Ricoh has unveiled a new first-of-its-kind camera,
the Ricoh R Development Kit with a 360-degree camera able to broadcast live
video for up to 24 hours straight. The camera will be made available as part of
this development kit, and is notable as the first fully-spherical 360-degree
offering with this long-duration broadcasting ability. The camera livestreams
video at a 2K/30fps resolution.
Ricoh, a company that’s no stranger to making
360-degree cameras, will offer this model as part of the Ricoh R dev kit, which
it plans to have available this upcoming spring season. Unlike many other
cameras of this sort, the Ricoh H dev kit camera is able to broadcast live
footage for up to a full day, making it a viable option for businesses, professional
broadcasts, productions, creators, and more.
Fully spherical video such as this enables
broadcasters to provide viewers with content that can be viewed using a VR
headset, whether that is Google Cardboard or something more sophisticated.
We’ve seen this technology increasingly utilized for live televised broadcasts,
perhaps the most recent of which was the 2016 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Ricoh says that a series of beta tests has led it to
believe that technology like this has ‘significant business potential,’ with
these businesses including education, gaming, research, entertainment, and
others. That’s why this camera is first being made available as a dev kit — so
that developer’s can come up with applications that’ll boost the hardware’s
usefulness in various industries.
Joining the other features is this camera’s ability
to stitch videos in-camera to Equirectangular Projection Format in real time.
This content can then be output over USB or HDMI; in-camera storage is
comprised of a microSD card. The device has a built-in battery, but also a
power adapter for powering the camera over long broadcasting sessions. Price
hasn’t been stated at this time.
