With the rise of virtual reality technology comes the rise of virtual reality media, and thus the need for cameras that can capture live entertainment at a number of angles and patch them together on the fly for viewers using VR hardware. Naturally, there is a huge number of such cameras out there, mostly of the super high-end variety, not too far off from the kind used to create movies. These, of course, simply won’t do for consumers for a few reasons. As well as prohibitive price, these rigs are often quite a pain to set up and not terribly portable. This means that a separate segment exists for consumer VR cameras, which is, at the moment, woefully understated. One of the entries in the extreme high end of this space, being extremely portable but costing $45,000, is the Ozo camera from Nokia.
While clearly priced away from the average consumer’s budget, the richest of the rich, indie film producers and the like may find a lot to love about the Ozo. According to a press release from Nokia, the camera’s high price tag and cluster of 2K by 2K sensors is on its way to China. High end VR camera buyers from the People’s Republic will be able to get their hands on an Ozo for all of their 30fps, 2K VR video needs some time in the 3rd quarter of 2016, thanks to a distribution partnership with LeEco.
According to Nokia, the Chinese market has a “genuine hunger” for new and high-quality VR content; just the sort of content that the Ozo can produce. Nokia’s partnership with LeEco, specifically their LeVR arm, is set to go beyond making them a retail partner for the Ozo itself. Content for the LeVR ecosystem will be produced using Ozo units in the hands of various VR content creators. With the incoming release of the OZO Live and OZO Player SDK in all markets to enable simultaneous recording and broadcasting of both audio and video in 360 degrees and high definition, the Ozo family’s market share is expected to only grow among content creators and high-end consumers alike.