The Gakken Worldeye - UPDATE v2.0
This is something that I hadn’t seen reviewed before, so it seemed like a good idea to import one and find out for myself what it really did. In the end it didn’t turn out to be a worthwhile endeavour…but I suppose at least I know that now.
One problem with reviewing products is that whenever they turn out to be less than perfect, I get a load of comments saying “Why did you buy that, it’s rubbish”, even though the only reason they know anything about the device, is because of the video I made.
People associate a good product with a good video and a bad product with a bad video, when in the end, the video takes the same amount of time and effort to put together irrespective of the worthiness of the device being featured.
I’ve got to think it’s why car shows now just feature unobtainable supercars. A show reviewing a budget family car would seem downmarket, but demonstrate a Ferrari and suddenly it’s a high class, upmarket show, when in reality the production costs would be identical for both.
Whenever I pick up an unknown piece of plastic oddness from ebay there’s a really good chance the whole thing will crash and burn…and for me this is what makes it interesting, I suspect though, that I’m in a minority. However if you do want to see a video about something that you definitely won’t want to buy, well here it is.
UPDATE: VIDEO VERSION 2.0
It seems I misjudged how well this would be received. While making it, I felt there wouldn’t be much interest in such an odd device…but now that I’ve read the positive feedback I’ve done a George Lucas, gone back and re-edited the video to include additional scenes (and make Greedo shoot first). The video above this article is now the new updated version 2.0 one….I also added a short outro on to the end that I was saving up for a suitable video. Thanks to Anders Enger Jensen for working on the video conversion as well as the advice and positive feedback from everyone here. Sometimes it’s hard to see what you’ve got when you’ve been staring at an editing package for days…so thanks for letting me view this with new eyes.
Comments (40)
I also uploaded some videos I converted for the Worldeye, including one of my own eyeball. It's a 5-minute loop in a 15-minute video file. I couldn't find any "eyeball loop" videos I liked, so I made my own. It took me 2 days to get it right. It looks much better on the actual device than it will in your browser, I promise. Anyway, I was going to post more videos than this, but I have this problem of respecting copyright on non-public material, so many of them didn't make it. <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4xLKs6fyu1ARVZhSHQ2VmpBR28" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4xLKs6fyu1ARVZhSHQ2VmpBR28</a>
Thanks for doing all this - I'm not sure how many people will get to benefit from all your hard work as these videos do tend to have a very short shelf life - so I do hope that your hard work wasn't all in vain.
V2 of my guide and scripts for video conversion with free tools is available now! The procedure is vastly simplified, video quality is improved, and a lot of quirks were fixed. The link is still the same (<a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s505/sh/19794c52-56cc-4bc9-abb1-e686bd028abb/77f97642acceb4ef" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.evernote.com/shard/s505/sh/19794c52-56cc-4bc9-abb1-e686bd028abb/77f97642acceb4ef</a>), and you'll find a link to V1 within if you really still want it for some reason. Changes include: 1. Completely automated procedure. Significantly less finger trauma! 2. Masks the video outside of the circular area that is projected to the screen to minimize reflection and ambient light inside the Worldeye's dome. 3. Circular pinch instead of rectangular pinch for more uniform convex correction. 4. 4:3 image instead of 1:1, because the Worldeye stretches a 1:1 image to 4:3 anyway and distorts it. 5. Encodes video with H.264 for smaller output file size and to permit repeating video on Worldeye without “Unsupported” message. 6. Batch mode: Queue multiple videos and walk away! 7. More details and tips added to the guide (although the procedure is now simpler), so hopefully you enjoy torturing your eyes with the ramblings of a madman, including this one. 8. My contact info. 9. Credits to Anders Enger Jensen and Techmoan.
yes, in 4k (or even HD) this thing would be amazing. you could watch Uranus all day.
Ah... I was afraid of that. Given the kit nature of their other stuff I wondered if there weren't some of the tech details out there. Thanks for the reply.
any indication of the inner workings of The WorldEye? I imagine that the projector has a special fisheye( ?) type 180 degree lens to make sure that the image hits the inner dome without stretching. I only ask because it would be great to find out if one could modify a Pico projector and mount it inside the WorldEye housing for better resolution. The low res is what's holding me back from getting one (besides the nutty price, of course). Thanks for any insights.
I can't open it without destroying it, it's held together with plastic welds. I don't really want to break it.
Use free software to convert videos for the Gakken WorldEye: <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s505/sh/19794c52-56cc-4bc9-abb1-e686bd028abb/77f97642acceb4ef" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.evernote.com/shard/s505/sh/19794c52-56cc-4bc9-abb1-e686bd028abb/77f97642acceb4ef</a> I bought one of these for myself as soon as this video was posted and couldn't wait to get my hands on it! (Thanks for the amazing review, Mat!) Since then, I've been messing around with how to convert videos to look correct on it. I must thank Anders Enger Jensen for his (vague) instructions on how this might be done in Photoshop, but I found myself wanting a more accessible (cheaper) solution. So for the other cheap and honest nerds out there, here is my solution for converting videos for the Gakken WorldEye using free software.
Would it be OK for me to link to this guide in the description text box for the Gakken Worldeye review video?
This thing is gorgeous! I was pretty shocked by the price, but I will keep my eye out for one, im sure like all things, they will get cheaper one day. Excellent Vid Mat.
The one I got cost me £152...which is more than it's really worth, but still a lot better than the $600 some places are asking.
Great video!!, very interesting, is good to know that things exists.
My idea would be an interactive eye that would move and blink as people went past. But it does remind me of the crystal ball in Disney's Haunted Mansion.
