Google is opening up invitations for anyone interested in trying out its Jump virtual reality rig. All you have to do is fill out an online form, answer a few questions, and tell Google what you will do with your rig. If selected, Google will send you what is essentially a ring of 16 GoPro cameras and a full suite needed to create panoramic videos.
First shown at the Google I/O three weeks back, the Jump VR rig boasts camera syncing, multi-camera control, and long battery life — features that take some of the pain out of working with 16 individual cameras. Once you have your footage captured, it can be brought into Google’s new Jump software for processing. The resulting footage is immersive and can be viewed with a virtual reality headset or through special viewers, or even YouTube. Not only does Google have a solution in their cardboard VR viewer which now works with both iOS and Android devices with screens as big as 6″, but they are also going to be supporting VR videos directly in YouTube.
At the moment, there aren’t any off-the-shelf solutions for capturing high quality 360-degree video. Google understands this and wants to push top YouTubers into creating this content with the Jump. Over the last year Google’s partner, GoPro has also made its own moves to embrace VR. Three months ago it acquired Kolor, a software company specializing in virtual reality video capture. Since then, the company announced a camera rig that captures video in a spherical format, which will be available in the second half of 2015. “This is really going to be most appealing for production companies and prosumers,” GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said about the spherical rig at the Code Conference last month. He added that ‘normal’ people would definitely end up buying it but the first version would be for pros.
