Category Archives: Insta360

The scripted world of Insta360 X5 reviews

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Quick background: I got my first digital camera in 1996, and was taking one-shot 360 photos back in 2005. Basically, I’m old and have been doing this for decades. However, I am still new to the Insta360 cameras. I have only been using them since the ONE X2.

Many companies will send out pre-release hardware to various YouTubers so they can have “review” videos ready to post the day the product is announced. The Insta360 ONE X2 was my first Insta360 product, and it was already for sale when I got mine. Since then I have watched the launch day “review” videos for the X3, the X4 and now the X5.

Insta360 requested changes to videos?

The X4 release had a bit of controversy around it when some YouTubers came forward explaining some of the terms that Insta360 had “requested” for their videos. They had been “asked” to edit things out or make changes to their “honest” review. For some, it was the end of them dealing with Insta360 (or so they said at the time; I have yet to see if they have an X5 launch day video). For the rest, we wondered what changes they made at the request of Insta360 in their “honest” reviews.

This shouldn’t be a surprise with any paid or sponsored video, but most of these folks will say they are giving an “honest review” or are “not sponsored.” While we can’t read minds to know how honest they are being, we certainly know that a hardware sponsor is indeed a sponsor. Whether someone is providing hotel rooms (a lodging sponsor) or lunch (a food sponsor) or hardware, these are indeed sponsorships and in the USA the F.T.C. requires this to be disclosed. So while it may be legal in other parts of the world to not disclose sponsorships, there are quite a few USA folks who have been in violation of this for years.

UPDATE: Several of the launch videos I have watched have said — up front — that Insta360 sent them the gear for free! Huzzah! I wish all would do this.

But I digress…

The X5 launch was different…

Unlike all the other X series launches I have watched over the past three releases, this time pre-release YouTubers were allowed to share video clips the day Insta360 announced something new was coming out. Multiple videos appeared on YouTube showing sample video, often a side-by-side comparison between an X4 and “whatever this new camera will be” (they couldn’t tell us yet). It was these low-light demonstrations that really got my attention.

Whatever this new device was, it sure looked more capable in low light situations.

But we also noticed something … odd.

…and “reviewers” seem to be following a script?

The official “launch teaser” video released by Insta360 ended with an up-facing video of someone with a hammer who then “smashed” the lens, breaking it. This was followed by clips of what looked like them unscrewing the current lens and replacing it.

Whatever this new device was, it sure looked like breaking a lens would be less of a big deal.

The odd part was seeing, over and over, different YouTubers posting short and cryptic “we can’t tell you what this is yet” videos showing them doing the same thing. Many used a hammer to break the lens, with the same up-facing video, and clips of them replacing it.

They were recreating that part of the Insta360 ad.

Coincidence? Maybe…but that seems unlikely.

Uncreative? Seems unlikely, since these folks all produce videos and the other samples were different.

Instructed by Insta360? Seems quite likely.

Launch videos echo marketing bullet points…

In most (all?) of the launch videos I have watched (so far) about the X5, I note they all have been giving us marketing bullet points for things they haven’t tried or tested. For example, they tell us the X5 lens is more durable. How do they know? Did they test breaking an X4 and try that same force on an X5? Not that I have seen. But the marketing says it is, so it is stated. That is not a review. That is reading the specs.

It is not a “review” if you are telling us a feature you haven’t even tried.

(And yes, this is just semantics. All they have to do is “According to Insta360, they say…” and we get it. But instead most/all have presented it as an untested, unverified fact. Whether it is or not, that is not a review. That is just echoing marketing specs.)

So…

As you watch all the X5 launch day “review” videos, keep in mind the ones that say:

  • “Honest review” – if you have to tell us that, there must be a reason. Have they been dishonest in the past?
  • “Unsponsored” – surely they had a hardware sponsor. How else would they have all this gear before they could even buy it?

…and then start noticing the things they all say (phrases) or point out (which could come from talking points provided by Insta360), as well as things they do in their “review” videos.

And now, back to binging dozens of X5 launch day videos… Comment with your favorite ones!

To be continued… (My videos will be available maybe as early as tomorrow night.)

