Category Archives: Virtual Reality

Copy files to/from Insta360 app on iPhone/iPad

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This topic seems to come up often, which is maybe it shouldn’t since Insta360 even documents these steps. Here is the background…

If you have an Insta360 360 camera such as the ONE X, ONE X2, X3 or X4, you can run the Insta360 App and download photos/videos from the camera for editing on your phone or tablet. You can then export them out and share them as normal photos, reframed videos or even 360 photos/videos.

If you want to backup the original files your phone/tablet downloaded, you can do that too by plugging the phone/tablet up to your computer via the USB sync cable.

On macOS, when you plug in the device and allow it to connect, it will show up under the Finder. You can select it and get a series of “tabs” in the Finder on what you want to look at. By selecting Files you have access to the file system of the device:

Look for the “Insta360” app and expand it:

If you want to copy .insv/.insp files TO the phone app, you can drag them over to the “IMPORT” folder. They will be copied via USB and placed into the location where the app will recognize them and you can edit them on your device.

If you want to copy files OUT of the phone, you cannot pick and choose, but you can drag the entire DCIM folder out from this window to wherever you want it copied and all the raw .insv/.insp/etc. files that have been imported into the Insta360 app will be copied there, likely much faster over USB than they would over WiFi from the camera in the first place. You will then be able to backup these files, or drag them into the desktop Insat360 app for editing.

It would be nice to have some kinda of automated script to do this (perhaps one that monitors for the phone/tablet to be connected then runs, backing up all the DCIM files automatically). If there is interest, I can look into trying to create one.

And if you want to read these instructions direct from Insat360, they are found in the manual. Here is the entry from the online X3 manual:

https://onlinemanual.insta360.com/x3/en-us/camera/filetransfer

We could do better…

That said… What would really be nice would be for Insta360 just to support the built-in Files system on iOS/iPadOS. Most of the apps I use allow me to export a file to anything mounted in my Files app. If you have installed Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc., they show up and apps can just save a file there. If it is a cloud service, they will automatically sync to the cloud via that app. There are also FTP clients that look like drives, so you can export to a location and have it FTP to your own server. Likewise, most apps I use allow me to open from the Files app, so I can import files I have saved on Dropbox or whatever.

This also allows access to external USB hard disks or memory cards attached to the Lightning or USB-C port of the device using the appropriate adapter.

Insta360 may not be doing this because they knew they were planning to bring out their own cloud service they charge for. If they had allowed support for the native Files system, you’d be able to do all of this “for free” with any cloud service you were already using and there would be very little reason to subscribe to their subscription cloud service

But who knows… Maybe if enough of us ask them for it, we might see it. You can contact Insta360 and ask them here:

https://www.insta360.com/support

Until next time…

My 360 photo/video (VR) experiments…

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I often forget to cross-post things between my project sites, so let’s do that right now.

I bought my first digital camera (an Epson PhotoPC) in 1996. I have had many others since then. In addition to photo cameras, I also had various camcorders including my first digital camcorder in 1999. It recorded digitally to 8mm video tapes (Digital8 was the format, I believe). I have also experimented in 3-D, with a NuView camcorder attachment (what a beast that was) and some other gadgets, and some 360 photography.

For 360 photos, you could originally just use a normal camera and take photos in all directions then “stitch” them together using special software. You can find examples of that in some 2002 photos I took at an Illinois Renaissance festival.

There was an early attempt to do “one shot” 360 photos by using a half mirror ball on a rod, and attaching that to the lens of a camera. You would shoot with the camera pointed up, which captured the mirror ball and all things going on around it. Those images could be processed back to panoramas with special software. I had a gadget called SurroundPhoto I experimented with back around 2005.

In the mid-2010s we started seeing consumer 360 cameras made by companies like Giroptic, RICHO and even Kodak. I have had a variety of those in recent years and am currently using an Insta360 X4.

Sharing 360 photos and videos is not easy. Facebook supports them, and YouTube supports video, so I created some Facebook Groups for sharing photos (I made them groups so others could share theirs’s as well) and new YouTube channels for sharing videos.

