GoPro CEO Nick Woodman first announced plans for the Omni spherical virtual reality camera rig last year.
Now the company has revealed what the final product will look like. The Omni VR rig uses six GoPro Black cameras to provide spherical content.
GoPro Omni spherical rig more accessible than Odyssey
The company previously showed off a 16-camera rig known as the Odyssey, but it costs a whopping $15,000. The Omni should be slightly more accessible in terms of pricing.
Six GoPro Black cameras would set you back $3,000 if you bought them separately. If that still seems expensive, that’s because the rig is aimed at professional or pro-sumer users.
However other spherical camera rigs are far more costly. The Nokia Ozo will set you back $60,000, for example. You could get an Orah for $3,600, but the brand is fairly unproven.
First all-official spherical rig
Omni will not be able to record in 3D as the Odyssey can, but it will be able to synchronize the cameras at “pixel-level.” It is also designed to function with VR-video software Kolor, which GoPro acquired last April.
If you’ve got various GoPro cameras or you fancy teaming up with some friends, you can buy a 3rd party mount and build your own version. However be aware that you will then have to sync the cameras and stitch the video together yourself.
To save even more money you can 3D print a rig which uses less than $1 worth of material. However the Omni is the first official spherical camera rig from GoPro.
Pricing details have not yet been revealed, but the company has said that an all-in-one bundle with cables and cameras will be available as well as a rig only option. The Omni will be on show at NAB from April 16-21 alongside some spherical content and the HEROCast wireless transmitter.
Now that Omni has been revealed, GoPro fans are awaiting news of the Karma drone. The design of the drone is still unknown, but according to rumors it will be foldable.
The Karma drone may work with the Omni rig, but spherical video from the sky has not proven to be so effective in the past. GoPro has not mentioned a release date for the drone at the time of writing.