Insta360 X5 accessories you have to re-buy

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If you already own an Insta360 X4 and decided to get the new X5, here is a list of things you will have to re-buy, according to Insta360. This page will be updated as we get more information:

X5 Accessories to Re-Buy

Per Insta360:

As X5 is different in size and internal structure from X4/X3, most accessories are not cross-compatible, including the battery, Invisible Dive Case, Lens Guards, and Quick Reader.

– Insta360
  • Battery
  • Battery Charger (new design, charges 2 batteries instead of 3)
  • Invisible Dive Case
  • Lens Guards
  • Quick Reader
  • Rubber Lens Cap
    • “The Insta360 X4 lens cap is not compatible with the X5. Our X5 has a new rugged, replaceable lens design that’s different from the X4. While some accessories like the 1/4″ mounting point are compatible between X4 and X5, specific accessories such as lens guards are not cross-compatible due to changes in size and optical performance. If you need lens protection for your X5, we recommend using accessories specifically designed for the X5 model.”
  • …and more to be added.

Find something else? Please leave a comment and I will update this list.

Insta360 X5 “confirmed”

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Well, the same day Insta360 made the announcement that a new product would be announced on 4/22/2025, videos start popping up on YouTube. Folks who had been using the camera ahead of release were being allowed to show some video (including side-by-side comparisons of the X4 versus the X5 in low light) and, oddly, showing replacing the lens — without being able to say the name of the product or that it has user-replicable lenses.

It was quite clear that this was scripted or at least directed since multiple videos from different YouTube accounts showed them doing the same steps.

Soon we had the name, and specs and prices posted on X, and even an “unboxing video” showing the contents of the box.

Tomorrow morning we will know for sure, but it does seem clear this will be an X5 with better low light capability and user-replaceable lenses.

BEWARE of “unsponsored” videos. Go to any event and you will see the sponsor section in the show guide (or a big wall of logos somewhere) listing all the “sponsors” of the event — you will see “lodging sponsors” and “food sponsors” and all kinds of things. Insta360 is known to be “hardware sponsor” for videos, providing them with gear and accessories. These “creators” will say they are “unsponsored” when they probably mean “I wasn’t paid to make this video.”

But they are sponsored with hardware. Be wary of any videos you watch that say “unsponsored” that come out immediately — they clearly were given hundreds of dollars of product so they could do the video ;-)

Those of us without hardware sponsorships will just buy the camera and show you some footage as soon as the product is shipping.

I am preparing to do a new batch of comparison videos like I did with the ONE X2 and X3, then again with the X3 and X4. And all of mine will be using “automatic” settings with no post-processing of the video.

More to come…

Insta360 X5 (?) camera coming out 4/22

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Insta360 has announced a new product reveal for April 22, 2025 at 9 a.m. EST. The name of the product is unknown, but the promo video clearly shows 360 camera stuff. This would make it a follow-up to the Insta360 X4 (which was a follow up to the X3, which was a follow up to the ONE X2, which was a follow up to the ONE X).

“All Day. All Night. All Angles.”

In addition to seeing that it is a 360 camera, there are also demonstrations of low-light video recording. The existing X series cameras have never done well in low light.

Also, at the end, someone smashes the lens with a hammer, then is shown replacing it using some kind of suction cup tool. This indicates user-replaceable lenses.

Improving low light is much needed. The lenses are a nice-to-have since a protruding/exposed lens on each side of the camera means damage can occur easily. Yet, I have never done damage to any of the 360 cameras I have owned over the years. Still, better to have this capability and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Unlike previous Insta360 releases I have followed, this time the video bloggers seemed to be allowed to release sample footage. As soon as this teaser posted, several other videos showed up with side-by-side videos comparing this new (unnamed) camera with the X4 or GoPro Hero 13. The low light capability far exceeds either of those.

While none of them can say the name of the product or mention specific details, apparently Insta360 allowed them all to start sharing footage ahead of the official announcement.

I am looking forward to seeing the details on April 22, 2025. When I receive my unit, I will begin posting some raw comparison videos of it versus the X4. Most of the “experts” do alot of manual settings, editing and processing so you never get to see what the camera is like “out of the box” when you just click record.

More to come…

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…