Spherical videos, also called omnidirectional or 360° videos, are quickly gaining popularity as an entertainment medium. These videos give users the ability to view around them rather than the traditional format of only seeing exactly what is in front of them. Platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook [1-3] already support these video types, and some of them are actively looking at ways to improve it [4-5]. These videos can be viewed in a regular browser using a mouse to click and drag to look around, on a phone by physically moving it, or on head-mounted displays (HMDs) such as a VR headset.

In these articles I hope to provide an overview of the following:

  • The different formats of these videos and the OMAF standard
  • How the videos are filmed and stitched together
  • The different ways the videos are projected onto a sphere for the user to view
  • An overview of the upload process for one of these videos with YouTube
  • Some of the other formats and some interesting future work

Each section will be gone into more detail in the project report.

For a few examples of these videos, take a look at YouTube’s “Virtual Reality” channel here: https://www.youtube.com/360

References

Cited References

[1]    YouTube. “Virtual Reality - YouTube.” YouTube.com. https://www.youtube.com/@360/featured (accessed Nov. 13, 2023)

[2]    Meta. “Facebook 360.” Facebook.com. https://www.facebook.com/Facebook360/ (accessed Nov. 13, 2023).

[3]    Vimeo Staff. “Vimeo 360: A home for immersive storytelling.” Vimeo.com. https://vimeo.com/blog/post/introducing-vimeo-360/ (accessed Nov. 13, 2023).

[4]    E. Kuzyakov and D. Pio. "Next-generation video encoding techniques for 360 video and VR." Engineering at Meta. https://engineering.fb.com/2016/01/21/virtual-reality/next-generation-video-encoding-techniques-for-360-video-and-vr/ (accessed: Nov. 6, 2023).

[5]    C. Brown. "Bringing pixels front and center in VR video." Google - The Keyword. https://blog.google/products/google-ar-vr/bringing-pixels-front-and-center-vr-video/ (accessed: Nov. 6, 2023).

General References

[1]    A. Yaqoob, T. Bi, and G. -M. Muntean, "A Survey on Adaptive 360° Video Streaming: Solutions, Challenges and Opportunities," IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 2801-2838, Jul. 2020, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2020.3006999.

Next Article - Main Formats and the OMAF Standard