Facebook recently announced their 360-degree video technology at their annual F8 event, that was held this year on April 12th and 13th, in San Francisco. Surround 360, is ready to give people the chance to experience seamless 360-degree video like never before. And this could be exactly what sports fans and teams, have been waiting for.
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
Surround360, is a camera unlike any other. The spherical device features 17 different cameras. There are 14 wide-angle cameras attached horizontally around the center ring. There is also a fish-eyed camera on the top, and two more cameras on the bottom. This device was designed to film 360-degree video more easily than ever before, but it is also able to capture video in 3-D as well.
Facebook is not in the camera manufacturing business. In fact they made the Surround360 with off-the-shelf components, which brings the final cost for one device, to roughly $30,000. Therefore, they will be open-sourcing this technology to other developers, for free, in the coming months.
The idea is that by allowing others to learn from the technology in Surround 360, that these type of 360-degree camera devices will become more prevalent, much faster. And this helps Facebook, and users looking for 360-degree video content, get a hold of it much more quickly. This is where sports fans, teams, and their broadcast partners come in.
With greater access to this kind of video technology, it likely will not be long before television networks and sports franchises start to use it. Fans want to see their favorite sports and their favorite teams in the most state-of-the-art way. Networks clamored to broadcast games in High-Definition, and the proliferation of 4K is right around the corner. Now with the help of Facebook, 360-degree video is next.
Facebook engineer Brian Cabral, who helped design Surround360, proclaims it is easy to use, and to distribute. “You can treat it like an ordinary camera… You plug it in. You hit record. You get a big data file out. And it somehow gets turned into a seamless video, just like you would with any video camera.” They designed the hardware and software to perform only one task. This will help allow the public to enjoy 360-video more quickly and easily.
Live sports, are the most coveted programs on television in terms of adversing dollars. Therefore, with this technology out there, soon to be shared all over Facebook, broadcast networks will follow suit, in order to give sports fans this same 360-degree experience.
Imagine this technology in every stadium and every arena, giving sports fans at home access to angles like never before. Surround 360’s technology could help bring sports fans around the globe seamless 360-degree video for every game. And with much of Facebook’s future tied to video, fans should be able to experience and share this 360-degree video on social networks very soon.