360Heros at CES 2015

Posted By Mat Lee

BreakingModern — One device that piqued my interest at CES 2015 is manufactured by a company called 360Heros. The company makes a whole bunch of wicked cool (and equally expensive) HD 360 and 3D technology for GoPros. I say expensive because its base model, the H3Pro6, a contraption can hold six GoPros at once, goes for $495. Keep in mind, that’s the cost of the holder. You have to supply your own GoPros. Of course, if you do a lot of serious GoPro filming, I think it’s worth it. But only if the budget allows.

Let’s take a look at what 360Heros showed off at CES 2015.

H3Pro6

The H3Pro6 comes in basically two parts. The base is one piece, made out of high strength aircraft flexible nylon. The other integral piece is the wireless remote, which allows you to do all the easily synced filming. You don’t have to mess around with all the individual GoPros, trying to start them at the same time — just one remote (to rule them all).

When fully loaded up with 6 GoPro Hero 3s, which you can add to your order for an additional $2,819.94, the H3 Pro6 is capable of shooting 6.5K Fully Spherical 360 x 180 degree video. Tell me that isn’t awesome? But again, the price tag — it doesn’t seem very consumer friendly, but then again this line is more targeted at professional level applications. As we all know, if you want to create professional content, you need to spend some cash.

The 3D 360

If you want the 3D 360 (3DH3PRO12H to be specific), it will cost you $995. The 3D version holds 12 GoPros, and as 360Heros says on its site:

“It’s the first ever GoPro 3D 360 Video and Photo Camera in the world producing a resolution of 6,000 by 3,000 pixels. All 12 cameras are specifically oriented and numbered in a special configuration to create 3D 360 Video.”

There’s a cool VR company called VR Playhouse that makes beautiful immersive content for VR headsets. This is the company that took some 360Heros gear to Burning Man and made this demo video. The company ended up using a combination of the H3Pro10HD and the H3Pro6 models of 360Heros holders. The awesome visuals you see on the page were the results.

The more 360 immersive video becomes an established medium, the more it’ll change the way we tell stories and shoot film. Add that to the improvements we’re seeing year after year in the VR headset sector, and you have a super intuitive way to interact with content like never before. We’re on the cusp of being able to create and access fully immersive content. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for that.

360CamMan File Manager

You will also want to get the special 360CamMan File Manager, which you can pre-order here on the 360Heros store for $225. I’m pretty sure making all these videos look legitimate is going to require this specialized software. I sure don’t want to figure how to stitch all that footage together myself. It’s definitely worth having software that will do the hard work for you — and it’s made by the people who created the holder so you know it’s going to work right. And, if it doesn’t work perfectly, 360Heros has fantastic customer support. It also has a whole line of premium hosting services, so if you can’t get everything done yourself, it’ll handle it for you.

If you want to understand more about how this 3D tech works, check out this video on the 360Heros YouTube page.

360Heroes 360 Video Viewer App

The 360Heros 360 Video Viewer app is free, and available for both Android on Google Play and Apple iOS. This app lets you watch fully spherical interactive HD videos right on your mobile device. That’s really cool. I also like how it supports Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift. You can download some demo videos for the Oculus Rift here. You should also check out the virtual reality video if you’re into that stuff. It’s pretty nifty.

H3ScubaH6 Underwater 360 Video

Let’s talk about Scuba for a moment. Could you even begin to imagine the sort of cool shots you would get under the sea if you had a couple of these? I’d settle for one, which costs $2,395. Again, that is completely sans GoPros. If you want it fully loaded, that’s going to cost you at least an extra three grand. If you are curious what almost $6,000 in cool underwater GoPro 360 awesomeness looks like, check out the sample shots here (scroll to the bottom). It’s pretty impressive.

Immersive Projection Domes

So what’s the best way to view the content you capture with all this 360Heros technology? Three words: Immersive projection domes. 360Heros has partnered up with Elumenati to see what can be done with dome projection. Now that’s cool. Check out the video on YouTube. It makes me want to build my own dome here at the compound and have immersive dome projector parties.

360Heros Hosting

360Heros also has a site where you can host all of your videos. It has a free and a premium service that lets you not only host videos, but embed them into your own site. I’ll briefly summarize the plans, but for all the details, check out the registration page. The free service gives you free 360 video hosting, the free 360 Player, an upload limit of 300MB per video and 10 videos per month.

From there you can go bronze, silver or gold. The prices range between $20 a month for the cheapest and $70 for the most expensive. The site recommends the silver plan, which costs $40 and gives you semi-pro 360 video hosting with 360 Player Branding, an upload limit of 400MB per video with unlimited videos each month.

Is it worth it? If video is your thing, this could be the next new medium to sweep our eyeballs to immersive grandeur. No question, it’s pretty cool technology. I want one. You can get all this cool stuff at the 360Heros shop. Check out the Android and iOS apps for free, and start getting your 360 videos uploaded to the community.

Make sure to check out the rest of our CES 2015 coverage here on BreakingModern.

For BMod, I’m Mat Lee.

All image/screenshot credits: Mat Lee