Detu is one of the early domestic manufacturers in the field of VR panoramic camera, and recently launched their first consumer 360 ° full view VR panoramic camera - Detu Twin. On January 9, 2017, DTU Twin logged in to Taobao crowdfunding. Its small and beautiful design and excellent cost performance ratio made it gain high attention in the consumer panoramic camera market. In fact, according to different content quality requirements, there are several different levels of VR panoramic cameras, and the one closest to the majority of consumers is the 1000 yuan VR panoramic camera. So can the performance of a VR panoramic camera, such as DeTu Twin, which seems to have excellent cost performance, surpass our expectations for a thousand yuan panoramic camera in actual use?
Appearance: symmetrical aesthetics, extremely simple
The Twin panoramic camera in the figure adopts cylindrical translucent packaging, and Twin in the figure is placed vertically inside. As a consumer level panoramic camera, there are not many accessories for Dutu Twin. In addition to one Dutu Twin, there are instructions, storage cotton bags, data lines and wiping cloths in the package.
Figure Twin adopts a double-sided symmetrical straight plate design as a whole. 360 ° × 360 ° double fish eye lenses are in front of each other. Each lens uses six layers of all glass lenses. The overall color matching is mainly dark gray and yellow. The whole machine has a full sense of technology.
There is a slot for Micro SD card and Micro USB interface in the baffle on the side of the fuselage.
Figure Twin follows the minimalist design language. There are only three buttons on the whole machine, including power key, WiFi key and shutter key.
There is a nut opening at the bottom for placing the bracket and fixing the body, and there is a Micro HDMI interface beside it.
The figure Twin is made of skin like material, smooth and comfortable to hold. Its overall weight is very light, only 99g, and there is no pressure to carry with you.
App： Easy to use and operate
Download a good map camera app on the mobile phone, and then connect to the map Twin via WiFi to start shooting and other operations (map Twin can perform blind shooting without connecting to the mobile phone). The image camera app has a simple interface, and its functional items are simple and clear. Even the first time you use it, you can quickly become familiar with the operation. There are three photo albums in the DeTu camera app. DeTu Twin will save the captured pictures and videos to Twin's Micro SD card by default, that is, the camera album. Images can be downloaded locally to the mobile phone or uploaded to the cloud.
Figure Twin can shoot panoramic pictures with a resolution of up to 3040x1520 and panoramic videos of up to 3040x1520 30 frames through two 360 ° × 360 ° fisheye lenses. When shooting, the picture synchronization rate is high, so there will be no picture fragmentation and stuck phenomenon, and the overall operation is smooth. When shooting, we can choose four shooting modes, namely fish eye, panorama, asteroid and VR, which users can choose as required.
The captured pictures/videos can be directly shared socially. For example, the author shared a panoramic picture to the circle of friends here, and users can click the link to view it.
Left: Asteroid view middle: fisheye view right: normal view
The panoramic image/panoramic video shared by the camera can also be viewed in 4 different forms, including asteroid, fish eye, normal view and VR view.
VR View View Picture
Why do we call Twin a VR panoramic camera? In fact, many consumer grade panoramic cameras can only take panoramic pictures and videos themselves, and cannot directly convert pictures/videos into VR mode in the application. Here, Twin can not only directly convert pictures/videos in the camera, but also support direct viewing in VR mode after our social sharing, This detail can give users a better immersive experience.
Practical experience: portable and durable, ready to shoot
You can change the perspective by dragging the mouse
Limited by size and price, the pictures taken by panoramic cameras on the market are basically not very discriminating, but the color saturation and tolerance are enough to win many mobile phones. After all, the positioning crowd is different, and the panoramic view is very large, which requires a large CMOS and high pixel density. Therefore, the success or failure of panoramic camera experience depends on usability and endurance. DeTuTwin can maintain the endurance level of 1.5 hours of non-stop shooting. It can be turned off to maintain the power when not shooting. When it is used, it can be used for shooting. In this case, it can basically maintain a day of use. After all, we don't usually take photos with our mobile phones. It is quite good to achieve this endurance.
For a consumer panoramic camera, the percentage of proof films to a large extent determines its user experience. Although the 3040x1520 resolution panoramic image has no advantage in today's increasingly powerful smartphone photography function, the significance of the panoramic camera is to create new photo playing methods and modes, ensure the integrity of the picture, complete splicing, and quickly generate panoramic images, which is its key.
