OmniCam360 Camera Cluster Lets You Choose the Viewing Angle 66
Zothecula writes "Armchair sports lovers are at the mercy of TV directors who chose what camera angle is shown when. Most sports fans will have been frustrated with their shot selection at one time or another, but a new panoramic camera would put such decisions in the viewer's hands. Comprising ten individual cameras, the OmniCam 360 provides a full 360-degree of the action." Just don't roll it down a hill and try to watch the results.
Not what you need for sports! (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't usually want a choice of directions to look from a fixed point - you usually want to be able to look towards one or two interesting bits of play from a different location.
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If you had read TFA (ok, I'm asking too much) you would know it reconstructs the 3D scene, so you're able to do what you've just said.
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Holy fuck, indeed! I apologize for the misinformation. I thought I had read TFA, but it was actually another one, about a setup that did the 3D reconstruction. I'll try to find it and post the link here.
Again, my apologies.
Re:Not what you need for sports! (Score:5, Interesting)
And here it goes: http://collegespun.com/acc/notre-dame/report-nbc-to-use-spectacular-freed-technology-for-notre-dames-shamrock-series-game [collegespun.com]
Much more interesting, IMHO.
Re:Not what you need for sports! (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be great for porn
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I thought they used a similar technology in the 2012 Olympics. I tried to find something on Youtube, but unfortunately all I can find when I do a search for "gymnastics 3d view" or "360 degree view" just returns gymnastics videos in 3D for from gyms named 3d gymnastics or 360gymnastics or something like that. Grrr.
Maybe it was a commercial I saw.
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Can you point this time-poor Slashdotter to where TFA says the device "reconstructs the 3D scene" as opposed to provides a 360 degree panorama?
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http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4077633&cid=44539821 [slashdot.org]
Re:Not what you need for sports! (Score:4, Insightful)
No what I really want is missing half the game because of commercials, endless repeats of missed goals, close-ups of players faces and/or third rate celebs in the stands. Think of the possibilities this system will bring to that!
Re: Not what you need for sports! (Score:2)
Without all that filler, the whole television game (it would have to take place after the real game) would be a one beer event, where your buddies spend more time getting to your house than watching it, and nobody would have time to finish their first hotdog.
Re: Not what you need for sports! (Score:2)
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UK Premier League Football (i.e. soccer) is quite different. It has a typical 'ball in play time' of 55 mins out of 90.
http://www.soccermetrics.net/team-performance/effective-time-in-football [soccermetrics.net]
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I don't give a shit about sports, but this thing takes the perfect footage for viewing with the oculus rift
Are you kidding? (Score:2)
That's the FIRST thing to do!!!!
Is it 3D, too?
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Is it 3D, too?
By 3D I assume you're referring to stereoscopic display. As it reconstructs the 3D geometry of the scene, stereoscopic rendering should be trivial. That would be an awesome application to use with the Oculus Rift.
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Indeed, my bad. I thought TFA was talking about this: http://collegespun.com/acc/notre-dame/report-nbc-to-use-spectacular-freed-technology-for-notre-dames-shamrock-series-game [collegespun.com]
The Geonaute is far better and you can buy one! (Score:1)
I met the CEO of a small French company whose product blew me away, so forget the bulky Omnicam!
http://www.gizmag.com/geonaute-action-camera-360-degree-ces/25747/
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" It's like comparing a GoPro Hero and a Red EPIC..."
Not really, and nothing in the article suggests that the Omnicam is the "Red EPIC" of panoramic cameras, whatever that might mean.
Assuming each of the Omnicam's cameras is capable of broadcast HD quality,there's an order of magnitude increase in broadcast bandwidth spent on enabling the users of the least interesting platform (tablets). Combine that with the limited usefulness of 360 degree coverage (what sports event wants that?) and you'd expect limite
example (Score:3)
Just don't roll it down a hill and try to watch the results.
Is there an example of this somewhere?
Most armchair sports fans are too lazy to use it (Score:2)
Re:Most armchair sports fans are too lazy to use i (Score:5, Interesting)
You're forgetting that the broadcasters can use it to find the best viewing angle. The sports fans can continue to be lazy.
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Broadcasters won't want it for that because (a) they get to plan their perspectives in advance, and (b) they need to choose their lens perspectives which this can't do. Furthermore, this would require replacement of a great deal of expensive equipment that likely provides better quality and would result in the same or even more work in post. Broadcast teams have figured out how to do the job already, they won't want the "help".
