Michael Verdi

I’ve seen a few VR180 creators on Reddit talk about turning their 8K footage from the Canon R5C into 16K. The examples I’ve seen do look better so I thought I’d try it out. I used Topaz Labs Video AI to upscale a 30 second clip that I shot while we on vacation in Guerneville, CA a couple of weeks ago.

It took about 26 hours (!) to upscale the video on my Mac Studio (M1 Max processor). I just used the default settings. I imagine I can get better results in the future. Here are crops from the original and upscaled video.

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I spent the Labor Day weekend learning how to add text and 2D video into an immersive video scene. I’m doing this because I have this vision for a film/app for the Apple Vision Pro and I thought I could 1. prototype a large part of this experience in video and 2. I could also make immersive videos like this and learn how to tell stories in this medium. 

So to begin with, I came up with the requirements for my project.

• I had to use existing video. I wasn’t going to waste time shooting new things or trying to have this video mean anything or stand on it’s own. I’m just working on learning the technical part.
• I want to include text in the 3D space.
• I want to include 2D video in the 3D space.

There’s more I want to learn — immersive audio & 3D video in the 3D space — but I’ll save that for another time. Knowing how to add text and 2D video is most of what I need and it allows me to work on storytelling in parallel with the other technical skills. 

• Apple Vision Pro: download this video and view it in Spatialgen.
• Meta Quest: use this version (to view in 3D, put the video in fullscreen, then put the browser in fullscreen, finally choose VR 180 Left/Right as the projection mode)
• You can also watch it on YouTube.

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I spent the weekend learning how to composite text and 2D video into a 180 degree, 3D video. I mostly have it all working. Once I figure out a couple of issues I’ll write something up.