Back at NAB 2016, Teradek introduced the Sphere, a quad HDMI device that can stitch together inputs from 4 different cameras to give you a live 360° experience (you can add another Sphere if you have more cameras). Now at IBC 2016, they’ve introduced the Sphere SDI, which is identical to the previous model, except it features four SDI inputs instead.
The Sphere is capable of outputting with just 4 frames of latency, which is impressive considering the complexity of stitching multiple cameras together. There are three different options for viewing on an iPhone or iPad:
- Rectilinear: Allows you to explore your live 360º content as if you were wearing a VR headset. Move the iPad around you to visualize the experience you are creating for your audience.
- Panoramic: Display your live 360º footage as a single panoramic image.
- Little Planet: Turn you 360º content into a stereographic projection, allowing you to view it as if it were a tiny planet.
Here’s the previous Sphere HDMI video from NAB if you missed it:
VR/360° video can be very complicated to set up and actually view, especially in real-time, but Teradek is attempting to greatly simplify this process with Sphere, and even allows you to send it out to the web in real-time.
Sphere SDI should be shipping sometime late September 2016 or October 2016, at a price of $4,000 for the standard version, or $5,000 for the live streaming version.
You can read more about the Sphere and get your own over on the Teradek site.
