The Vuze XR Dual Camera from HumanEyes Technology shipped out to its first customers in late November.
Jim Malcolm, the General Manager for North America at HumanEyes, was previously involved with both the launching of one of the world’s first digital cameras as well as one of the first 360-degree cameras on the market. Now, he is helping to launch the first camera which can shoot in both 360 degrees and virtual reality.
“I have committed most of my career to the imaging industry,” Malcolm said. He compared the early stages of the digital camera to the current state of immersive imaging, particularly user-created VR content. Malcom recalls working to convince companies like Sony to embrace that digital cameras at a time when film was all-powerful.
“Now here I am 20 years later from when I introduced the world to digital cameras, where I was the young guy telling the established community, ‘hey lets do something different,'” Malcom said. “Now I’m a little bit older or wiser and a bit more experienced telling the younger generation, ‘hey come into this new thing called virtual reality.'”
Malcom is excited to see VR, which he describes as “in its infancy” progress and improve. As is, the Vuze XR already has quite an impressive resume. The camera is small and portable and has outdoor-focused accessories like a waterproof case fit for underwater filming, and the marketing team has created content that appeals to outdoor and action filming. However, Malcom wanted to make clear that the point of this product is its quality imaging in VR and 360 degrees rather than action capabilities. The camera boasts video resolution at 5.7K at 30fps or up to 4K at 60fps (H.264 MP4) and stills at 18MP, in both the 360 degree mode and the separate left and right eye mode shooting in VR.
“We wanted to focus on overall image quality providing a gateway into virtual reality,” Malcom said. “With that left and right eye separation you get depth perception and 3D effects […]The real intent of our products are to focus on the VR capability of that camera.”
Another way that Malcom considers the Vuze XR to encourage further interest in immersive visuals is its ability to stream live and connect directly to social networks like Youtube and Facebook via its own application. These social features are part of the Vuze XR’s campaign to bring those who Malcom calls “the VR-interested” into creating their own immersive content, “creating a larger funnel to bring more people into the VR category,” he said.
This dual camera is the third camera in the Vuze line from HumanEyes, but the biggest difference with this product is that it doesn’t need a powerful and spacious computer to shoot and display content in VR. Though Malcom acknowledges a large market for full VR360 immersion, he feels this camera appeals to a larger market of customers being introduced into immersive imaging.
“I’d love to open the door and have user-generated content become an inspiration as to why you would go buy a headset,” Malcom said. He also pointed out that making it possible for current VR fans to create their own immersive content would likely increase their usage of their headsets.
Allison Matthews is the Account Exective for Skyya Communications, which is the PR team that represents HumanEyes. Matthews said Skkya was “drawn to the innovative camera, and HumanEyes in general is a leader in the space. We’re also just really excited to be a part of a team and work with a company that has a lot of really cool products but also has a lot to say about the entire industry.”
Malcom stressed that HumanEyes wanted to work with Skyya because of the chemistry in the partnership and their mix of representing lifestyle products and technology. He said they wanted a company that would focus on the application of the camera rather than just the technology itself.
Malcom wants users of this product to embrace a new form of communication. He is particularly excited to witness how the quality imaging and the duality of 360 degrees and VR in the camera “gets people to tell their story differently.”
Images Courtesy of HumanEyes and Skyya Communications
