[A SIMPLE TECHNIQUE TO SHOOT AND PUBLISH DOUGHNUT CLIPS] posted December 13, 2008

Here we exhibit a simple technique to shoot and publish doughnut clips. What we actually present is the result of our experiment, which we believe is the simplest and the most affordable approach among those ever proposed in the panorama community, in terms of capturing and publishing 360-degree motion pictures that we call "doughnut videos" created through a panoramic annular lens; 0-360.com's 0-360 Panoramic Optic™, in combination with a non-professional HD camcorder; Panasonic's HDC-SD5. Let us call this combination as "doughnut video system" here.

The technique is comprised of the following six steps:

1. Shoot a doughnut video using the doughnut video system.
   
2. Copy the doughnut video (an MTS file encoded with AVCHD standard as it is) to an appropriate location on your PC. (A Windows-based PC is assumed.) Click here to download a sample video clip having the MTS format captured through the doughnut video system (dougnut_sample01.MTS) for your own experiment.
   
3. Convert the MTS file on your PC into a WMV file using Alive HD Video Converter, for example. Click here to download a sample video clip having the WMV format (doughnut_sample01.WMV) that was converted from the original MTS file (doughnut_sample.MTS).(*Note 1)
   
4. Crop and convert the WMV file into an FLV file using Moyea Video4Web Converter, for example. Click here to download a sample video clip having the FLV format (doughnut_sample01.flv) that was cropped and converted from the WMV file.
   
5. Configure and set up HTML, XML and other necessary files for Web publishing. Click here to download a sample set of files required to publish the flv file (the doughnut video clip) on your Web site.
6. Upload all the setup files to your Web site. Click here to view the sample clip already uploaded.(*Note 2)

The simplicity we claim here mainly comes from our unique Flash-based panorama clip viewer named PanoDoughnutFlashVideo_v20.swf, which can dynamically generate a rectilinear and other projections directly from a doughnut-shaped video clip, and allows you to distribute it from any type of Web server including Linux-based or Windows-based to all of the Web audiences regardless of their platform, Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Click on the following thumbnails to view sample doughnut videos.

Note 1: If you own a video conversion tool capable of converting an AVCHD encoded file directly into an FLV file, the next step (step 4) could be eliminated. For example, TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress used with an FLV plug-in ( which is separately offered by the same company who provides TMPGEnc.) can generate an FLV file directly from an MTS file encoded with the AVCHD compression scheme.

Note 2: In order for an FLV file to be correctly handled on your server, the MIME type for the FLV file-type should be appropriately configured.
For a Linux-based server, make sure the following line is included in the .htaccess file.
AddType video/x-flv .flv
For a Windows-based server, refer a blog entry titled "Adding .FLV MIME Type in IIS" by Ryan Moore. Click here to view the blog entry.

Have fun with doughnut videos!