The story
Immersive Media Company was founded in 1994. Director James Cameron was a co-founder.
In 1995 it created the world's first full motion, fully immersive video movie. The movie featured a basketball game where the camera was placed on a tripod on the court. The video was debuted at the 1995 SIGGRAPH convention in Los Angeles, California.
Between 1994 and 2003, the company focused predominantly on research and development. In 2004, Immersive Media launched the Dodeca System, the first spherical camera that was all digital. In 2006, IMC launched the GeoImmersive City Collect project, sending Volkswagen Beetles equipped with camera systems to collect georeferenced video of major streets in cities within the United States and Canada.
IMC initially introduced the street view concept to Google, and delivered the first 35 cities which were viewed by more than 75 million people in the first four days. Google subsequently canceled its agreement with IMC and chose to build its own cameras for its on-going investment in immersive geo-media. Although street view imagery is displayed as stills by Google, IMC originally shot the footage as full-frame video, with backing film stills in.JPG format appearing as the video is paused. This is the method that IMC continues to use today for its street view and aerial coverage of cities.
In 2007, IMC acquired Freestone Systems, Inc. in Dallas, Texas, the manufacturer of the cameras. Their name was changed to IMC Sensors, Inc. In June 2007, IMC was named to the 2007 TSX Venture 50, a ranking of Canada's top emerging companies listed on the TSX Venture Exchange.
In 2008, IMC introduced "Patrol View", a military version of its street view technology and services to map Iraq and other theatres of war. Also in 2008, IMC innovated new production techniques for entertainment and sports productions culminating with an award-winning campaign for Mercedes-Benz; as well as producing a rarely seen music video for Grammy nominee Dierks Bentley.
In 2009, IMC's video platform was chosen by MapQuest in the launch of its new '360 View' service. In the same year, IMC introduced the world's first web-streaming live concert in 360-degree full motion interactive video using its new imLIVE(TM) server. Canada's Much On Demand music channel covered the concert and streamed Much's daily in-studio show.
The destruction following the January 2010 Haiti earthquake was covered by IMC. IMC donated its services and the video footage was used on news-gathering websites worldwide, and IMC's technology was covered in special features on CNN. The company similarly covered the 2010 Chile earthquake several months later.
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In 2010, IMC covered the Vancouver Olympic Games for NBC, most notably by webcasting The Today Show live for two hours daily in full 360-degrees, along with other feature segments during the games. In other sports in 2010, IMC broadcast "Hockey Night in Canada" for Canadian Broadcasting (CBC Sports) live each week of the 2010 hockey season and during the 2010 season play-offs.
In 2010, Immersive Media (Calgary) changed its name to Ember Clear and closed down the Immersive Media operations. Two days after operations were ceased, former executive management of IMC formed Immersive Ventures and produced the first ever 360 mobile application for the Black Eyed Peas, BEP360, available on iTunes. In 2011, Immersive Ventures acquired the assets of Immersive Media Company from Ember Clear and relaunched all products and services under the Immersive Media brand.
In 2011, Immersive Media partnered with Livestream to produce the world's first live 360-degree stream of the Black Eyed Peas Concert from Central Park, New York City.
In April 2015, IMC entered into a partnership with Hollywood FX firm Digital Domain Holdings to create content, in a venture known as IM360.
In January 2016, IMC was acquired by Digital Domain for CA$100m.
From Wikipedia’s article on Immersive Media Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3