After I noticed that Oakley and Meta’s collaboration on the HSTN Limited Edition good glasses with improved 3K video for $499, I used to be excited they could be the right pair of POV glasses for the studio.
Oakley’s sport-forward design is not my favourite, however I may simply overlook any aesthetic shortcomings in the event that they nailed my major use case of straightforward, hands-free recording for my smartphone evaluations and how-to content material.
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The vertical-only capturing type is right for social: Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. They seem to be a one-button, point-and-shoot answer creators will crave. Nevertheless, the identical issues that make them nice for that use case, like max three-minute clips, automated shade grading, and extremely compressed file sizes, additionally undermine them for the studio workflow. Let’s take a more in-depth look.
The studio/workflow conflict
The vertical-only video format is the one greatest impediment, and I used to be conscious of that limitation entering into. The glasses provide as much as 3K decision at 2203×2938, at 30 fps. Switching to horizontal requires cropping and scaling inside Adobe Premiere, which drops the decision all the way down to roughly 1700 x 956. In a 4K timeline, the footage seems comfortable and noticeably much less detailed, particularly alongside native 4K materials.
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Whereas I kind of anticipated that, I used to be much less ready for the heavy compression algorithm utilized to the recorded footage. The HSTN video recordsdata seem noticeably processed to maintain file sizes small for fast transfers from the glasses to the related smartphone, and the outcomes have a very “digital” high quality.
Meaning crunchy textures, over-sharpened edges, and odd shade artifacts. In a single instance, leaves of a tree towards a shiny sky confirmed blue fringing the place inexperienced needs to be. I additionally observed a delicate rippling of background content material, notably within the ultra-wide periphery of outside pictures.
Outside footage is overly saturated and unnatural.
Jason Howell/ZDNET
Shade grading is tuned to pop on social media — like headphones that hype the bass as an alternative of going for a balanced replica. Within the studio, reds bloom, distinction is exaggerated, and pores and skin tones skew unnaturally pink. The footage is thrilling for informal viewing, however not as an correct reference. This grew to become much more difficult when that content material was positioned subsequent to extra balanced output on the timeline.
Understanding limitations
Clip size caps at three minutes, which is a strong selection for short-form movies, and a good way to make sure creators snap and go with out getting slowed down in prolonged edits. For studio purposes, nonetheless, this complicates the recording of long-form demos and prolonged b-roll seize classes.
The dearth of any form of stay monitoring functionality means you’ll be able to’t affirm framing till after import. I had a couple of cases the place I assumed I would captured one thing, solely to find the footage was lacking once I was able to sync every little thing to my Pixel 10 Professional.
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The ultra-wide lens is a improbable selection for outside, action-cam purposes. It is nice for capturing a way of house, however it may distort objects close-up. The digital camera’s place within the top-left nook of the body took me some getting used to as effectively, however in a brief period of time, I used to be capable of finding the fitting zone to seize hands-on footage inside. With out that adjustment, the product usually sat too far to the fitting of my footage.
Colours pop, however are additionally just a little unnatural.
Jason Howell/ZDNET
Retrieving footage from the glasses is usually fairly seamless, although it does create a secondary step when shuffling content material to the edit drive on my Mac Studio. All media lives in inner storage on the glasses till it is explicitly transferred wirelessly by way of the Meta View app to the related smartphone.
With no detachable card and no direct USB-C drag-and-drop functionality, media administration is a multipronged course of. It is not troublesome, and the recordsdata are small due to the compression used at report, but it surely does take a bit of additional prep earlier than clips may be dropped right into a undertaking.
My closing verdict
The reality is, these glasses had been by no means marketed as studio instruments. They had been designed for athletes, adventurers, and creators who need a simple strategy to seize immersive POV clips in action-oriented environments. They might be supreme for large occasions, like wandering round CES in Las Vegas, live-streaming to Instagram, or unboxing a product for TikTok, the place content material high quality is not being scrutinized as a lot as timeliness. Their safe match, responsive controls, and share-ready footage make them pure for off-the-cuff social content material.
In an expert manufacturing surroundings, nonetheless, the trade-offs outweigh the advantages. They will nonetheless have a spot in my package for low-effort b-roll or behind-the-scenes POVs for vertical-native platforms, however they will not change a devoted digital camera in any critical shoot the place high quality is essential.
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The Oakley Meta HSTN Restricted Version is a formidable social-first gadget, however I would not suggest them for studio manufacturing. In case your purpose is to put up enjoyable, dynamic clips straight to your viewers, you may like it. If you wish to feed it into an edit bay alongside your major digital camera footage, put together for lots of compromises.
Observe my newest tech evaluations and tasks throughout social media. You will discover me on YouTube at YouTube.com/@JasonHowell, on X (previously Twitter) at @JasonHowell, and on Instagram at Instagram.com/thatjasonhowell.
