Entertainment Tonight’s post-event covereage of the Emmys featured a 360 degree camera from Enroute technologies.

Appearantly this is a system of mirrors, cameras and digital signal processors that allow a 360degree view to be captured on video. On playback the view can be panned to look at any part of the frame. The Entertainment Tonight broadcast was not a great showcase for the technology.

1. Only one shot made real use of it (Martin Sheen throwing a piece of trash and a pan to it hitting a photographer. Other shots were basically static shots that gratuitiously adjusted the “camera” slightly.

2. The stupid phony motor noise as they pivioted the view was irritaing

3. It looked like crap. The picture was muddy & poorly focused, etc. The focus thing, I guess, can be excused, but it should have been crisper, and it should have scrolled smoothly since this wasn’t live.

All an all, not an impressive demo.