360 rumors

YouTube has added heatmaps to popular 360 videos, showing where viewers are looking. Update : Scott of  Foundry 45  shared a video of a heatmap.  See below. YouTube added 360 heatmaps to analytics tools, letting you see where viewers are spending the most time looking.  Last year, heatmaps were added by Facebook, but the threshold was quite high at 50,000 unique viewers (not views).  YouTube's heatmap has a threshold of only 1,000 views . To see the heatmaps for your videos,  click here .  You can also go to your Video Manager and then see the new 360 Heatmaps tool under Analytics.  You can see the heatmap and how it changes as the video plays. Update : Scott of Foundry 45 shared this video of a heatmap: There is a separate heatmap for desktop viewers and for mobile viewers.   In my videos, it seems that desktop viewers are much more likely to look around, while mobile viewers stay mostly in the original view. Sample 1 (top: desktop; bottom:...

The Xiaomi Mi Sphere has emerged as a dark horse 360 camera that has surprising photo AND video quality (it appears to have the best of both compared to consumer 360 cameras ).  However, one issue is that it has limited compatibility with smartphones, requiring a Snapdragon 625 or better processor in order to export the full video resolution.  Xiaomi's app has limited iPhone exports to 2304 x 1152 -- less than half of the full resolution. One solution to get the full resolution out of the Xiaomi is to use a third party software to stitch the videos, and Muvee Stitcher is probably the most affordable such software.    Ulf Brusquini shared this tutorial for stitching Xiaomi Mi Sphere videos in full resolution using Muvee Stitcher for Mac. Here is Ulf's tutorial: Be sure to check out Ulf's YouTube channel ! Besides using a third party stitcher, another solution is to buy a fully compatible smartphone just for rendering purposes.  Previously it seemed that you wou...

360 videos give the viewer total freedom to look around, but sometimes viewers can get "lost" and not know where to look.  In this tutorial for Adobe Premiere Pro, we will learn to guide the viewer's attention by controlling the heading and orientation dynamically as the video plays.  This technique can also be used to fix "drifting" in Xiaomi Mi Sphere and other gyro-stabilized 360 cameras or even gimbals. The subject in the middle of an equirectangular 360 video will be the initial heading of a 360 video. As you know, you can change that heading using the "Offset" effect in Adobe Premiere Pro.  However, you can also change that heading dynamically in the middle of the video by using keyframes . The same technique can be applied to fix drifting issues (if any) in stabilized 360 cameras or gimbals (when not correctly calibrated).  Indeed, this technique can also be used to apply a very basic form of image stabilization to non-stabilized 360 cameras. H...

Virb Edit is a remarkable 360 video editor, with features not even included in  some paid software,  and it's free! Virb Edit is Garmin's video editing software for its action cameras.  They updated it for the Virb 360 to add features specifically for 360 video editing, and they did an incredible job! - Add titles anywhere in your 360 video.  Adding titles to 360 video is a little tricky because if you simply overlay titles on the video, they will look warped as you move higher or lower from the 'equator' of your 360 video.  With Virb Edit, you can add titles that will automatically be mapped to your 360 video, keeping the normal proportions of the text no matter where you place them.  Even Adobe Premiere Pro doesn't do this (you need a plug in)! - Change the heading .  You can change the heading of the video (the view that a viewer first sees, assuming they are looking "forward").  This setting is under Stabilization ... Set Initial Orientation. ...

Do you want to be able to edit your 360 videos on your iPhone or iPad with a full-featured video editor?  Check out LumaFusion, which can not only trim 360 videos, but also add photos, transitions, titles and narration. LumaFusion is a full featured video editor for iOS that supports up to 3 tracks for photos, videos, titles and graphics.  It also has 3 additional audio tracks for music, narration, and sound effects. It has editing tools such as color correction, slip-trim, keyframing for audio and video effects, and many, many more .... In short, the works. LumaFusion has added 360 video support to enable you to edit your 360 videos on the road, in 2D 360, or 3D 360 (top-bottom or left-right).  To use it for 360 videos, you simply specify a 2:1 aspect ratio for 2D or 1:1 for top-bottom 3D 360.   You won't be able to view your 360 video in 360 within the app, but you can edit it like any other video.  You can specify the bitrate, audio quality, and other option...

