Category: google jump

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Google to Shutter Jump VR Video Service in June

Google seems to be taking somewhat of a step back from VR, as Variety reports the company will be shutting down its Jump program for good next month.

Google posted an updated Jump FAQ recently regarding the shutdown of the VR video service, outlining that Jump will officially go offline on June 28th, 2019.

The ability to upload video will be suspended on June 26th; the 27th is the cutoff date to back up whatever files you may have uploaded via the service. Any later than that, and all Jump-related files will be deleted from Google’s Cloud Services for good.

In an all too brief statement, Google says the shutdown is due to “the emergence of a number of alternative solutions for creators,” which they maintain saw usage of Jump Assembler decline.

Photo by Road to VR

In Jump’s wake, the company suggests that VR filmmakers make use of third-party stitching software such as Mistika VR and the Nuke Cara VR plugin. Both are said to work with either of the platform’s officially supported rigs, the GoPro Odyssey and YI HALO, the latter of which cost a cool $17,000.

Google first introduced Jump back in 2015 as camera platform that essentially followed Cardboard’s path of providing an open design for all to use. Besides establishing build guidelines for makers and manufacturers alike, Google also provided Cloud Service storage and Jump ‘Assembler’, which was tasked with stitching the camera’s multiple video feeds into a contiguous 360 scene.

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Where Google is headed next with VR, we’re not sure. It seems over the past few months that the company has taken a noticeable step back from VR. Google’s first big pullback came via a shutdown of its internal VR film studio Spotlight Stories in March. At this year’s I/O developer conference early this month, Google’s VR platform Daydream wasn’t even mentioned; the company’s upcoming smartphone Pixel 3a won’t support Daydream either.

Some of this may rest on the shoulders of a less than stellar launch last year of the only standalone VR headset to use the Daydream platform, Lenovo Mirage Solo. It was by all accounts a pioneering initiative to bring 6DOF headtracking to the masses, although its launch was marred by a lack of ready-made 6DOF content, a lack of 6DOF controllers, and a $400 price tag that wasn’t positioned well against the $200 Oculus Go at the time. It also seemed stifled from the beginning, as HTC, a previous hardware partner pledging Vive Focus to the platform, decided to pull support and launch their headset in China under the Viveport mobile store.

Whatever the case may be, we’ll have all eyes on Google’s VR division in the coming months to see if this is a full-blown pull back, or a strategic retreat.

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NFL Debuts Season 2 of ‘NFL Immersed’ Immersive Football Documentary

Google and the NFL today announced season two of Immersed, the multi-episode docuseries following NFL players on and off the field. The first three episodes are available today on Daydream through YouTube VR and the NFL’s YouTube channel.

According to Google’s announcement, the second season of Immersed aims to give football fans an even greater in-depth look at some of the NFL’s most unique personalities. Departing somewhat from the first season, which was a more general slice of football culture, the second season focuses “on players who are making a difference on and off the field,” says NFL Films Producer Jason Weber.

Episodes are broken up into three multi-episode ‘arcs’, which feature a number of players. The first three episodes follow Chris Long, defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles. Future episodes will feature Calais Campbell of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and players from the 2018 Pro Bowl coming soon. Pro Bowl voting is now open, so there’s still no telling who will be featured in those future episodes.

image courtesy NFL

Google has worked with NFL Films to not only help produce the series, but also demonstrate the power of Jump, Google’s platform for VR video capture that combines high-quality 360 cameras and automated stitching. The second season of Immersed was shot with latest Jump camera, the YI HALO, a 3D 360 camera composed of a total of 17 individual Yi camera units.

image courtesy Yi

“VR is such a strong vehicle for empathy, and we wanted to focus the segments on players who are making a difference on and off the field,” says Weber. “Chris Long is having a tremendous season with the Eagles as part of one of the best defenses in football, but his impact off the field is equally inspiring. Calais Campbell is a larger-than-life character whose influence is being felt on the resurgent Jaguars and throughout his new community in Jacksonville. And the Pro Bowl is a unique event where all of the best players come to have fun, and the relaxed setting gives us a chance to put cameras where they normally can’t go, giving viewers a true feeling of what it’s like to play with the NFL’s finest.”

Weber says the Yi Halo’s unique upward-facing camera makes a big difference when capturing football in 360.

“[T]here’s a lot happening in that space that would get lost without it. We can now place a camera in front of a quarterback and have him throw the ball over the Halo, giving a viewer a more realistic view of that scene.” Not only that, the upward-facing camera better captures the pregame flyover. Woosh.

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Google Team With Major League Baseball For New VR Video Series

Major League Baseball has been one of the areas of professional sport that has been eager to embrace virtual reality (VR) and 360-degree film to grow its audience. Having previously worked with Jaunt VR for a series of 360-degree videos, Google is now partnering with Major League Baseball to produce On The Verge.

