The lens and camera was only about $2000 total. I'm using it for another business venture, so it's what needed. I had some very expensive photostitching software, but like the single-photo lends better. It takes a lot less time creating the pictures since it's only one shot. No matter how good your stitching software is, you still have to take multiple pictures.

I can see where purchasing the Kaiden would be useful if you are going to use it in another business venture - even at $2,000. You gotta spend money to make money!

Eventually, we may add the engine to allow QuickTime video in our DVT Production Suite. I screwed up on the video size estimate earliear in this post, too. I said QT video was 30MB to 60MB each for a real estate virtual tour. That's uncompressed with full-length audio. I should have used compress figures without audio which is how most QT virtual tours are published. That would take it down to 7MB to 15MB. Higher compression would make the file size even smaller but at the cost of losing picture quality and presentation integrity.

Ahhh...another "problem" with online video.

I was just watching a RealPlayer real estate video (using a 3.2 Megabit broadband connection), and buffering was slower than the video play-back thereby causing the video to pause about every eight seconds until buffering could catch up.

This had nothing to do with my connection to the Internet. Instead, it had to do with the "load" on the broadcast server. Agents who think it's a good idea to host their own video using Windows, QuickTime or Real streaming video formats are going to be in for a shock in many cases. Here's why...

Most Web site hosting accounts used by agents (or anyone for that matter) are not DEDICATED hosting accounts. Instead, they are shared accounts wherein the agent's Web site is sitting on a server with perhaps 30 to 50 other companies. If Company-X is experiencing a lot of page-views, then the video stream will be slow because the shared Web server is using up "throughput" and bandwidth resources. Conversely, if you are receiving a lot of views for your video tours, you will slow down the server for the other 30 to 50 customers and your ISP will suggest that you purchase a dedicated hosting account. This means your videos will sit on their own servers and you don't share bandwidth, but this priveledge comes at a cost - $750 to $2,500 per month for starters for a decent-sized account (though many discount ISPs offer low-end dedicated hosting for less).

And don't bother setting up a server at home using your cable or DSL account. First of all, your contract with your broadband service provider likely doesn't allow you to use your home broadband connection for commercial purposes. And, you won't have the throughput to host video with a typical 300KB/s to 720KB/s upstream connection. You MIGHT be able to push three videos at one time (at 128KB/s) if you don't crash your server in the process.

I may be misunderstood some of the postings. But let me explain something here. Virtual tour doesn’t mean is a panoramic view either Horizontal, vertical or even circular. I noticed that some folks here are pointing to the panoramic tour but in the links they attached that’s not it, that’s what we call Fade in or out/dissolve in and out transitions. I have all the equipment and software that I use to create a short film or a doc. I use Adobe premiere Pro 1.0. as for the virtual tour I use Panoweaver 4.0. you can use a cheaper software such as panoweaver 3.0 or Tour weaver. If you are looking for only a fade in & out transition you can use a very cheap software called (I think) panorama Photo studio. Good luck.

Correction. sorry I was in a big hurry and made a lot of mistakes. here is what I meant to say:
" I may misunderstand some of the inputs. but let me explain something, the virtual tour doesn't mean fade in and out transition. a panoramic view can be either Horizontal, vertical or even circular. I noticed that some folks here are pointing to the panoramic tour but in the links they attached that’s not it, that’s what we call Fade in or out/dissolve in and out transitions. I have all the equipment and software that I use to create a short film or a doc. I use Adobe premiere Pro 1.0. as for the virtual tour I use Panoweaver 4.0. you can use a cheaper software such as panoweaver 3.0 or Tour weaver. If you are looking for only a fade in & out transition you can use a very cheap software called (I think) panorama Photo studio. Good luck.