Here is a tutorial for leveling or straightening the horizon in your 360 video using Adobe Premiere Pro CC.  This very short (3 minute video) tutorial doesn't require a plug-in but does require Premiere Pro 2017.1. A 360 video needs to have a level horizon or else it will make it move unexpectedly when rotated, which can be confusing and disorienting for viewers.  Because of this, many 360 cameras have vertical orientation sensors to automatically render the video rightside up.  However, the orientation sensors usually don't work perfectly, or sometimes works only for photos but not for videos.  The result is often a tilted horizon in 360 videos. In this tutorial, I show how to correct / level / straighten the horizon using Adobe Premiere Pro CC.  This tutorial requires that you upgrade your Premiere to 2017.1 or later. Here is the tutorial: I hope you found this video helpful!  Please take a moment to hit the like button (so that YouTube can show it to mor...

At WWDC 2017, Apple demonstrated augmented reality on the upcoming iOS 11 using existing iOS hardware. UPDATE :  Apple has announced 360 video editing in Final Cut Pro; Apple will support Steam VR and HTC Vive; Apple has announced Metal API for VR. 1. AUGMENTED REALITY At WWDC 2017, Apple announced several things including a new iPad Pro variant.  For readers of this site, the highlight was Apple's demonstration of augmented reality on an iPad and an iPhone on the new iOS 11.  Your iPhone or iPad would be like a 'window' that shows AR objects, similar to how Pokemon Go is played for example, except now your iPad or iPhone will be able to estimate the three dimensional surfaces within its view and place AR objects on it more realistically.  For Pokemon Go for example, Pikachu would not just be floating in space, but would appear to be standing on a sidewalk that you are pointing at.  A missed Pokeball would seem to hit the ground and roll off, following its conto...

The first 360 video editing app for iOS will soon be available! V360, the first 360 video editing app for Android, is coming soon to iOS.  V360 enables you to assemble a 360 video montage from individual 360 video clips.  You can trim each clip and add music (which will be mixed with the audio on your ). I got the chance to try an alpha version (0.0.1) and the interface is just as familiar as it is for the Android version: - you select individual 360 video clips that will be added to the montage - you can edit each clip to trim it, rearrange, delete or add more clips - you can add background music.  There are some royalty-free music that you can choose from (and they sound pretty good to my ears), or you can choose from your phone's music library. - you press save and voila, the 360 video is rendered, complete with 360 metadata, ready for upload to YouTube, Facebook, or other sites. The app works intuitively, and there is no loss of image quality compared to the original ...

Muvee just launched a 360 video stitcher for the Mac, which can stitch Samsung Gear 360 videos and trim videos losslessly, and will add video editing features in the future. The  Samsung Gear 360  is currently the most affordable 4k 360 camera (until the TwoEyes VR camera is released).  However, its photos and videos must be stitched on a compatible phone (Samsung S6 series, S7 series, or Note 5) or on a PC with the included software.  Now, Muvee has made a stitching software for Mac users.  The software is available for a free 15-day demo (with watermark).  If you like it, you can buy the software for $49.95. Users will get a free update that will add video editing features such as - adjusting the exposure of either lens (I hope they include color adjustment), - a storyboard to put multiple 360 photos together into a slideshow - adding music. I don't know yet the software can stitch Gear 360 photos and whether it will be able to put multiple 360 videos t...

Here's a simple technique: if you add a 360 photo at the end of your 360 video, your viewers will be able to look around and enjoy your 360 photo after watching your video. I used this technique in a video I took yesterday.   My family and I went skiing, and I took some photos and videos with the Nikon Keymission 360 (reviewed here) .  Here's the video I took: BTW, one part of the video looks a little bit "foggy" -- that's because my Keymission lens got scratched and I haven't bought a replacement lens yet.  I should have bought a lens cap ! My face looks a little foggy because my Keymission lens got scratched. Anyway, I edited the video using Cyberlink ActionDirector (the free 360 video editor included with the Samsung Gear 360 ), but the same can be done with many other 360 video editors including Cyberlink PowerDirector 15 Ultra , which has the same 360 video editing capabilities as ActionDirector. In the storyboard, I added the 360 video of us on the lift...

