Hi Everyone,

You probably notice some new forums that appeared recently here.

So, yes, I confirm, we have a video stitcher called Autopano Video and Autopano Video pro.
It is a long story, started several years ago after some people asked us how to stitch some frame instead of still images.
We did several video stitching projects for famous artists that used that to display on events, but that was always in project mode.

Then came the gopro and it changed everything. It was time to create to real product so you can also stitch video out of these devices.
And here's Autopano Video / Autopano Video Pro, Kolor's video stitchers.
http://www.kolor.com/360-video/autopano-video-360-video-stitcher.html

What can I say about this product ?
- I'm quite happy with the current version. And I'm sure private beta tester around the world could give you their feedback about the product. A lot videos posted during the last 6 months were done by Autopano Video ( old name was KAVA ).
- Really there are some cool feature already, audio synchronisation, quality blending, any type of video can be stitched not only GoPro, etc.
- GPU is part of Autopano Video Pro only ! It works cross-hardware and amazingly fast ( 10x faster than CPU ). We'll show you that live at IVRPA.

As always, we like direct communication with users : so the forum was update so you can communicate directly with us on this product.

Take care

Alexandre

Hi

I do commercial panoramas. If this is to become usefull in a commercial way offering this service to clients, then I truly miss more information about how the video sequences are made? Using how many GoPro cameras? What about tripod, panohead and so on? Is there any tutorial that can clarify this?

I don't mind paying for the software but if I am supposed to do this I also need a lot of new hardware and I can't read any description on how the source material is made which is a very important.

Regards
Morten

Alexandre,

I'm taking 360° timelapses with a Panoneed head and Promote Control. I've already got several hundred to several thousand equirectangular frames that I'm trying to turn into a video to play smoothly with KRPano. I'm currently rendering the video with either After Effects or Premiere Pro. Where I'm struggling is what resolution and bitrate to export it at that will download OK on a 3-10Mbps internet connection but still look good in the viewer? I've not found a balance that works yet. 360 video is a LOT of data! Any suggestions?

Also, will PTP 2.0 support working with these videos to create virtual tours and integrate better with KRPano? I like the menus and such I already have in PTP 1.8 instead of using KRPano droplets.

Thanks for any advice!
Aaron

To Morten@WideEyes : We'll introduce the rigs for gopro soon on our store ( next week probably ).

Real great stuff!! Will make the scene i guess
Congrats!

best, Klaus

_________________
Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. Coco Chanel

Thinking commercially you need to ask yourself:
do i have the type of clients which will pay the price i need for producing it? What´s the clientel? You need first hand to invest about 3000-4000.-€ (6 Gopro Silver/Black = 6x 400/500.-€ + 1 Rig = about 500-700.-$ + Software = ??).
Then you will - maybe - find that you need a faster machine to work with this stuff . .

Not to speak of the skills you definitely need - do you have them?

What will a two-minute 360° video NEED to cost you as a producer? What price will the client accept? For what purpose would the client NEED a 360x180° video?

So: WHO is the target?

It would be nice for TV-Newsrooms (the only place i saw it yet). TV-stations are used to pay very little money for such things. Much of their material they get for free.
Would be nice for advertising (online). Here you can make the most money of course - but they wouldn´t accept a GoPro-quality. So it would take you a remarkable investment first in professinal hard-/software and VERY HIGH skills to do well-payed work (i´m in advertising as a photographer and cameraman for years).

Surely would be nice for tourism - but what are they willing to pay?

We´re in constant contact with big newspapers and news-magazines who use our panoramas in their payed online-abonements. "Der Spiegel" for example. They surely will use 360x180° videos for stories - when it makes sense and is of good quality.
http://www.360impressions.de/Specials_Spiegel.html

Or "Weekend" magazine: http://www.360impressions.de/Specials_ESC.html

I´m quite convinced 360x180° video will have a future on the web. But you know what it´s like on the web: who pays?

