News Bits: ‘Affordable’ Oculus Rift 3D Camera Rig Demonstrated (Video)

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?

Well, 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.