Love Star Wars, Marvel, or Pixar? Just imagine watching these favorite movies in an extraordinarily immersive 360-degree experience. Well, that can be possible pretty soon. Ever since its launch, the Nokia Ozo Camera has been pitched by its makers as a high-end option for Hollywood filmmakers, and its recent deal with Disney proves so. The camera which started shipping in the first quarter of 2016, is the world’s first virtual camera built for professionals.
The Build and Design
Nokia Ozo Camera includes an array of eight fully synchronized lenses with a fixed aperture of f/2.4, a 195-degree field of view and each lens is backed by 2k x 2k sensors. Nokia Ozo Camera uses global shutter which makes it ideal for capturing moving objects without blur at a capture frame rate of 30 fps. The spherical and stereoscopic video capture with Spatial Audio Array through Ozo supports MP4, MP4VR, and Monoscopic or stereoscopic 360-degree panoramas with multichannel audio. The Nokia Ozo camera certainly looks amazing with a spherical rig including an array of eight optical image sensors carefully bolted together. The spherical shape is appealing and seems like an object from the future. The audio is captured in 3D by eight microphones which are pre-embedded in the camera. The camera offers specification which makes it a professional grade gadget. The camera offers a dynamic range of 60 dB / ten stops along with an audio dynamic range of 64dB S/N, 120dB max SPL, and a base color temperature of 4000 degrees Kelvin. The omnidirectional audio sensors work great and help you locate things in the Nokia Ozo Camera created VR. The camera boasts a 500 GB module which stores around 45 minutes of footage. VR footage follows a master file format of MOV wrapped OZO Virtual Reality with 8Ch raw Video and 8Ch PCM Audio.
Performance
What’s most appealing in the Nokia Ozo Camera is that it allows filmmakers to monitor what is being recorded in real time. It does so through a virtual reality headset and also plays back low-resolution footage in a span of only a few minutes, which in other 360 degree cameras requires lots of time as it can be done only after processing the content through a stitching software. This, however, is quite a time-consuming task in itself. Ozo affixes to a tripod which is one of the components required on the top of the camera itself. Other components include SDI and Thunderbolt cable, a computer, plus a Black Magic Ultra Studio Mini Recorder to complete the package. Jaunt VR, the company that manufactures Jaunt one camera among others, has agreed to be one of the first few partners for the Nokia Ozo camera. The live feed recorded in the camera is somewhat muddy and out of focus which according to the company can be eliminated through post production. But the sound is the highlight about this camera as it is immersive and tracks the viewer in the space.
To work with the camera one requires setting up the Ozo remote app which can be used to adjust the exposure, check framing and start and stop recording. Apart from that, the adjustments can also be made in the global shutter speed and color temperature. The Ozo remote app is very easy to use, and we can soon see a mobile app for Nokia Ozo Camera in web stores. The camera though is capable of capturing both monoscopic and stereoscopic footage. The stitching process takes places once the content has been imported into Ozo Creator software. The stitches can manually be adjusted by moving the seam over the images as per one’s requirements. The footage requires several hours depending upon the length of the footage to be converted into a 360-degree image which can late be edited through third party software.
Nokia Ozo Remote Application supports various operating systems including Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Mac OS X El Capitan, Windows 10. On the other hand, the Ozo creator application requires minimum specifications of Mac Pro (Late 2013) with Dual AMD FirePro D500 or PC with quad core-i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 2 x NVIDIA GTX 1080 GPUs. But there are a few downfalls with Nokia Ozo camera. Firstly, the post render time is outrageous compared to a GoPro Rig and it offers low frame rate and a resolution that is not quite up to the mark. Secondly, there is some noise while shooting in darker environments. This might be disappointing for some once they have a look at the price tag as one might expect great video capture in almost all the conditions.
Price
Nokia Ozo Camera is available in the market with a price tag of $45000 which is $15000 less the price when it was launched. The high price tag is not something everyone can afford; Ozo is not a camera for the hobbyists. Beyond Disney, Nokia is in talks with NASA to capture Virtual Reality content along with NBA to stream the live sporting feed to viewers. It is indeed an incredible camera system with excellent specifications, but the price remains the concern for something that still requires a lot of improvements.
The Verdict
Nokia Ozo Camera looks promising; its tie-ups make it look even more. Ozo aims at removing certain primary hurdles faced while creating 360-degree content through its convenient usability. Ozo has low-light limitations and images sometimes get grainy, and hence, calls for improvements. The audio features are incredible, the sound from the headphones adjust automatically depending on where the user is looking at. To sum it all, Nokia Ozo is a $60,000 camera from Nokia Technologies that impresses with its audio quality and features but falls short with its VR quality that still requires improvement. Nokia Ozo camera is Nokia’s bet in Virtual reality industry which is forecasted to reach triple digits by 2020. It will be fascinating to see whether it becomes an industry standard or not.
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