It's easy to shrink or enlarge your logo / watermark for your 360 photo or video.  Here's how. I posted a tutorial for making a logo or watermark for 360 photos or videos here .  Let's say you want to now want to resize the logo for a particular photo, or perhaps create more sizes of your logo that you can later use.   To change the size of the logo, all you have to do is adjust its height, using Photoshop or other image editors: This works for logos of any shape, whether circular, square, or some other shape. The resulting logo becomes larger or smaller in proportion to how much you adjusted the height.  If you decreased the height by 50%, the length and width of the logo (or its diameter for a circular logo) will each shrink by 50%.  Note that a 50% reduction in height makes the logo 1/4th as large as it was before.  Vice-versa if you enlarge the height. Using this technique, you can also adjust the size of the logo to cover the tripod legs (or yo...

The Theta+ Video app for Android is finally available!  The app enables users to edit 360 videos from the Ricoh Theta, such as applying filters, or transforming them to other views such as a little planet or rabbit hole. The app had been available for iOS for several months now.

Insta360 Studio is a free software that enables you to view 360 photos and videos, and edit 360 videos.  It's available for both Windows and Mac OS X. The software is from Insta360, makers of the Insta360 4k and the Nano cameras.  However, it can also be used for photos and videos taken by other 360 cameras as long as they're in standard equirectangular .jpg or .mp4 format.  In addition to jpg and mp4, Studio can also read Insta360's proprietary .INSP 360 photo and .INSV 360 video format. When viewing photos or videos, you can switch from a regular 360 view, or a little planet view.  In either view, you can use the mouse to drag the view to a different perspective. You can also use Studio to edit videos (but not photos), transforming them into different perspectives.  In this sense, it has a similar function to mobile apps such as Rollworld , which are not yet available for Android.  However, Studio offers multiple transformations and more sophistic...

So you might recall the old workstation that I got recently, a Dell T3500, which performed very well for rendering 4k video - 12x faster than my ~4-yr old i5 Sandy Bridge laptop ( see here ).  However, it could not stitch the photos or videos from the Samsung Gear 360 because its graphics card (Radeon X300) was very old and had no Windows 10 driver. I decided to get a decent graphics card for it.  I wanted to get the new Radeon RX 480 VR-ready graphics card so that I could use it in a future PC but I was worried about compatibility with the Dell T3500, plus it was selling around $50 more than the list price due to demand.  I opted instead to get a more modestly-priced graphics card, the NVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti (around $120), which I had read was compatible with the T3500.  Moreover, it had low power consumption and a lower operating temperature.  And it didn't even need external power. I was tempted to get the FTW version with two huge fans but it would not ...

Rendering 4k video, whether 360-degrees or not, is incredibly processor-intensive.  For example, Samsung recommends these specs for editing 360 4k video: Processor: Intel Core i7 or AMD FX or faster Graphics card: ATI / AMD: Radeon HD R5 series or above; NVIDIA: GeForcce GTS / GT series or above; Intel HD Graphics 5500 or above; 2 GB DDR RAM or above RAM:  6 GB or above At the time of this writing, a computer with specs like these is not cheap.  Videomaker's recommended PC build for a 4k editing PC costs about $4,000 as of February 2016. But what if you could get pretty fast rendering speeds for a fraction of the cost? I was slogging through with my laptop (i5-2450M, 8GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000), taking as long as 8 minutes to render just 15 seconds of 4k 360 video.  Then I met  Hammad Iqbal  on Facebook, who told me about a fast but very inexpensive PC. In the tech world, "fast" and "inexpensive" are usually mutually exclusive and the figures he ...