When they came up, the 360 ​​cameras drew a lot of attention, I remember that some channels of the YouTube They even created frames to use the functionality but soon the recording mode became less popular. The size of the files generated, the difficulty of executing them in good quality, the lack of practicality in editing the format, the price and the lack of players. good on the computer to play the generated videos are some of the reasons that have diminished the excitement of people with 360, Part of this must be because platforms do not make it very clear to the user how to access them. I speak better of this at the end of the analysis.
But gradually the tools and gadgets are improving and demystifying the recordings a bit, we are also following the release of more camera models in the market like Samsung Gear 360 and the GoPro Fusion 360, which we are going to talk about today. In the video below you give some general camera considerations.
Visual
Those who are used to the size of the GoPros will not be much surprised by this camera, it is little larger than the models HERO7 Black, Silver and White but it is twice the weight (220g) that these models.
The design is very similar to the traditional GoPros, but instead of bringing a viewfinder that covers much of the gadget's body behind, or a lens on one side, it has lenses on both sides and very small viewfinder.
It has a beautiful rubberized finish and can also be purchased with a protective cover on a rubber fabric. This protection needs to be removed when you want to charge or remove the battery or cards. micro SD. As it can be immersed in up to 5 meters of water, it has a very well protected battery and this makes it difficult for you to remove it and also the cards if you have a little difficulty removing it anyway.
Camera
GoPro Fusion offers one of the best image qualities in 360 cameras on the market with 18MP (jpeg, RAW), at 5.2k30fps or 3k60fps. Still, it is important to explain that the image, despite having a high resolution, loses much of its quality when zoomed in or coded from sites like YouTube. Because 360 ​​files are large, since they are a larger-than-traditional capture, files tend to be large, which was a camera encoding in formats that do not generate gigantic files.
The website ThreeSixtyCameras, which specializes in 360 camera reviews, features comparisons between cameras like Fusion and lists its main qualities and defects, and the site marked the GoPro camera as the best quality video.
This is another point that needs improvement, but it still offers one of the best images on the market.
In addition to filming, you can also take pictures, which can be done by voice command. Check out all camera specifications on the GoPro website.
Often the gadgets we tested are not programmed to respond to Portuguese commands, however, Fusion is able to understand what you say and respond to commands like "GoPro, take picture! "or" GoPro, get video! "Of course, you can't be so far away from the camera, even because it was made to record in 360 from where the user is.
audio
The capacity of this most attention-grabbing camera is undoubtedly 360So it may be a little surprising that her audio is extremely useful. The camera captures audio and at the time of editing you can opt for narrow or space audio. The latter gives you the ability to hear the sound in 3D, that is, the audio will be relative to the direction you are looking at. Check out the example below.
App
The GoPro Fusion 360 actually works using dual camera sensors, each comes with a micro SD card and both share the same battery. To join the capture made by each camera and export you can use the application of the computer or smartphone. There are differences in the functionality offered by the apps and I explain the process of how to use each one below.
With the cellphone
To make things a bit more difficult, the features of the mobile app don't work with most Android smartphones, even top of the line, being left out. It is important to note that even among those on the GoPro list, there are several that do not support all features as per the table on the GoPro website.
Check out the list of phones supported by Fusion.
From your smartphone you can follow the image that is being generated by the camera, something that who is already used to GoPro knows how, works with some delay and serves more to get a sense of the framing. It is possible to put to record or take photo by the app and a file generated on your phone, can be downloaded and shared from the device itself. It also depends on the compatibility list above, not only all smartphones that can do 360 video processing and preview the video one version on the device.
Those smartphones that appear in the list with all supported camera features offer one of the best features, the Overcapture. After you make a recording in 360 you can open it in OverCapture mode and redo a recording by changing the frame. The result is a new video with framing done, which makes editing and capturing video easier, as you can position the camera and ensure that all moments are captured without your assistance. Check out the explanatory video below.
Another camera that allows you to do this capture by choosing the camera frame is RYLO, a smaller camera of $ 499 and that brings some other features also by the application.
If you have a smartphone that is not compatible with GoPro Fusion 360 in the app, you will be able to use the app if you dribble the camera system. You can do this by connecting the camera to your phone via WiFi. First, open the app on your phone and click on the cameras tab and select no GoPro model. Next, go into the camera settings, select the WiFi connection, it will generate a password and then you can type that password looking for the network in the application. Now open your app and select the GoPro Hero 6 to make the connection. Check it out on the video below.
The mobile app has a number of connectivity limitations. Not all cell phones are camera compatible or recognize at first, sometimes it is necessary to try to reconnect several times before it works. One tip, if you couldn't connect your smartphone with GoPro Fusion, in the app, choose another GoPro model that the app just recognizes and lets you use it.
