360 video is a format that provides spherical or immersive 360 experiences. The videos are shot using a 360 camera (either a professional or consumer model). It is relatively easy to compile and view in a mobile VR headset such as the Oculus Go. The experience provides you with 3 degrees of freedom (or 3DOF), which tracks the position of your head. This is different from high-end VR headsets with 6 degrees of freedom (6DOF) which track the full movement of your body. It provides a partially immersive experience that can still be powerful, especially for news and documentary projects.
360 video requires an omnidirectional camera which can be a consumer version such as the Ricoh Theta, the Insta360 One X, or a professional model such as Google’s Jump camera. The most recent consumer 360 video cameras will automatically stitch the seams, not as well as using post-production software, but serviceable.
Some of the “classic” early immersive experiences of the modern VR revolution were done in 360 videos, including Clouds Over Sidra and The New York Times, The Displaced. The format remains the easiest access point for organizations, retailers, students, and faculty, along with the public to begin creating immersive experiences.
It wasn’t hard to see this coming. At last year’s Oculus Connect conference, the San Jose Convention Center was rife with rumors that the Oculus Go headset would be canceled. Nearly every presentation focused on the …
Read more Oculus Go Headset Discontinued – The End of 3DOF VR?
If you’re sheltering in place on this Memorial Day Weekend, check out the SXSW 360 videos that are now online through May 31. The VR experiences were originally meant to be available at the massive Festival …
Every year, we do our festival review of the VR films (or 360 videos) at the Tribeca film festival. This year, the VR experiences in the Cinema360 program are a mixed bag. They range from compelling …
Read more Festival Review: Tribeca’s Mixed Bag of 360 Video Experiences
As one more casualty of the Coronavirus, the Tribeca Film Festival Cinema360 program moves online this year. We’re trying to look at this on the bright side. The Festival, which is right down the street from …
Read more Tribeca Film Festival Cinema360 Moves Online This Year
It’s no surprise that theme parks are devastated by the Coronavirus. All a park can do is close their doors, promise to retain their employees (or not), and watch the balance sheet turn red. The public will …
Read more We’re Left to VR Amusement Rides During the Coronavirus
This summer, I will be teaching The Art of Immersive Storytelling workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. The mission of Anderson Ranch Arts is to enrich lives with art, inspiration, and community. I …
Read more The Art of Immersive Storytelling Workshop at Anderson Ranch Art Center
This year’s Thanksgiving Day parade includes a live broadcast in 360 and celebrity holograms from Verizon. As in years past, some 8,000 people and large balloons will wind their way through Manhattan in a tradition that …
Read more 2019 Thanksgiving Day Parade – 360 Video and Holograms
This fall marks the third year of VR at the 76th Venice Film Festival, or what is now known as Venice Virtual Reality. The works are divided into two tracks, one focusing on linear 360 videos …
Read more 39 Innovative VR Projects at the Venice Film Festival
Scratch another immersive technology development off the list. After high hopes and promises of a ubiquitous mobile VR platform, Google Daydream is essentially over. The HMD is still available on the Google Store, but you have …
In a blow to VR filmmaking, Google is closing their VR studio, “Spotlight Stories.” The popular immersive film studio shuttered with an announcement in Variety: Google Spotlight Stories is closing its doors after over six years …
Here’s a chance to experience some innovative 360 videos at SXSW if you’re in Austin, Texas. They’re coming from Brett Leonard, director of Lawnmower Man, which remains a classic if terrifying vision of our technology-laden future. …
Read more Lawnmower Man Director Brett Leonard’s 360 Videos at SXSW
Immersive technology projects are showing up everywhere. Even in outer space. A project of Time and the always creative Felix and Paul Studios is putting VR cameras on the space station. The cameras went up last month on board …
Read more VR cameras on the space station for your virtual spacewalk
Happy Holidays from Digital Bodies! A very creative 360° holiday video from Breaking Forth posted on the Samsung VR site. Best viewed with Google Cardboard or any 360° video viewer but you can also view it in …
We’re not at the point of doing a live-stream in VR from another planet (as Elon Musk promises to deliver). But this NASA 360° video of the control room at the Jet Propulsion Lab during the InSight Mars …
Read more NASA 360° Video – the moment of InSight’s Mars Landing
Another black hole in VR? Maybe good things come in pairs. In addition to the release of Eliza McNitt’s incredible SPHERES: Songs of SpaceTime on Oculus Rift, scientists have now created an astrophysical model of Sagittarius A* to …
The latest Google VR film, “The Journey of Gold”, explores the issue of gold mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As you may know, over five million people have died from resource extraction conflicts …
Some things just scream for a virtual experience – or at least a 360° video. And a VR flight in a body-controlled jet engine power suit is one of them. You’ve probably seen one of the …
Read more An amazing VR flight experience in a body controlled jet suit
Here’s the 360° immersive experience of “Unseen Stars”, GE’s light show at Grand Central Terminal in New York celebrating the achievements of female scientists and engineers. It was scheduled to run September 19-21, but it’s been …
Read more 360° Immersive Experience – Celebrating Female Scientists
Update: Watch the 2018 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in 360° Video! Want to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 360 Video? It may actually be the best way to see it if you don’t want to brave the cold …
Want to shoot and live-stream your world in virtual reality? Then take a look at the Insta360 Nano, a small clip-on 360 camera that lets you take virtual reality photos and videos with your iPhone. We’ve said …
The new Vuze VR camera from HumanEyes will fit in your (large) pocket. And it’s dead simple to use, point-and-shoot with no stitching in post-production. With eight HD cameras, you get full 360 video with 4K resolution. And …
A stunning 360 video of SpaceX‘s successful rocket landing on a drone ship. SpaceX already released a standard video in mid-April. But you get a whole new perspective from a 360 camera mounted on the deck of the barge. This is …
Not surprisingly, The New York Times VR film, “The Displaced“, took an award in the 2016 World Press Photo contest. The award came under the Innovative Storytelling category in the multimedia area. Created through the NYT …
The ever-inventive David Attenborough has produced a 360 video simulation of the largest dinosaur ever discovered. At 37m long and weighing 70 metric tons, Titanosaur now holds the record as the largest species that we have …
Read more Want a 360 Video of a Dinosaur? Leave it to David Attenborough
The New York Times continues its exploration of virtual reality with a new VR film The Contenders. The new piece dives into the Presidential campaign and the crowds following the candidates. The project suggests that virtual …
Read more The NY Times’ VR Film of the Presidential Campaign
VR cameras just got a lot more affordable with the $1,000 Vuze Virtual Reality camera. Announced at CES 2016 by HumanEyes Technologies, the camera shoots 360-degree video and stitches it together in near real-time. There are excellent virtual …
Read more VR Cameras Just Got Cheaper – The Vuze VR Camera Shoots 360 Video