VLC 3.0 (Vetinari): Unable to play 360 videos

Question

I installed the last VLC version (3.0.0 (Vetinari) on Windows 7 64 bits) which supports 360 video playback.

In order to do some tests I downloaded the following 360 video from Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/215984568

But VLC is unable to play the 360 video correctly; the video contains all the 360 degree video information but it's showed at the same time (on Vimeo the video plays OK). The result is the following:

I think that maybe the video could be reencoded with ffmpeg to be more VLC friendly.

The media info of the downloaded 360 video is this:

Answer 1

The 360° video you downloaded is encoded as an equirectangular projection, meaning the video was projected onto a rectangular surface. This makes the video indistinguishable from a normal video.

In order to be recognized as a 360° video, the video must contain specific metadata. You can use a tool provided by Google for uploading videos to YouTube: Upload 360-degree videos. Apply this tool to your video and VLC will correctly recognize it as a 360° video.

Answer 2

The problem comes from the video which should have the metadata projection=equirectangular. To fix it:

1. Install Python 3

2. Download Spatial Media

3. Unzip Spatial Media

4. Go into the folder (where there is a subfolder spatialmedia)

5. Copy the path of the folder

6. Launch cmd on Windows (by searching cmd on your system)

7. Go on the folder by typing cd and the path of the folder

8. Inject the spherical metadata by typing py spatialmedia -i<yourVideoOnTheDisk><aVideoName>

Open the created file with VLC. It should be launched as a 360° video. You can remove spatialmedia and uninstall Python.