HYDROGEN hands on video from MKBHD

[Eric Lange]

Eric, Marques said he saw some 2D-converted content and some content shot natively for holographic display, as well as some gaming content. He only mentioned the gaming content as having some stuttering.

About the viability of the ecosystem, how many Hydrogen One app-downloading end-users do you think it would take to make independent third-party software development for the platform worthwhile/profitable/viable?

Edit - In reference to your other post, until proven otherwise, I'm assuming the Hydrogen One with modules will end up on high budget shoots, at least to the same extent that the BlackMagic camera's have.

Les writes: "Marques said he saw some 2D-converted content and some content shot natively for holographic display"

@Les, thanks so much for making that crystal clear.

Quick answer: 200,000 to 1 million users... From more comfortable break-even to something that can really grow and scale in leaps and bounds in terms of what could be provided for such a user base. (That's because our applications are more specialized/3d oriented). Other developers would be totally happy with less perhaps? (...And yet others would need a user base of the order several to many millions).

My/our own "Business model" is somewhat conservative as I believe the one's that make the real money in any "Gold Rush" are the ones that sell the picks and shovels... But that's not to say that a minority of "Prospectors" will indeed strike it very rich, (mashed my double negative there.), but there has to be "Gold in them thar hills" to begin with.

I would also say that HYDROGEN probably needs to be looked at or regarded as a new platform/blank slate. Or at least regarded with very fresh eyes to see what can accomplished in its own right rather than being analogous to other pre-existing platforms paradigms and "Gizmos".


So it's a little tricky to answer your whole question (@Les) without kinda sketching out the whole ecosystem of users, content creators and developers and vendors of various types of HW and SW related products as well as anticipating folks actually paying for Hydrogen created media content + Red channel +advertising? ...? (Not to mention YouTube etc.). So your guess is as good as mine on all that! In such a situation a smaller user base (like 100,000 users) could be quite viable initially. I liken Hydrogen as its own "Mini" economy and in a sense everything has to be sustainable as a more complex "Ecosystem" rather than just a stock-market bubble with nothing to underpin it. On the other hand I am hoping there will be a lot of enthusiasts and high-end users/consumers that just have a passion to create with such tools that will also balance out the other end of the "Equation". "Holographic" media device + pocket cinematic camera ... Definitely needs to be approached in an unprejudiced and open minded way to discover the best types of applications for the technology and also be very flexible and open minded about how people adopt and run with such technologies. IME its really important to give people a lot of freedom as to what they want to do with new tech rather than be very top-down and dictatorial as how such tech must be used. It never ceases to amaze me how people use things in very successful ways that the original designers never anticipated.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Just a minor side note... I'm not sure blackmagic ever got "Jiggy" with S-3d type apps and accurate synchronization for multiple cameras ? Maybe I'm out of date on that?

 

[Les Hillis]

*Just a minor side note... I'm not sure blackmagic ever got "Jiggy" with S-3d type apps and accurate synchronization for multiple cameras ? Maybe I'm out of date on that?

I was just referring to Blackmagic (and probably other) camera's being used as smaller, more portable (and perhaps disposable) camera's for risky or hard to get shots instead of the bigger 'A-cams' on some productions. Could be wrong, but I can see Hydrogen camera's being used in the same way.

Thanks for your thoughts/insights Eric.

 

[Eric Lange]

I was just referring to Blackmagic (and probably other) camera's being used as smaller, more portable (and perhaps disposable) camera's for risky or hard to get shots instead of the bigger 'A-cams' on some productions. Could be wrong, but I can see Hydrogen camera's being used in the same way.

Thanks for your thoughts/insights Eric.

Cheers! (Likewise).

I was thinking the same thing about BlackMagic/big budget feature/production... but didn't want to say "cameras getting blown up or run over " lol ... It's nice that the "Industry" is far more accepting of a wide range of cameras and capture devices these days than they used to be.