Immersive Media In Haiti

On Janary 12th at 9:53 GMT Haiti was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that devestated Port-au-Prince. The world has been deeply saddened by this event especially since Haiti is known as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Just when the country seemed to be making tremendous progress in improving the quality of life for its population tragedy struck. As word started to come across the wires the response was swift. When the world started to receive the images from the earthquake ravaged region the reality was setting in. Haiti, and Port-au-Prince in particular, was in dire straits. Not long after these images started coming to all of us around the world, inquiries were made about getting a 360° video camera down to Haiti to document the destruction and the relief efforts. Our new field producer at SlopeViews, Thomas Hayden and myself talked late into the night on strategies on getting to Haiti with our camera, but word came that a fellow team, IMTS, another authorized Immersive Media agent was already on its way. IMTS has significant experience in gathering surveillance video data for military, law enforcement and security applications. It has captured 360-degree video data in Iraq and elsewhere for advanced monitoring, protection and response. The 360-degree videos help operations teams identify risks and threats, monitor hostile environments from afar, and maximize the safety and understanding of their operations. Immersive Media and its agents have been working with CNN in bringing this footage to the world. Check out CNN Haiti 360° for their coverage of the earthquake. Even the camera crews from CNN admitted that the destruction is so vast that there is no way they can capture all of the destruction with traditional video. “All of us at Immersive Media are terribly saddened by the events of January 12th and want to do whatever we can to help improve the immediate and long-term situation in Haiti,” said Myles McGovern, president and CEO of Immersive Media. “As previous natural disasters have shown, detailed imagery and assessments of the affected areas are critical to relief efforts and future planning. Since many of the first responders and government organizations are not on-site in Haiti, these 360-degree videos give them an unprecedented view of the devastation from the ground level.” The Immersive Media cameras capture 100 million pixels at 30 frames per second for high-resolution detail. Due to the number of agencies expected to access video over low-speed connections, the video quality has been optimized for lower-bandwidth web viewing. The video can be freely embedded into other websites and also be shared via Facebook, Twitter and other social media. High-resolution, 360-degree video footage of the destruction in Haiti is also available upon request via the Immersive Media website. This was a combined effort from several organizations including Immersive Media and CNN and the services have been donated from all. For more information about Immersive Media and their efforts in Haiti here is their latest press release.