The rollout of the VR180 format is well under way with the launch of the Mirage Camera in the US, and possibly soon in Australia, and Google is now working to make working with the video format easier for content creators by today launching Mac and Linux apps which can convert them into standard videos for distribution.
The VR180 Creator app has been released for both Mac and Linux – sorry Windows fans – and is fairly bare bones, simply offering creators two options: ‘Convert for Publishing’ and ‘Prepare for Publishing’.
The options allow for creators to further edit the video using more standard video editing tools such as Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, converting the raw fish-eye video from VR180 cameras like the Mirage Camera and turning it ‘into a standardized equirect projection’, it also allows creators to include VR180 metadata ‘so that the footage is viewable on YouTube or Google Photos in 2D or VR’.
The apps are available to download from the new Google VR180 apps page here, and we hopefully don’t have too long to wait for the actual VR180 cameras to start arriving here in Australia.