That indeed would be neat particularly around Halloween in a shop window. I also wonder how well it would display video footage taken with a fisheye lens.
That thing is VERY cool! It looks like something out of a 1950's SciFi flick and now - suddenly - I want one.
Thanks for testing that, interesting but a bit, er, niche...
This thing just seems half-baked. Hopefully some company out there takes the idea and does it properly.
I enjoyed the video, seemed cool, especially if you could you put any mp4 movie (of basically any size or resolution) on the USB drive? Andy Warhol's sleep, or hour long music mixes like this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nzKinrDd0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nzKinrDd0</a>
Think this would be awesome as an eye-catch for businesses or booths at trade shows where real estate may not permit a full projector or screen.
This is too cool. If it had double the resolution, an led light source, and no-delay file switching/looping, I'd buy one!
Nice video. I would be interested in how this effect would work whats applied on those video's to make it work in a sphere. Also: links to the mova globe and mira ball in the comments would also be handy (I looked them up on your site. Nice short vids).
Good idea - I'll add them to the new video.
Enjoyed the video + supporting comments and new ideas good too.
You mentioned that you could put the videos on repeat; can you put them on auto-play?
Yes you can - you can put ticks next to the files you want to play, and it will work it's way through them one after the other. There isn't really a repeat option per-se just that once it gets to the end of the file list it goes back to the beginning again.
Well I'm glad to say the warped videos Engers sent to me look pretty much as good as the videos supplied with the device. So I'm in the process of adding quite a bit more content to the video, and I'll re-post it with the new footage included within a few days. Thanks for the encouragement. I was convinced that no one would be interested in this, so I purposely cut it a bit short.
Ah, wonderful news! I also just sent you two new iterations using another filter that could possibly look even better (the first one blurred the very edge of the globe). If you have time to check it that is. :) If so, I can make a few other ones you can upload for everyone to use if they want to buy one of these. :)
Yeah I always make sure I thumbs up videos in appreciation of the sheer effort involved. The thing is, crap tech or "this seemed like a good idea on paper" failures still move us forward and, for every 100 failed pieces, something unique, innovative or ground-breaking may emerge. An interesting failure is often far more enjoyable to learn about than a functional, boring object. They scoffed at the Wright Brothers. Some people simply cannot see that technology and invention is an exponential curve, not linear.
See Mat, you underestimate your Patreon family! There are people all over the (rendered 3D) globe buzzing with the excitement of possibility now :-) The YouTube Muppets won't get it but we do. But then we need to get out more!
Yes I was surprised with the positivity of the feedback. The re-edited version will be a bit more upbeat as a result - thanks.
I like it. Has a somewhat retro feeling. A pity the resolution is kind of disappointing. But my head is spinning from all the possibilities… Would be funky to have two units displaying som kind of music visualization. Oscilloscope patterns or album cover art! There should be some kind of plugin (for video editing programs) to create the sphere distortion effect? It could be hooked up to a small peephole camera at the front door for a ”classy” preview of your guests. Perhaps use it for video calls. Kind of feeling like something out of ”Jetsons” or ”Star Trek: The Original Series”. Oh, or make it a Borg sphere! Someone could make it into a kind of ”weather widget”, displaying a 3D animation of the current weather/temperature or perhaps a forecast. That same someone should also make a voice activated assistant with a pulsating HAL-looking eye in the sphere. The aquarium idea is of course awesome. But you could also use it as a festive animated snow globe. Or a slowly spinning model of a tree could do as a Bonsai replacement. It could even display som kind of futuristic, animated dome table clock. And retailers could use it for spinning 3D renderings of products. Perhaps in hologram style. Or you could, of course, get a new career as a scam fortune teller. Sorry for the rambling.
I'm a big fan of rambling..and those ideas sound good to me. I like the snow globe especially.
I got really impressed by the sun during the few second it was on the screen when you played the planets presentation. And the dash camera was quite entreating 😁
In the re-edited version, I'll show a bit more footage of the earth revolving...perhaps it was a bit brief in the original.
Perfect for watching psychedelic visuals. Plenty on YouTube to download. I think that the HDMI is the big plus here. They are available on Amazon too for only £199 so maybe put an affiliate link in.
I didn't look on there...I will add an Amazon link.
After seeing a couple of comments I think that I'll need to do some extra work on this video before it goes live. I realise now that I should have demonstrated the HDMI input in more detail..so the video you are seeing here will probably end up as being a beta version.
Could try a fish screensaver on. It won't have the spherical distortion but it would give an idea of the effect might be worth to someone to putting some effort in to doing for themselves. This seems like a good application for a RaspberryPi to display to. The Pi could generate the effects and 480x480 is small enough that it might be possible to do the spherical distortion in real time. Not saying do any of that for the video, but that someone could be inspired after seeing the potential. It's an integrating device for sure, just lacking additional content.
Wow. That's not as useless as it looks. I think, if someone had good graphic design and editing skills, that device could have great potential. The full planet shots actually looked pretty amazing, albeit in 2D for us. Finding some good NASA or 3D CGI footage and manipulating it to compensate for the curved screen could give a great effect. All that aside that was another great video and it's great to see the odd stuff reviewed like this as I wouldn't even know it existed without it. I'm almost tempted to buy one to tinker with the video capabilities. So to paraphrase you, thanks for making.
I've just sent a video file across to Anders Enger Jensen (the chap who made the tape in the Atari Music Video), he thinks he may be able to recreate the warp effect onto some stock footage, so you never know it may have a purpose.