In the shooting process, Twin has a high film forming rate, and the picture splicing of the sample is complete. After pressing the shutter, the image processing is completed in about 0.3~0.5 seconds (excluding the shutter time). In recent years, with the rise of VR, panoramic photography has been applied in live broadcast of activities, tourism aerial photography, creative weddings, real estate display and other aspects. For example, CCTV used panoramic cameras for live broadcast at the 2015 Award Ceremony for People in the Sports World; Last year, Faye Wong's "Fantasy One" solo concert also used a panoramic camera for live broadcast (because CCTV and concerts require a high degree of professionalism, they generally use expensive professional panoramic cameras); There are countless examples of this, and there will be more and more in the future. Although we can see the panorama camera in some big events now, because of its high threshold, it has not been known and used by the public. Detu Twin can give users a light experience in a short time, allowing more users to focus on shooting records and creation itself.
In addition, in the process of the author's actual measurement, there was a phenomenon that the fuselage was heated when shooting and recording for a long time. At present, all panoramic cameras on the market, regardless of professional or consumer level, basically have the problem of using the fuselage for a long time to generate heat. Fortunately, Twin has set a heat sink on the side, which properly suppresses the problem of continuous temperature rise and does not affect the current operating experience. After power off, the heating problem can be recovered in a short time.
Live broadcast function in the internal test stage
It should be noted that most consumer panoramic cameras on the market do not have the function of live streaming, and most consumer panoramic cameras are still at the stage of ordinary panoramic video/picture shooting. Because there are still many difficult problems to be solved in the current streaming of panoramic live broadcast, for example, panoramic live broadcast needs to re encode the live video in H.264+AAC audio format, and then upload the panoramic video to the server through the RTMP live broadcast protocol. In this process, a very low delay must be guaranteed, otherwise the encoded panoramic live broadcast picture will be affected, causing distortion, tearing Mosaic screen, etc. However, Tutu Twin not only realizes VR panoramic video streaming, but also supports panoramic video live broadcast experience on mobile terminals, PC terminals and some third-party live broadcast platforms, adding another highlight to the high cost performance of this panoramic camera.
In the main interface of the Tutu camera app, we can use the three-point sliding above the screen to call up the live test function. The first step is to set the Internet available WiFi information to the camera via the App. In the first line, enter the WiFi name of the connection to the Figure Twin, in the second line, enter the WiFi password, and in the third line, add a 4-digit custom room number (the process of obtaining the room number for the official launch in the future is not determined). For example, the room number of the author here is 0000. After clicking to start the live broadcast, Figure Twin will disconnect from the mobile phone, Automatically restart and connect the WiFi you just filled in to enter the live broadcast state. At this time, the blue shutter indicator will flash continuously. To watch the live broadcast, we just need to fill in the same 4-digit room number at the end of the live streaming address below to watch our own or others' VR panoramic live broadcast.
PS： The reporter uses the iOS version of APP. The Android version has slightly different interfaces, but the basic process is the same.
Panoramic live broadcast picture
DeTu is one of the few equipment manufacturers in the market that provides a panoramic live streaming solution for consumer panoramic cameras. Although DeTu Twin's live streaming function is in the internal testing stage, it can meet the live streaming needs of ordinary users from the perspective of effect. In terms of live broadcast cooperation, Detu has also cooperated with several third-party live broadcast platforms to conduct streaming test and development of panoramic live broadcast. Detour said that they will be grafted with third-party platforms such as online celebrity live broadcast, news live broadcast and event live broadcast in the future to carry out more live broadcast forms and play methods.
summary
For VR panoramic cameras, we still maintain the consistent view that consumer VR panoramic cameras are really popular products. High end and expensive VR panoramic cameras are used in fields with high requirements for image quality and professionalism. Such affordable VR panoramic cameras are more about expanding diverse shooting methods and modes. Therefore, the consumer VR panoramic camera should focus on lightness, ease of use and portability. In use, we feel that the design concept of Dutu Twin is also around this idea.
Of course, compared with other similar products, Detu Twin has two major advantages. One is the panoramic live broadcast function, which many consumer grade panoramic cameras can not do. The second is its excellent cost performance. The market price is 1488 yuan. In the just concluded Taobao crowdfunding, it also has a sincere price of less than 1000 yuan, which is lightweight, portable The 3K resolution supports live broadcast and can quickly share the product attributes of various platforms. At this price, it can be said that it is the lowest threshold for the market to experience the full VR panoramic camera function.