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There are a few different categories of sports fans. The armchair sports fans who catch a few games while drinking a beer on the weekend are indeed not a likely target audience for this. But there are also more 'hardcore' sports fans who keep track of reams of statistics, want replays from as many angles as possible, are willing to pay for $200+ subscriptions [nfl.com] that let them frame-by-frame step through past games, etc. There's probably a market for premium services for that segment.
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You don't have to like it but if you criticise it because you don't understand why people like it, you end up looking stupid.
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I've seen this demonstrated 15 years ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
The application was a video conferencing system. The omnidirectional camera had the exact same arrangement of mirrors and black baffles between them. It was placed in the middle of a conference table and the display was steered automatically by a microphone array that determined the direction of the speaker. This way you always got a nice framing of the speaker's head. It was essential for getting any kind of usable picture in a conference with multiple people back when bandwidth was limited and video compression was crappy. It would still be very useful today but I haven't seen this anywhere.
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=D&CC=WO&NR=9847291A3 [espacenet.com]
Re:I've seen this demonstrated 15 years ago. (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft's Roundtable does this too. Those have been available for at least seven years.
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I'd love to see what that would do at an Italian round table with everyone talking to everyone... more and more emotional... with more and more hand gestures... A screaming room of madness. ;)
Poor thing 'd probably go up in flames by the time the main dish gets served.
Finally!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean I can finally get to see what is just outside the frame when they show the naked actress from neck-up or with something conveniently positioned just in front of the "important bits"?
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You might see that she isn't actually naked!
Yeah, right... (Score:2)
99 out of 100 sports fans will screw up. The guys who scan 10 feeds and pick the best one will do better almost every singly time. That's why they get picked out of a couple of thousand wannabe's to do the job.
Mostly, they're better than Joe Sixpack though that isn't a tune that plays well in a country that believes everybody's opinion is just as good as everybody else's.
Re:Yeah, right... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think the word "better" really applies, because not everyone is interested in the same thing. Some people want to see the game and nothing but the game. Other people want to look at the crowd. Others want to replay over and over controversial or exciting moments. Some people want to watch one player specifically, while others would prefer a much wider angle so as to be able to see the pattern of play developing. Some people like to see the facial expressions of the players.
It's not a competition and there is not one "best" way. If there is a choice of ten views of the game, there will be some people who like each and every one.
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You're certainly right about some fans...maybe even most fans. I still think, though, that a lot of them will be disappointed after a few weeks of looking at exactly what they thought they wanted.
TV deliberately sabotages viewing angles (Score:1)
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Although I can see the logic behind this I think it is highly unlikely. TV channels pay teams huge amounts of money to show their matches and it is the TV channels that film the event. They have no motivation to make physically being there more attractive. If teams were filming and distributing matches themselves then maybe that could be happening.
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Never attribute malice (Score:2)
... where incompetence will serve as well.
And in this case, that may even be a bit harsh. Filming these things perfectly is not exactly easy.
Where have I seen this before? (Score:2)
Oh yes, I know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_RoundTable [wikipedia.org]
I've got a couple of these things at the office. It works okay I guess. It detects where the sound is coming from and angles the view in that direction.
360 deg: Pah, not good enough/ (Score:3)
Seems like a pretty stupid idea (Score:2)
It's more likely that this device would help broadcasters than viewers. They'd throw one of these cameras up on a cable above a stadium, running it back and forth and it would be the director who chose the most inter
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"It's more likely that this device would help broadcasters than viewers. They'd throw one of these cameras up on a cable above a stadium, running it back and forth and it would be the director who chose the most interesting angle from the 10 offered."
And that would be quite unlikely. Broadcasters would have to meet broadcast standards with their feed sources and that would limit the angle of view this device could provide. Maybe a facility may invest in some of these but they would be a gimmick-cam for br
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Solution in search of a problem (Score:1)
> Most sports fans will have been frustrated with...shot
> selection at one time or another, but a new panoramic
> camera would put such decisions in the viewer’s hands
ensuring frustration with shot selection most of the time.
A fight for the remote (Score:2)
Yeah, and for those not watching alone this is going to drive everyone else totally crazy. You're watching the action, when the doofus with the remote decides he wants to see what's happening on the sideline.
I predict a new wave of TV related domestic violence.
Right, "Sports". (Score:1)
360 degrees only? (Score:2)
Riot pls! (Score:1)
The teams don't want you to have this (Score:2)
The big reason this will never hit my TV screen is that the teams don't want us to understand what really went on during the plays [slashdot.org]. This technology may get used, and may become available to the teams who played in the game, but the teams will actively block access to the general public. There are already many cameras on the field that give easier-to-understand views than we see on TV, and we never see footage from those, either.
On a side note, I've been around long enough to realize that the editors can't