Virtual Reality cinema and video is quickly becoming the hot topic. A seemingly endless stream of ‘360’ cameras are spawning, Jaunt VR of course recently won $6M+ backing for it’s 3D 360 VR cinema venture and it seems even James Cameron wants to hop along the bandwagon.

But for the VR enthusiast on a budget who wants to quickly and cheaply capture reasonable quality 3D footage that looks great on an Oculus Rift, what options are there?

18Well, the enthusiast in this video claims to have achieved good results bolting 2 x GoPro Hero Black’s together using an extended 5mm rod, then attached to the official GoPro mount. The video author also claims the system emulates a fairly standard 64mm IPD with his hacked mounting technique. Controlling the units using a multi camera remote control, what you end up with is decent quality side by side 3D footage, ripe for processing for viewing in the Rift. The GoPro Hero 3 is capable of capturing footage at 2.7k at 30FPS (and up to 4k at an unacceptable 15FPS) the rigs specs do impress.

It’s an interesting and economical approach that may well allow quick capture of immersive 3D footage. If anyone does try out a similar technique, so let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • vanti

    I’ve been thinking about doing this exact thing since before I received the DevKit from the original Kickstarter.

    Here is a guy that has built similar rigs using different cameras. He also uses binaural microphones.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl9LJTi8CtX8iFsdeLMwq-A

    This guy built a stabilizer for his rig and mounted it on a drone
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8SRb1OrmX2xhb6eEBASHjg

  • sponge101

    Let me be the first to say it: “Avatar 2” with oculus (or other vr headset) support . This will be the magic bullet to make vr THE talked about medium and it will garner unprecedented attention from other industries. Hey, it could happen.