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.