YouTube adds support for interactive 360-degree video uploads

If you've splashed out on a fancy 360-degree camera, you can now use YouTube as a platform to show off your footage. It's something that Google promised back at the start of the year, and it has finally come to fruition. Rather than restricting viewers to watching the action that's happening in one direction, these immersive video allow you to look around in every direction as if you were there.

There are already a number of videos online to check out, and it’s a method of recording that lend itself perfectly to concerts, sporting events and the like. 360-degree videos are best enjoyed through virtual reality headset, but desktop and mobile users have not been forgotten.

For the majority of people who watch 360-degree videos without a headset, simple on-screens can be used to navigate around. Android users can pan around videos augmented-reality-style -- just hold up your phone or tablet running the YouTube app and move it around to change the viewing angle. There are already a number of cameras out there, or due soon, that can be used to shoot 360-degree footage including Bublcam, Giroptic’s 360cam, IC Real Tech’s Allie, Kodak’s SP360 and RICOH THETA.

Google is keen for uploaders to come up with interesting ways of using the technology.

You could let viewers see the stage and the crowd of your concert, the sky and the ground as you wingsuit glide, or you could even have a choose-your-own-adventure video where people see a different story depending on where they look. Only you know what’s possible.

You can test out the immersive 360-degree experience in the video below:

Photo credit: james weston / Shutterstock