Danfung Dennis’ five years of photographing and filming the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan earned him plenty of accolades. His photos found homes in Newsweek, The New York Times and TIME. A PBS special using his footage earned a 2010 Emmy Award nomination and his documentary film, Hell And Back Again, the story of an injured US Marine’s return home, won two Sundance Film Festival awards, an Oscar nomination and a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Still, Dennis didn’t think he was effectively conveying the reality of war to viewers at home - so in the winter of 2010 he recruited a team of engineers and built a new way to experience video. The result is Condition One, an immersive, 180-degree video application that allows users on iPad or iPhone to pan the camera in different directions as if they were on the scene. Words don’t do it justice, so just watch the video (or download the iPad app) to see for yourself.
To create the interactive footage, filmmakers attach a convex lens (like those used in astronomy to capture the night sky) to their cameras. The footage is then edited using normal tools like Final Cut and sent over to Condition One who run software that “undistorts” the blurred convex footage. By linking the video with the iPad’s accelerometers and gyroscopes, the company allows viewers to look around as they tilt their tablets in different directions.
“The goal is to mimic the human field of view,” say COO Andrew Chang. Even without moving around, the camera view presents a wider angle than normal, aping a person’s peripheral vision.
Condition One has publicly inked partnerships with Mercedes, The Guardian, Discovery Communications and Popular Science while Chang tells me that they’re in talks with “everyone that you would expect” in the world of sports broadcasting. Mark Cuban, who invested $500,000 in the company after meeting the company through TechStars' New York program, also plans to use the service at AXS.TV, his rebranded version of HDNet to be launched this summer. Chang says the company charges a monthly fee to enterprise users.
“Our goal is to work with as many marquee names in as many different verticals as possible and then let them get creative with the software,” Chang says.
For now, the seven-person company (with four part-time employees) is focused on perfecting its live streaming product and getting a consumer version of the software out to the public. They hope to release a consumer product within the year. Dennis and Chang are joined by Chief Product Officer Takaaki Okada and Chief Technology Officer Julian Gomez, whose three decades of 3-D graphics experiences include stints at NASA, Apple and Google.
Condition One will be presenting their product at the TechStars Demo Day in New York City tomorrow morning, the culmination of an intensive three-month mentoring program.
As for use cases, Chang suggested live concerts, NBA huddles, tourism promotions and war reporting.
When asked about Condition One's potential applications over e-mail, Cuban responded, “Just download it and it’s pretty obvious.”
