The first time we heard about Lytro was thanks to the launch of one of its cameras. Unfortunately, none of those models made a strong impression on the market, but now the company is seeking a comeback with a completely different beast: the Immerge camera. Unlike its previous products, Immerge targets professional production of virtual reality content, and it carries an enormous promise: the possibility of moving within a video as if it were a game.
Virtual reality is racing against itself. The debut of virtual reality headsets is approaching at a snail's pace, but at the same time the content side can't be neglected. Suppose you buy a headset tomorrow. What would you play? I'd guess titles like Skyrim and Elite: Dangerous would top the list, but the lack of diversity isn't limited to games. What's happening with video? Are we going to watch documentaries or movies? The feeling is that that kind of material is going to take a while longer to arrive. Fortunately, many companies are working on specialized equipment, and one of them is Lytro, which has just presented the Immerge.
https://vimeo.com/144034085Six degrees of freedom in a live-action environment
A traditional virtual reality camera records 360-degree video. When we put on the headset, we can look in all directions, but our ability to move within the video tends to be nil. Obviously, this doesn't happen inside a video game, because the environment is computer-generated and all the necessary information exists. Immerge's promise is to offer six degrees of freedom in a live-action environment, capturing what its creators call light field volume. To achieve this, the camera must capture all the data coming from all angles simultaneously, and that includes the way light affects the surfaces of objects.
Needless to say, the amount of data that must be stored is staggering, to the point that the Lytro Immerge camera comes with its own dedicated server group. Lytro CEO Jason Rosenthal confirmed that videos created with the Immerge will be fully compatible with the main headsets on the market, and at the same time there will be plugins for the most important editing and production platforms, such as Final Cut Pro and Nuke. Remote control support will be critical, since there can't be anyone on the set, or otherwise they would become part of the video. The camera will reach the market in the first months of 2016.
