After Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2013, it focused on maps, network devices, etc. Recently, it released a new product in Los Angeles, USA: a 360 degree spherical panoramic camera called Ozo. Nokia said that Ozo has entered the production preparation stage.
Ozo is not a consumer electronics product, but an industry oriented user. Nokia hopes that this product can become the default device for Hollywood, media and advertising industries to produce VR video of virtual reality. The company will officially launch this product this fall, and then will announce its final pricing. Of course, the product will be manufactured in Finland.
Why Ozo Attracts Hollywood
Nokia's image products may sound strange at first, but in fact, before the advent of the smartphone era, Nokia was still the world's largest imaging device manufacturer thanks to the super popularity of its mobile phones. The 808 PureView launched by Nokia three years ago is still on the top ten camera phones ranked by the professional camera evaluation website DxOMark. So Nokia still has some accumulation and technical strength in terms of image.
The industry estimates that the price of Nokia Ozo is tens of thousands of dollars, which is not cheap, but for a professional device, the price is reasonable. For Hollywood, Ozo can attract them in several aspects: first, it can shoot videos of virtual reality content in real time; Secondly, Ozo has realized real-time monitoring: directors can watch Ozo's shot in real time through the VR helmet during shooting, and can also play back quickly. You should know that in the past, virtual reality shots needed to be digitally spliced to view, which usually took hours, while Ozo could render low resolution video for playback in a few minutes.
Nokia said that Ozo is the most advanced virtual reality shooting platform at present. This device is spherical in design, with a volume similar to that of a large melon and a weight of about 3 kg. The distance between the eight optical sensors is basically the same as that between human eyes. In addition, 3D sound is recorded through 8 built-in microphones to provide a more realistic audio-visual experience.
Ozo's positioning
Google Jump Virtual reality is hot recently, and the industry is in a period of rapid development: In May, after acquiring a virtual reality company, GoPro released a consumer level spherical camera to take videos of immersive content. At the Google I/O developer conference at the end of May, GoPro also released a spherical camera system Google Jump integrating 16 Go Pro, It is planned to create a fully functional ecosystem for VR film production; Samsung is also developing something similar.
Compared with Google, Nokia seems less ambitious. Ozo supports a tripod and can output standard video formats. Directors can watch Ozo's videos through virtual reality helmets such as Oculus Rift, or directly send them to video websites such as Youtube. Their goal is to integrate Ozo into the existing film production process, rather than creating a new system format.
How to experience
During the demonstration after Ozo's press conference, the reporters of The Verge watched the content of Ozo's shooting through Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and found that there were blurred pictures and inaccurate focusing. Vesa Rantanen, head of Nokia R&D, explained that these deficiencies could be corrected through later measures.
At the same time, the reporter found that Ozo can accurately restore the direction and source of sound through 3D stereo sound effect, which benefits from Nokia's audio rendering technology, and also makes the VR video experience more realistic and the user experience more excellent.
A studio called Jaunt VR has become the first customer of Nokia Ozo. This studio is a little famous in the industry and has just launched its own virtual reality camera. They intend to shoot anytime and anywhere through Ozo, and provide their works to media giants like Conde Nast Group.
New development direction
It is not difficult to find out from Ozo that Nokia has taken VR technology as a new development direction of the company. However, it seems that the company does not intend to put all its treasure on this: before that, they also released an Andriod tablet computer called N1, which was commissioned by Foxconn; Next, Nokia may also build Android phones. After all, virtual reality devices are still emerging and have too many uncertainties. It is always right to be careful not to put all eggs in one basket.
As a Finnish enterprise that has been established for 150 years, started with paper industry, and worked in rubber, diapers, cable and even military industries, this is not the first time Nokia has turned around. At present, a large amount of money is looking for opportunities in the field of virtual reality, and Nokia also hopes to find a good position in it through Ozo.
