I didn't work directly for it, but I remember my team working on parts of the software and back-end stuff for Nokia Ozo[1], a 360° virtual reality camera. I feel that that camera was ahead of its time.
At the time I was working for a startup called VideoStitch, later Orah, which had launched the Orah 4i, a much smaller, 4-lens, 360 degree 4K live streaming camera. Expectations were huge, that 360 degree video streaming would go through the roof, with a camera at every wedding. Didn’t really work out that way, I wonder whether stereo 180 degree “Spatial Videos” in the Apple ecosystem will go the same way.
The Google camera that used 16 GoPros with more interesting to me even though it only did a cylinder rather than a complete sphere, but it did generate stereo images. We appended additional GoPros to the top/bottom of the unit so we could fill in the zenith/nadir of the final image. 22 total cameras. 22 mircoSD cards. DIT was a nightmare.
We also played around with the prototype from FB that was closer to Ozo, but that was right at the end of my time with live action VR.
None of these cameras were "throwable" though. There was a consumer unit though that would snap a 360° image at the apex of the toss.
This is such a bad take, haha. Its as bad as telling the cinematographer to look forward. Obviously there's the exact point of view of the device but also the exposure, and other camera intrinsics you don't want to guess at when you're about to shoot a take.
Yes, it is hard to direct from around the corner and not being able to see anything. The Ozo did a live stitch that could be viewed in a headset. Guess what, directors didn't like wearing a headset all day just like the general public. Pushing the stitched feed to a monitor also caused confusion as some just can't wrap their head around how the rectilinear image translates. It came down to use attaching a dedicated GoPro to the stand of the VR camera that looked "straight" just so directors/video village could "see" something. The directors were now much happier than all of the other attempts.