Video chats have become quite popular these days, whether you're using Facetime, Skype or are attending a Google Hangout. One problem with those platforms is that they provide a limited field of view and that view is static for attendees. PanaCast solves that problem with some unique hardware and software that provides a 200 degree FOV and a virtualized camera for each viewer. Its camera has six imagers, an SoC with dual ARM11 cores and a custom-built multi-imaging video processor (MIVP), along with an Ethernet port and a USB 2.0 port.
The MIVP, with an assist from some custom firmware, stitches all of the input images together to form a single 2700 x 540 video stream. That feed has enterprise-grade encryption and can run at up to 60fps over faster connections, but streams lower framerates over 3G as well. It works over the open internet and streams using a high-speed codec developed by Cavium Networks that needs only 350kb of bandwidth to function. After you're done perusing our gallery below, join us after the break to learn more about how the PanaCast system works.
Source: Altia Systems