In July, Ozo was introduced to the public for the first time, on an event that took place in Los Angeles, where it was pointed out that the company’s intention is to promote the product for use in Hollywood’s filmmaking industry and other professionals in the media world, more than the rest of the ordinary consuming groups.
What we didn’t know at the time was the price and the time of release. Now, it has been revealed to the public that Ozo, the sphere that uses eight cameras and eight microphones to record high-resolution immersive video and audio in 360 degrees, will roll out during the first quarter of the next year, at $60,000.
The price did not really come as a surprise, considering that the company’s intentions were clear from the beginning. Once it debuts, Nokia’s VR 3600 camera will join a nascent but rapidly developing market for VR creative tools.
In fact, last May, after acquiring a VR company, GoPro announced it was building a spherical camera mount to record immersive video. Later that month, the company announced a separate 16-camera system designed to be used with Google Jump. Jump, announced at the Google I/O developer conference, intends to be a full-featured ecosystem for VR filmmaking. Samsung has a camera rig as well, called Gear VR.
While Nokia calls Ozo a virtual camera, there is a wave of controversy from people who advocate that there is actually nothing virtual in shooting a real life video.
Regardless, the 3600 camera houses eight 2K-by-2K image sensors and eight microphones, with which it will record video and store it to a 500GB flash storage. That flash alone costs $2,500 and can save up to 45 minutes of footage, according to the Finnish company.
While Ozo is aimed at professionals, there are some alternatives, such as GoPro’s Odyssey that costs a more affordable $15,000. It’s an array of 16 of the company’s Hero4 HD video cameras held in a ring by a special mounting block, but it can only shoot cylindrical video instead of spherical.
As for the profit, judging by the competition and the consuming group that will be targeted, Nokia should get its income charts up making a successful first quarter in the upcoming year.
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