Introduction
Watching 360° video gives control back to the viewer, so that they can explore the entire scene. While the video moves forward, the viewer can look left, right, up, down and behind them, by panning with your finger directly on the video view, or by moving the device in the direction you want to see. These immersive stories empower the viewer to become an active participant in the action.
Creating and preparing your video
Follow these steps to create and prepare your video 360° video:
- First, you will need to create your 360° video. If you are a Video Cloud customer, you will also want to upload it to Video Cloud. To learn how to do this, see the Working with 360° Videos document.
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Next, you need to set the projection property on your video to a value of equirectangular. This identifies your video as a 360° video.
Video Cloud customers can either use Studio to set the projection property in the Media Module, or use the CMS API to set the projection property programmatically.
Brightcove Player customers need to set this property on their videos manually.
- Now, you are ready to play your 360° video in your app. The Native SDKs automatically detect 360° video when the projection property is set on the video and display your video in the correct format.
Playing 360° video with the Native SDKs
Once you create your content and add the projection field, you can load and play it just like any other video.
Here is the player with a 360° video. The user can navigate around to explore the entire scene.
Notice the Video 360° button in the control bar. When this button is tapped, the video is displayed in VR Goggles mode with side-by-side images. This mode can only be used when the device is in landscape orientation.
The Native SDK for iOS
The following information is specific to the Native SDK for iOS.
Getting started
To help you get started with 360° videos, see the following:
Orientation handling
You can use the same code to play 360° videos as you use for any other videos, but for a more complete experience you may want to implement a button tap handler for the Video 360° button in the control bar. When this button is tapped, you can force the orientation to landscape. For details, see the Video 360° sample app.
Feature limitations
- Captions/subtitles and ads are not supported when playing 360° video with the Native SDKs.
- Video 360° uses OpenGL to present video data, and since OpenGL doesn’t implement a fully encrypted path to the screen, FairPlay DRM can not be used with 360° videos.
- Although 360° live streams may work with the Native SDKs, it is not officially supported.
The Native SDK for Android
The following information is specific to the Native SDK for Android.
Getting started
To help you get started with 360° videos, see the following:
Feature limitations
- Captions/subtitles and ads are not supported when playing 360° video with the Native SDKs.
- To play 360° video, you must use the ExoPlayer video view. Brightcove recommends using the ExoPlayer when building apps with the Native SDK for Android. For more details, see the Choosing a Video View document.
- Widevine DRM is not currently supported by the Native SDK for Android.
- Android crashes when switching between 360° and non-360° videos in a playlist. Currently, you cannot have mixed content within your playlist.
- Although 360° live streams may work with the Native SDKs, it is not officially supported.