On the computer
Already in the computer, the slower process, but the better result. Some of the features of the app are not available on the computer app, so it's up to you to edit the video the way you want the software to prefer. An example of functionality that OverCapture cannot do on the computer.
It connects to the computer using a Type-C USB cable and generates two drives, one for the rear camera and one for the front camera. In the image below both drives appear as Fusion Back and Fusion Front next to disk C: and D :.
To merge the files generated by the rear camera and the front camera you use Fusion. This application allows you to make basic and necessary editions in the formation of the file in 360, I recommend you download it.
When installing the GoPro desktop application you need to create an account and login. To start viewing videos in the app you need to create a folder on your computer to store the files saved by the camera and add it to the app. You have to create a folder with two folders inside it, one for the front camera files and one for the rear camera files.
To make the application merge the 360-generated video you need to select the root folder, in the example like "MdiaFusion", and add it through the app. Once recognized, the files go through a verification that is not usually too long, but it will depend on how many files you have placed to check. After that you are ready to select and edit basic settings. Fusion files, you can control the tilt, rotation, FOV (field of view), and temperature settings, hue, sharpness.
In this viewing and editing part, the video is not yet ready to be used in your favorite video editing software and not even to go up on any social network, you need to add render queue and then render. If you are using Windows, by default it saves the files in the Pictures folder.
With the rendered video you can now edit, the software I used to make modifications to the video files generated by it was the Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 and I talk more about it below.
YouTube and native 3D players
To edit the videos in 360 is not as difficult as it sounds. I had no experience with video editing in this format but ended up finding that it is very fun and you can do a lot of cool stuff without having to dig in too much. In the tutorial below you can check out how the basic edition in format.
If you are using a newer version of Adobe Premiere just drag the 360 ​​video into the project, enable the VR viewer and start editing. In Premiere, GoPro itself provides a plugin for generating keyframes and controlling the positioning and rotation of the video.
To view the files on your computer you can either use the Windows player itself, which for some reason lowers the video quality while running, or download some other viewer from the internet, I downloaded GoPro's Kolor VR player.
As the main online viewer of this format today is YouTube, I suggest you render with a high bitrate because the platform greatly reduces the quality of the video. You can also use the Premiere preset that comes with the name YouTube and scroll the render tab video bar (Ctrl + M) to select the "Video is VR" option. So your video is ready to be recognized by YouTube's VR system and most likely to other sites.
Working with 360 videos requires high computer processing and takes a long time to prepare the videos. Every minute at 5k30fps generates about 3gb in GoPro Fusion and the processing to gather and render the time consuming video. GoPro itself warns you when opening the Fusion application that the process takes long time. A 4 minute 3k video generates a 10.16GB file.
It is common to find videos recorded on 360 with a high number of YouTube slips, people are not yet familiar with the format.
360 YouTube Videos Cannot Be Accessed by Browser
Anyone who finds a video in YouTube format and is using the web browser will not be able to control the viewing angle and see a strange flat image without VR processing. To be able to access the video correctly, you need to use the application.
By uploading the video to YouTube, the player makes a reduction in image quality to optimize playback, this YouTube encoding happens even with standard videos that we are already used to. In doing so, the image loses some of its sharpness and quality. This, coupled with the fact that internet viewing is slower because of the file size, ends up causing many people to leave their slides on video or not stop to watch. People are not ready for VR and VR has not yet fully adapted to our consumer habits.
Price
One of the main hurdles with 360 cameras is in price, as technology has not yet become popular and it is still very expensive to produce such a camera, the GoPro Fusion is costing around $ 3000.
Its price is about 600 dollars, but with the high dollar and other market rates and variations the price is well salted. Of course you can afford the luxuries of having a waterproof, 5k camera with space audio and buy a cheaper camera for $ 1000 as the Samsung Gear 360, It all depends on the quality that suits you best.
Conclusion
If you see clear use of 360 for professionally specific projects and have the money to shell out, I highly recommend it. The GoPro Fusion is the best quality 360 camera on the market. Besides having 5.2k30fps and 3k60fps, it has digital stabilization, can be immersed in water up to 5 meters and offers voice control in Portuguese.
But as I said, I indicate if you need or are already very clear what you are going to do with 360 recording, my recommendation is more for audiovisual professionals. It is not so simple to use and in daily life it does not make much sense, you will spend a good time with post-production and adjustments, so it serves to better thought and worked productions. The 360 ​​is also interesting for sightseeing, but for those cases the price of quality doesn't pay, if you buy a camera just for that, it's worth spending a little less if you won't pay for things you won't even use.
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