If you have ended up on my site for Insta360 topics, maybe you will want to pop by these groups/channels…

VR videos on YouTube:

VR photos on Facebook (post your own there, too):

Until next time…

Why do 5.7K and 8K Insta360 X3/X4 photos/videos look so bad?

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For the search engines…

I see this question come up over and over (and over and over) again on discussion groups (Facebook, REDDIT, etc.). Folks see “8K camera” or “5.7K camera” and expect that will be better than an HD camera or 4K camera.

But not with a 360 camera.

With a normal camera, you have a lens recording a square/rectangular image. An HD camera will record an image that is 1920×1080 pixels. Those pixels are used for the entire square/rectangular image.

But, a 360 camera with two lenses takes its resolution and divides that by two — one for each lens. An 8K Insta360 X4 camera is therefore shooting a 4K image out the front lens, and a 4K image out the back.

BUT, instead of shooting straight ahead, it is a wide angle fisheye style image that is actually capturing everything in front, above, below, to the left and right of that lens. The back lens is doing the same.

When you think of it that way, the number of pixels that would be for the “forward” view is a fraction of the pixels you would get with a normal non-fisheye single lens camera.

Here is my quick doodle:

Now, reality is actually much more complex than this simple drawing, but the end result is you an “reframe” 360 footage to be a view in any direction. If you only use those six main directions (forward, backwards, left, right, up and down), you are dividing the pixels of that 8K image in to 6 smaller images. If 8K video is 7680 × 4320, then each view is closer to 1280×720 — which you can see is below “full HD” of 1920×1080.

So even with an 8K 360 camera, what you get in any specific direction is still not going to be as good as a simple HD camera that only records in one direction.

(And yes, I know the reality is much more complex, but this is just greatly simplified to help new users visualize how it works.)

Until next time…

Insta360 X4 firmware 1.2.20

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Updates:

  • 2024-08-01 – Fernando T. in the comments noted that there are still missing features: “I can see no control of bracketing steps and number of shots for composing HDR Photo yet…” Let’s hope that, eventually, Insta360 can make the X4 do as much as its predecessor could do.

Finally! The GPS Remote and Apple Watch may be used to control the X4. Also support for streaming. We are now getting close to the standard features we were used to with the X3.

10 minutes of Insta360 X4 VR 360 video

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From my Park Hopping site, here is ten minutes of Insta360 VR 360 video.

I set the camera in various places using a Best360 tripod I purchased on Amazon. I set the camera to 8K 360 video mode and just clicked record. No manual settings – just automatic mode.

The only “editing” of the video was putting the clips together in Final Cut Pro’s 360 video editor, adding some transitions, and some overlay text. I did no color corrections or enhancements. These are the files exported out of the Insta360 desktop app and then brought into a Final Cut Pro 360 video timeline in 8K.

YouTube renders the video down to 4K, it seems, so I guess we can’t share 8K video on YouTube yet…

4/28/2024 – Butterfly Palace, Branson MO USA

More to come…

Insta360 X3 versus Insta360 X4 in low light

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Updates:

  • 2024-04-26 – When I did this test, I recorded an 8K run, a 5.7K+ run, then 5.7K. I could not tell which video was which from looking at the info inside Insta360 Studio. I now think the #1 pass was in 5.7K+ mode. I will have to redo all of these ;-)

By request, here are comparison videos of the Insta360 X3 and Insta360 X4˘cameras recording in low light conditions. The recording was made at sunset, and the light level was low enough that the X4 displays the warning that it is too low for shooting in 8K.

But I did it anyway.

In the first test, I set the X3 to 360 mode and 5.7K. This allows reframing and exporting to HD. For the X4, I set it to 360 and 8K. This allows reframing and exporting to 4K. This obviously should make the X4 side have more detail, but what will it do to brightness of the video?

X3 5.7K versus X4 8K

X3 5.7K versus X4 5.7K+ (I think)

For the next test, I did two recordings with both cameras set to 360 5.7K+ (I think). In both cases, the reframed video is exported as HD. This was the mode the X4 tells you to use when recording in low light.

Test #1:

Test #2 in normal 5.7K mode (unless I have #1 and #2 mixed up):

Is one better than the other? You can certainly see alot of stabilization glitching going on at these low light levels.

