I liked the Garmin VIRB 360. It’s expensive, sure, but it works well and takes great 360 photos and videos.
There were a few aspects that were just “OK” and could have used a bit of a tweak.
Going live today is that tweak. It adds some new features and a whole new way to edit the 360 videos called HyperFrame Director Mode.
If you're new to 360 cameras, check out my Beginner's Guide To 360 Cameras.
The Power of Editing
Let’s start with HyperFrame, as it’s certainly the headline of the update and probably the aspect most people will find most interesting. Basically, you shoot your 360 video as normal. Then, in the editing process, you can select a 16x9 2D section of the video, and create a 1080p video from just that. So yes, you’re converting a 4K 360 sphere into a “normal” HD video, but that allows you to do a lot of things.
The example they show in the video above makes it pretty clear. You can focus the virtual camera on just the part of the scene that’s actually interesting, smoothly panning and tilting to follow the interesting bit as it moves. The level of zoom is adjustable too, so you can go really wide to show the whole environment, or zoom in on the most exciting bits. You can even zoom way out to a Tiny Planet-style image, and back again.
If this sounds familiar, it’s the latest trick by several 360 cameras. The Insta360 One can do it, and apparently so will the upcoming GoPro Fusion. It’s likely that other manufacturers will follow suit.
Is this something you’d use for vacation videos? Probably not, unless you were doing some action sports. But if you are doing action sports, this seems like a great way to create more compelling videos than just a single 360 (though those are cool too). Essentially, it’s another took for the content creator.
Another aspect of the update that I find just as interesting (though you may not), is the addition of more manual controls to the VIRB 360 app, i.e. long exposures, different burst options, and so on. Longer exposures is something I mentioned in my review as rather lacking, and it’s great to see its addition here.
Lastly, the VIRB Edit software can now stitch and stabilize up to 5.7K videos (it maxed out at 4K before), so you can get that bit of extra resolution (always a good thing) when shooing RAW on the VIRB.
So not massive changes, but definite improvements and improvements that help the VIRB 360 justify its price.
If you already have a VIRB 360, all you need to do is download the latest versions of the app and software, both are free.
