Kinoma Delivers a Virtual Reality Update
Kinoma has released an update to its popular Kinoma Player 3 EX, bringing the magic of immersive interactive images to Palm OS. For the first time, owners of Palm Powered smartphones and mobile devices can interactively view 360 degree Quicktime VR images with unprecedented quality, and simplicity using Kinoma Player 3 EX.
Kinoma Player 3 EX introduced support for many industry standards including MPEG-4 and H.263 video, AAC audio, and JPEG photographs. Kinoma Player 3 EX version 3.1 extends support for industry standard formats by adding direct viewing of QuickTime VR files containing cubic panoramas(1), the defacto industry standard for immersive imaging. Users can simply copy existing many of their existing QuickTime VR cubic panoramas to a memory card to conveniently view them anywhere using Kinoma Player 3 EX. Cubic panoramas optimized for viewing on mobile devices are no bigger than a single high resolution JPEG image, allowing over one thousand interactive images to be stored on a single memory card.(2)
Kinoma Player 3 EX provides incredibly smooth panning and zooming of cubic panoramas. Users can directly interact with the panorama, panning around the image by dragging the stylus. These features are seamlessly integrated into Kinoma Player 3 EX.
"Mobile access to panoramic images is a powerful tool for realtors, educators, architects, tourism and emergency responders, letting people explore locations they are unable to visit," said Richard Doherty, Research Director for The Envisioneering Group. "By empowering support for existing QuickTime VR cubic panoramas on Palm Powered handhelds, Kinoma enables people to conveniently take these images anywhere, and to easily share them with customers, clients and friends."
Because available memory and screen size varies widely between different models of Palm Powered handhelds, Kinoma Player 3 EX incorporates dynamic resolution reduction technology, which automatically adjusts the resolution of the cubic panoramic images, as they are loaded. This advanced technology virtually assures that a single panoramic VR file can be viewed on any Palm Powered handheld.
On the Kinoma web site, a new VR gallery contains sample floor to ceiling, 360 degree images allowing users to immediately experience the magic of handheld immersive imagery. The gallery includes a look inside Burt Rutan's Boomerang aircraft courtesy of the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine, San Francisco's historic Herbst Theater, a stunning synthetic landscape by David Palermo of WorldVR.com and the organ loft at Stanford's Memorial Church.
"Customers choose Palm OS because it provides access to the most powerful and wide ranging suite of applications of any mobile platform. The addition of cubic panoramic images to Kinoma Player 3 EX's MPEG-4, AAC and JPEG brings one more powerful and distinctive capability to users of Palm Powered smartphones and mobile devices," said Larry Berkin, PalmSource director developer marketing. "We are pleased to see Kinoma extending the boundaries of digital media on mobile devices and look forward to seeing how users take advantage of this immersive imaging feature."
Kinoma Player 3 EX version 3.1 also incorporates enhanced support for the 5-way navigation control on palmOnefs popular Treo smartphone and Tungsten T5, making it even easier to use Kinoma Player 3 EX on these devices. Kinoma Producer 3 has also been updated to include a command line encoder on Windows, to support automated encoding of content.
Pricing & Availability
Kinoma Player 3 EX version 3.1 is a free upgrade to Kinoma Player 3 EX customers. Kinoma Player 3 EX version 3.1 with cubic panorama, MPEG-4 and AAC support can be purchased through the Kinoma Web site for $19.99. Kinoma Player 3 EX is compatible with all Palm Powered handhelds running Palm OS 5 (Garnet) or later.
A free trial edition of Kinoma Producer 3 is available for download with registration. The full version of Kinoma Producer 3 can be purchased through the Kinoma Web site for $29.99. Kinoma Producer 3 requires Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP or Mac OS X. Kinoma Player 3 EX version 3.1 is available in English, German and Japanese.
(1) QuickTime VR cubic panoramas must use JPEG image compression and an uncompressed movie resource. Interactive features are not supported. Only the first node of a multimode panorama is displayed. For more detailed information on supported features and optimizing cubic panoramas for mobile devices, see Kinoma Tech Note 03 "Cubic Panoramas with Kinoma Player 3 EX"
(2) A typical cubic VR panorama at an optimal resolution for viewing on mobile devices is approximately 500 KB. A 1 GB memory card can store to 2000 cubic panoramas at this size.
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RE: I don't want to use propritory crap.
VR Quicktimes are great and all, but what about MP3s?
RE: I don't want to use propritory crap.
I don't think the free player you linked to does anything with jpegs.
Good idea
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I don't want to use propritory crap.
The world will end in 2006. Just as it was predicted in the bible along with the release of Microsoft Longhorn.... :p