Interactive panorama-photography exists about 15 years now. But how does it look today commercially? We´re workà­ng on a high level - and we´re pretty expensive. Most of pano-shooters ask a fraction of what we ask.

Many of them ask prices for which i not even would open my camera-case . . . Obviously there are clients accepting low quality for low costs. That´s ok for them.

But producing 360x180° videos commercially is quite different: it´s totally new on a commercial basis and it needs different skills!

We´ll see what will happens.

Just some thoughts about producing commercially . . :cool:

best, Klaus

_________________
Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. Coco Chanel

La video immersive, c'est interessant, mais la il y a bien mieux !!!

Prenons l'exemple du concert :
On filme tout (360) avec n cameras,
et ensuite on peut en tirer la bonne sequence.
Si le chanteur saute dans la foule
ou si un spectateur envahit la scene,
on aura la possibilite de recadrer en post-production !
Genial !

C'etait faisable avec du fisheye,
mais evidemment le recadrage reduisait la definition.
Maintenant on va pouvoir filmer en Gigapixel ( ;-) )
avec des cameras a angle de champ reduit.

I've got another suggestion for a client for 360 video.... Large testing programs. I support lots of industrial tests where anywhere from 4-24 cameras are installed to record for all kinds of reasons.... I've been floating the question to my clients as far as... Imagine if we could record 360 video so that you could see and record everywhere at once. Yes, it's only from one vantage point, but when unexpected events happen near the camera's field of view, but not specifically in the filed of view, it's very difficult to determine what happened. If we could deliver 360 video, we'd be able to ensure that when things happen, we'll have it recorded! I'm excited to see what advancements and practical capabilities will be announced at the Iceland, IVRPA event.

What about file format ?

ich just looked at the video and found that quite interesting, but investing in 6 Cameras and 600€ + VAT, i sorry, but thats a no-go for amateurs/hobbists

It´s definitely the preferable way. A single camera using 6 lenses wouldn´be cheaper at all providing the same quality.
Using 6 lenses means using 6 sensors!

The way using 6 GoPros definitely is the most effective and cost-saving way to do it.

Finding clients to produce for is possible. Advertising already is digging deep into it - the point is interactivity. NewsGathering will be the next step - i already saw
it on some networks who feed online editions for interactivity.
Online-magazine, run by newspaper-publishers, are also on start - "Der Spiegel" - the most relevant german news-magazine - has it in the pipeline
for it´s online-abo edition and already done an edition and some others are working on it.

You see: there IS a market for that - and this market will grow very fast!

The question is the price you can ask for it. The price you can ask for panoramas/tours also is comparablly differing. In that range we are VERY expensive - but
we have clients who are willing to pay for extraordinary work. Many competitors tried so far to copy what we do - they failed so far to achive what
we can provide.
Not all type of clients even see the differences - but that´s the same in all kind of businesses: you need to find THE type of client who wants to have what YOU can provide . . and not what thousands of others can do.

So find the kind of client who recognizes the difference and who is willing to pay for that difference!

But first your work needs to be different . .

_________________
Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. Coco Chanel

Once "stitching parameters" are set,
is viewing (i.e.) six streams "omni-view" output possible in real time ?
Could be nice for sports/events.

About pricing : Camera+software could be rented (no moving parts : a bonus!)

I wonder when it will be possible to do multi resolution tiling with video? The huge limitation right now is that the entire sphere must be downloaded and played, and most internet connections are not capable of streaming 720p in real time, let alone 50MP video. 1920 x 960 looks like #### at 8Mbps when viewed as a sphere, and I haven't found a way to make it look better without taking more pixels and more bandwidth. HTML 5 for mobile devices is not even capable of displaying equirectangular video as anything but a flat projection.

I'd love any video compression and KRPano display tricks anyone has to offer! I'm hoping PanoTour Pro 2.0 makes this easier? Here is my attempt at a 360° HDR timelapse using a Panoneed and two Promote Controls: http://www.aaronpriestphoto.com/2013/07/360-timelapse-mowing-the-lawn/