@rubin110 thanks for this detailed experience. It’s valuable for the community since most of us do not have access to an Owl. At $800 for a dedicated conferencing camera, it’s got to be a corporate buy for most people.
Great info about the audio transmission being in mono. That’s a good solution for video conferencing of the type that Owl provides.
Also, appreciate the anecdote about eye contact and eye level.
@jcasman and I are working on a telepresence demo for the HTC Vive. Currently, the THETA V is tethered to a laptop with a 10’ USB cable. Because of this, we don’t demo the audio (which is in mono right now). jcasman favors putting the THETA V really high or really low to provide a different experience.
If we put the camera far away from the headset, either with Ethernet or WiFi, then we may want to start using audio in the demo again and then reconsider the height of the camera and speakers.
It’s technically possible to stream 4 channel spatial audio, but as far as I know the standards have not been finalized yet.
It’s really a cool time to be involved with these cameras. There’s a lot of standards definition and technical hurdles that are being overcome.
I think the spatial audio will really change the experience, but it will take time for the technology to catch up.