To be continued…

I also repeated these tests at 24 fps (to see if that really does increase low light performance) and some other frame rates, but one of the files was incomplete from me hitting the button by mistake. I’ll go through the rest of my test clips, including some done in single lens mode, and create more comparison videos soon.

Insta360 Dolby Vision Enhanced comparison

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Updates:

  • 2024-04-20 – Added longer single-lens example.

I do not know how long this has been in the Insta360 mobile app, but when I was exporting an X4 clip today I noticed an option to enable “Dolby Vision Enhancement.”

Dolby Vision Enhanced

After transcoding, the details of the surface are significantly enhanced, enhancing the light and shadow effects and the sense of presence of the video, and presenting a more realistic color rendition of the real-life scenes.

I was unfamiliar with this, and looked it up on the wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Vision

…and the official website…

https://www.dolby.com/technologies/dolby-vision

Does it really do anything beyond playing with colors? The Insta360 already has Color Plus and Clarity Plus to play with. I decided to do a quick test of the same Skylapse clip with and without Dolby Vision Enhancement:

Well, it’s bluer, at least. Now that I am aware of this option, I will do some more tests with other footage I have shot. Exporting from the mobile app does not offer the higher bitrate that the desktop Insta360 Studio has, but if this feature is in the desktop app, I could not locate it.

Here is a longer test, shot in single-lens mode:

More to come… Please leave a comment if you use this mode and tell us why.

Insta360 X3 versus Insta360 X4 – side by side videos

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Updates:

  • 2024-04-18 – You can download the mp4 files I uploaded to YouTube from my Dropbox if you want to see them without YouTube’s compression.

I received my X4 the day after release (thank you Amazon) . That evening, I went out and did a few quick videos with the X3 and X4 mounted side-by-side. For one test, I recorded video in single lens mode using the default 4K settings. For the other test, I recorded in default 360 mode then reframed and exported. Since the X4 comes with plastic lens guards, and since the built in tutorial shows how to install them as a first step, I put them on my X4. I wanted to recreate what a new user would most likely be seeing if they followed the on-screen instructions.

Single Lens 4K

When comparing Insta360 X3 single lens (4K, 30fps) to Insta360 X4 single lens (4K, 60fps), I think the X4 is noticeably better. In this video, the audio comes from the X4. The X4 also had the Standard Lens Guards installed. You will see some extra lens flare type stuff caused by these lens guards on the X4 that the X3 video does not have.

360 Video Reframed

I shot in default 360 video mode. The 360 footage on the X3 records in 5.7K, and the 360 footage on the X4 records in 8K. The reframe export option from Insta360 Studio is 3840×2160 (4K) for the X4, and 1920×1080 HD for the X3. This video is in 4K. The X4 appears to be a substantial upgrade.

Conclusion

My goal here was to do the simplest test I could, using default settings like a regular user would use. I set video and 150 (single lens) mode and recorded, and I set 360 mode and recorded. I then exported (and reframed/exported) in Insta360 Studio using the highest bitrate it offers (200 Mbits). I edited those videos together in Final Cut Pro X then exported to “HVEC” format (h.265) for uploading.

What do you think?

More to come…

Insta360 X4 Standard Lens Guards see sun spots – maybe?

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Yesterday, I mounted both the X3 and X4 to my Kugoo G5 electric scooter and rode them around some residential streets. To represent the X4 “as shipped,” I attached the “X4 Standard Lens Guards” that come with the unit. One of the first things the X4’s built-in tutorial screens show you is how to install them, so I wanted to follow the “default instructions” like a new user hopefully does.

On playback, I noticed bright sun spots dancing around the screen. You can see one here:

X4 Standard Lens Guard “sun spot”?

You will notice that the sun is above in this photo. When facing away from the sun, this spot is not there.

Is this from the Standard Lens Guard? Or just from the normal lens? I did not notice this until viewing it later. This may or may not be related to the lens guards. I will do more testing, soon.

Just an FYI for those curious to how this looks. I will be posting the video soon, but needed a place to post this photo so I can share the link with those asking about it.

More to come…