Export video in 360?

Hi,

I have an Insta360 One X2 and I can create 360 degree videos to go to YouTube in their own software but there is no facility to join two clips.

Therefore I have started using Davinci Resolve. I have discovered the plugin Open FX Reframe360 which allows me to edit the footage exported from Insta360 Studio 2023 (in 360 format). However when I export the timeline it loses the ability for a user to drag the cursor and choose their own view. I suspect I just have a setting wrong somewhere but I can't find any information on-line about this. Plenty of info about reframing to produce a standard video but not keeping the 360 degree feature.

Thanks

Plenty of info about reframing to produce a standard video but not keeping the 360 degree feature.

It sounds like you would like to re-orient the default front viewing position of a 360VR LatLong formatted video clip. The Fusion page in Resolve has a built-in PanoMap node that can take a LatLong image projection input, apply a keyframe animatable XYZ view rotation effect, then return a LatLong image projection output.

There is also the BorisFX Continuum VR Unit nodes that can do a similar task.

The reframe360 node by comparison takes a LatLong image projection input and makes it into a "flattened" rectilinear or stereographic (tiny planet) output which removes the rest of the content outside the cropped field of view. At this point you no longer have the 360x180 degree panoramic content to work on the output side of things, when rendering from the Resolve Delivery page as that extra information was flattened by the plugin.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your reply but I'm a bit new at this and I'm still confused.

If I edit my footage in Insta360 Studio 2023 and export it, I get an MP4 file which I can upload to YouTube. Users can then decide where they want to look by dragging the cursor on the screen.

What I want to be able to do is join two or more clips together and retain the ability for users to "look around". So, I'm not aiming to change the initial view from what I shot in the first place. I think that is called reframing? I just want users to be able to decide where to look in my joined up video.

Hopefully that explains a bit better

Thanks

In this case when you import the 360 degree video footage make sure your Resolve project, timeline and Delivery page image dimensions all match your source footage video resolution and frame rate. My guess is your footage is likely LatLong image projection footage at 5760px x 2880 px in frame size?

Edit the footage with either straight cuts or a fade transition as you build up your timeline with each of the clips.

Then render out a finished movie file from the Delivery page. Your final footage will likely be exported to an MP4 H.264 or H.265 video file at about 60 mbit per second data rate.

You will then need to add a thing called a "spatial media metadata" tag. You can use a free tool called the "Google Spatial Media Metadata Injector" app for Windows/macOS to add this tag to your Delivery page rendered video file. This is how one indicates the video footage is 360VR content, which allows platforms like YouTube 360 to recognize the footage and display the VR playback tools after the movie is uploaded.

Hi Andrew,

Thank you so much for your help.

I've used a couple of four second clips to test it and it seems to work.

The quality seems to degrade slightly but that might just need some tweaking of the Deliver settings.

I'll do some more experiments.

Thanks again,
Chris

The quality seems to degrade slightly but that might just need some tweaking of the Deliver settings.

If you want to try squeezing a bit more quality out of your video encodes, you could export a high-quality "intermediate" file like a QuickTime ProRes movie, or DNxHR movie from Resolve. This would be the archival master of the edit.

Then you could use a dedicated video encoding program to convert the larger file size "intermediate" movie into the MP4 version you use for final distribution. You could explore video compression software like Hand Brake, FFmpeg (or an FFmpeg GUI), Adobe Media Encoder, or Apple Compressor. This approach allows the use of efficient video compression tools like x264.

Edit: I've heard good things about the Voukoder video encoding plugin for Resolve on Windows.
https://github.com/Vouk/voukoder

Hi Andy,

Wow, that sounds quite complex but I'll certainly give it a go. Your instructions for the first step were lovely and clear so I'll carefully read and follow these new ones to see what I can achieve.

I'm documenting everything as I go so that I can remember how to do it again in a few weeks time.

Regards,
Chris

Hello,

Why do we still need spatial Media Data Injector with latest Davinci Studio 18.1.3 ?
This option should be available in Davinci !

I still try to find the best audio setup (Dolby Atmos - 5.1 - 7.1 - adaptive 4 channels (Ambix ACN))
to get a good spatial sound position using an Oculus Quest 2.

Edit : Meta Quest for creators suggest using : First order ambisonics (4-ch ACN/SN3D)
https://www.waves.com/ambisonics-explained-guide-for-sound-engineers
https://creator.oculus.com/getting-started/media-production-specifications-for-delivery-to-meta-quest-2-headsets/
But rendering such soundtrack with Davinci studio seems only possible using .mov/linear pcm
And Oculus Quest 2 cannot play .mov video files !