On The Verge is a behind-the-scenes VR video series following the lives of rising young MLB stars. The various videos in the series will follow various young athletes on the field, in the clubhouse and in the batting cage to show the growing careers of Josh Bell (Pittsburgh Pirates), Mookie Betts (Boston Red Sox), Manuel Margot (San Diego Padres), and Jose Berrios (Minnesota Twins).

The episodes of the series are available using the MLB.Com At Bat VR app, which is available on Google Daydream, and offers Baseball fans the ability to watch live games in VR as well as see real-time stats.

Google captured the content for the On The Verge videos using its new VR video platform Jump. Jump cameras are compact 360-degree rigs that are capable of capturing high-quality footage and the Jump platform can automatically stitch the footage together for a complete 360-degree video.

The first four episodes of On The Verge are available through the At Bat app now, and will soon be available to view on MLB’s official YouTube Channel. Additional episodes of On The Verge will go live at certain key points through the Baseball season.

VRFocus will continue to keep you informed on new VR sporting applications and developments.

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Google Announces Next-gen ‘Jump’ VR Camera, 8K x 8K with Seamless Stitching

Google today announced what the company is calling the “next-generation” of its ‘Jump‘ 3D 360 camera initiative. In partnership with Google, Yi Technology has created the Yi Halo, a 17-camera clock-synchronized array that is designed to be optimized for Google’s automated Jump stitching process which creates impressively seamless 3D 360 output.

Update (4/24/17, 11:34AM PT): Google reached out to correct the price of the Yi Halo camera to $17,000, having initially stated the camera’s price as $18,000. The article below has been corrected.

Original Article (4/24/17): Google announced the Jump initiative back in 2015. Originally it was intended to be an “open” camera design that laid out the ideal camera geometry for the Jump Assembler, Google’s cloud-based automated stitching process. Over time however, the company found that an ideal 3D 360 camera for the Jump Assembler required more than just the right geometry. Having dialed back the open part of Jump, Google is today announcing the first major update to the initiative in some time.

Next-generation Jump Camera

Having worked originally with GoPro to design the ‘Odyssey’ camera for Jump, this time it’s Yi Technology who have worked with Google to create the Yi Halo, which the companies are calling the “next-generation” of Jump cameras. You can see footage captured with the camera here:

The Yi Halo shoots up to 8k x 8k at 30 FPS, or 6k x 6k at 60 FPS, and, thanks to the Jump assembler, outputs 3D 360 video. Based on the Yi 4K Action Camera, and using the Sony IMX377 sensor, the Halo houses 17 individual cameras which the company says are clock-synchronized to “work as one.” That means that when you hit the record button, all the cameras are activated simultaneously, eliminating what’s effectively a rolling-shutter distortion caused by different frame timing between cameras. An inbuilt time-lapse mode can make for some cool long-term captures.

The Halo has its own ad-hoc WiFi network which allows a smartphone to connect and control the camera through an app. The app provides preview & remote control functions, including monitoring and settings & firmware updating which are distributed to the 17 cameras all at once. The Halo also has an on-board touchscreen display which can control all the camera’s functions.

Designed for Reliability and Portability

Priced at $17,000, the Yi Halo is relatively inexpensive as far as professional cameras go, and Google says the camera is made to be a reliable workhorse for mid-level 360 productions; the companies are touting the Halo’s operating specs: rated for continuous operation between 0° and 95°, along with a 100 minute shooting duration on the single internal battery (and there’s also an optional AC input when direct power is an option). On-board bubble-levels make it easy to ensure a level horizon with each shot.

Derin Turner, Production Director at VR Playhouse, notes “This camera and Jump ranks as one of the best and easiest pieces of equipment and platform to use on the market.”

Google says that part of what makes the Yi Halo a reliable field-camera is its impressively light 7.7 lb (3.5 kg) weight, and what comes in the box. Included in the $17k pricetag is a hard-case kit full of tools, replacement parts, chargers, memory card readers and more. The Halo is designed to be field-serviceable; the kit has two spare cameras which can easily be swapped into place so that a single camera failure wouldn’t stop progress on a shoot—the kit even comes with the screwdrivers you’ll need to make the swap. Also included in the kit is an SD card reading array which makes it much easier to pull all the data from the 17 SD cards than doing things 1 SD card at a time.

Those paying careful attention might note that the Yi Halo has one more camera than its predecessor (the Odyssey). Indeed, the Halo has a single upward facing camera where the Odyssey did not. This makes it easier to capture action happening above the camera and eliminates the need to fill in the top view with post-production touchups.

Continued on Page 2 ‘Seamless Stitching’ >>

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