festival — immersive 360 video can increase viewership by allowing users all over the world to tune in.

Professional grade 360 video cameras such as the Samsung 360 Round offer great options to integrate into your existing event production systems, with SDI and Ethernet connectivity that allow you to live broadcast 360 directly to popular social media platforms.

Destination Marketing

VR is a powerful medium for destination marketing because it can transport the viewer anywhere in the world and situate them more effectively than traditional video formats. What better way is there to experience your vacation before you book?

Working with skilled production professionals can yield amazing results, but could also be cost prohibitive for some organizations considering the sheer volume of content they may need to capture. Destination marketing teams may benefit from learning the 360 video production workflow and bringing production in-house to optimize the messaging — especially since there can be so many activities to capture, many of which may differ somewhat depending on the season.

Service providers and outfitters can also be a source of revenue, paying to produce custom VR content as part of a showcase.

Corporate Training

Organizations are finding that VR provides a uniquely immersive, memorable and distraction-free environment for trainees. It can also save costs on travel, equipment and training facilitators, given that training in a VR environment can occur at multiple locations simultaneously.

For a standardized module, it might make sense to hire a production company to create a uniform experience across your company, but for curricula that have to be changed or updated frequently, it would probably be more beneficial to have your own equipment in-house to produce new content on the fly when needed.

Healthcare and Mental Health Professionals

In the medical and mental health industries, VR is being used to remarkable success for a variety of purposes, from treating dementia to delivering drug-free pain management.

Healthcare organizations who bring 360 video production in-house can increase the turnaround time on new content. Given how new the technology is, these types of treatments are often still experimental, and need clinical studies and testing to prove results. Being able to quickly produce and edit relevant content can help to reduce costs over time, considering the number of rounds testing tends to require.

Real Estate and Commercial Facility Tours

There’s no medium more convincing than 360 video when it comes to showing real estate properties, industrial facilities or commercial buildings remotely. Whether you’re selling luxury homes, or need buy-in from international partners on a new industrial facility, immersive video makes simple, 2D floor plans come alive — giving the viewer a complete and detailed sense of presence in any building or locale.

Scheduling professional production crews can be difficult when you have a steady stream of new properties in different locations around the world, and cost prohibitive if these crews have to travel to each location on your dime. Organizations with their own equipment can capture facilities and properties as needed. Depending on the intended use, this content may not need extensive post-production work, and could benefit from a conveniently portable camera like the 360 Round that features automatic stitching and live streaming capabilities.

But Wait — There’s More

While some of these ideas might get your gears turning, they’ve really only scratched the surface of the many valuable business use cases for 360 video. Today’s cameras are more advanced and easier to plug into an existing production workflow than ever before. If your organization is willing to take that step and learn something new, you’ll find there are many rewards to deploying immersive video.

The pilot episodes for six original series launch today on Samsung VR Video service, along with the announcement of grants for a select set of indie filmmakers to create original VR episodes.

Revealed at Tribeca Film Festival, which runs until April 29, in New York, the new Samsung initiative aims to advance the VR medium within the independent VR filmmaking industry, another aspect of Samsung’s commitment to VR and the VR filmmaker community. Samsung continues to advance its 360 Round solution, with the latest of those updates announced recently at NAB, as ProVideo Coalition mentioned. The premiere of Samsung VR Video’s Pilot Season touches an important segment of the whole concept: the creation of content.

Through the program, a select set of indie filmmakers received a grant from Samsung to create original VR episodes and were offered the opportunity to utilize the 360 Round camera, Samsung’s professional 360-degree camera designed for developing and live streaming high-quality 3D content. In addition, filmmakers receive exclusive distribution via a dedicated channel on the Samsung VR Video service.

Pilot Season will be available on Samsung VR Video from today.To find the Pilot Season debut episodes, with a Samsung Gear VR with Controller, powered by Oculus, coupled with a compatible Galaxy device such as Galaxy S9 or S9+, head to the Oculus store and navigate to Samsung VR Video service. Within the service, users will find the Pilot Season in the “Featured” section….read more

Samsung took an enhanced version of the Samsung 360 Round camera to NAB 2018, showing how the updated 360 Round’s bundled software offers better results for both livestreaming and post production.

Samsung’s presence at NAB 2018, in terms of VR, defines the continued development by the company of solutions designed to offer immersive worlds to explore. While some are still not sure if Virtual Reality has a part to play in the future of imaging, other believe that there is no way back, and different forms of this new “reality” will be used in the future. VR is, apparently, the most popular, according to a recent study by TECHnalysis Research.

Introduced in 2017, the Samsung 360 Round offers 360 3D image capture, 4K x 4K resolution, 3D sound. It’s professional-quality, totally immersive VR, all in a compact unibody design, point towards the direction the industry seems to move, making early VR experiences a thing of the past. At NAB, the VR Pavilion and sessions were always packed with people wanting to test solutions and check the progress and eager to know what’s coming next. Samsung may have answers to some of those questions, and sooner than some may think.

Some of those news were delivered at NAB 2018, with the enhanced Samsung 360 Round camera solution, now including updates to its livestreaming and post-production software. The new solution gives professional video creators the tools they need—from capture to post-production—to tell immersive, engaging 360-degree and 3D stories for film and broadcast. The camera now has a new mobile app allowing for preview of content and remote control. Other improvements include real time calibration of stitch lines, and color and light correction capabilities. In addition, filmmakers can now upload 360 Round content directly to the Samsung VR Video creator portal…. – read more

Click here to watch on YouTube.

11 filmmakers give us the 360° camera low down.

As the founder of eevo, an interactive VR / 360º video company, I speak every day with filmmakers exploring the world of VR. They are hungry to learn more about creating interactive 360º video and spatial audio experiences.

Whether for the sake of storytelling, real estate tours, medical content, art, or tourism, they often ask the same question: What 360º camera should I be using?

I’ve had some ideas, but I wanted to give them the best possible answer. So I decided to reach out to some of the amazing creators I’ve met to see what they had to say. While I didn’t expect to find too many similarities in people’s thoughts on this matter, it turns out that professional creators agree on quite a few things, both in regards to their approach to 360º filmmaking and to the equipment they choose to do it with.

Armando Kirwin, Independent Director of VR

Former EP at Vrse.Works, filmed 360° video for NY Times, Within, Facebook, Airbnb, Muse, Mastercard and more.

Recommended 360º Cameras:

• Insta360 Pro — $3,500
• Yi Halo — $17,000

“I strongly believe that you should select the best camera on a case-by-case basis for each project, or even for each shot, that you pursue. That being said, my current favorite camera is the Insta360 Pro. I took it with me on location in Cameroon and found it to be easy to operate, reliable under diverse shooting conditions, and capable of generating a pleasing image. It’s also priced very fairly. I now recommend this camera to most people who want to get started in VR production.…[continue reading]