Google I/O 2017: Watch YouTube 360 videos with your friends on your TV



At Google I/O 2017, Google announced that YouTube apps for TVs will now allow you to watch 360 videos and look around using your remote control, making it possible to view 360 videos with your friends.

Here's a video preview:
I tried this with Google Chromecast 2 and with the YouTube app on my Amazon Fire, but only saw the equirectangular version.  I'll keep testing and trying it out on my other equipment.

In any case, for 360 video creators, this is awesome news because it expands the audience for 360 videos.  Hopefully, this also leads to an increased interest in 360 cameras, especially among those who don't already have one.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"It can do that?!?" 17 remarkable undocumented features of the Insta360 Pro

Image
The Insta360 Pro is an amazing camera, and the marketing materials can't even capture all of its remarkable features (partly because Insta360 keeps adding new features!).  Here are 17 undocumented features of the Insta360 Pro.  Since there are so many of them, I tried to group them into Photo, Video and live streaming, and both Photo and Video. PHOTO 1. 60 second shutter speed .  It has full manual exposure and you can specify a shutter speed as slow as 60 seconds -- slow enough to capture night sky photos. 2.   Unlimited intervalometer .  The Insta360 Pro has an intervalometer (i.e., it will take a photo after every time interval), and the time interval is anywhere from 2 seconds to a practically unlimited time interval (I put in a crazy number like 200,000 seconds and it accepted that value).  Note: The intervalometer is in the video mode as "time lapse". 3.   The intervalometer / time lapse can be for 3D not just 2D . 4.   Stitched 360 Photos i...
Read more

CES 2017: hands-on with the Ricoh R livestreaming 360 camera

Image
At CES 2017, Ricoh demonstrated their recently-announced Ricoh R livestreaming camera .  Here are my hands-on impressions. The Ricoh R looked a little larger than the Ricoh Theta S and its grooves gave it a very industrial look, in sharp contrast to the Theta's sleek outline. The other significant difference between the Ricoh R and the Theta is that the Ricoh R has no internal battery and must be powered by an adapter, making it unsuitable for use by most consumers and limiting it primarily to professional or industrial use. The Ricoh R performed pretty much as advertised.  They had a couple of Ricoh R cameras showing a livestream and it was stitched smoothly.   In contrast, the Theta S requires its videos to be stitched on the phone or desktop app. There was a lag of a few seconds from the time of capture to the time it is shown on the screen, although I wasn't sure how much of that lag is due to the Theta's stitching or from YouTube. One thing I found out is that the Ri...
Read more

VR industry titans form a new VR association but someone was left out

Image
Hardware titans of the VR industry came together to form the Global Virtual Reality Association , but a major player was left out. The GVRA's members are manufacturers of VR headsets.  Here they are in alphabetical order: - Acer Starbreeze : a joint venture between Acer and Starbreeze AB to create Star VR, a headset for commercial use, with an all-encompassing 210-degree field of view. - Google VR : Google created Cardboard, which was instrumental to the rise of VR's popularity, and Daydream , its mobile VR platform.  Google also created Project Tango , a mobile augmented reality system. Google also owns YouTube, which is the most popular platform for sharing 360 videos, and Streetview, one of the most popular platforms for sharing 360 photos.  Google's Jump camera rig is also one of the leading cameras for recording broadcast-quality 3D 360 video. - HTC : manufacturer of the Vive , the only consumer VR headset designed from the ground up for roomscale VR. - Oculus (owne...
Read more