Multiple sources familiar with the plans have said the company could be helping to develop specifications with camera manufacturers to support 360-degree live streaming as they currently do for regular cameras. The launch timeframe for the service is currently unknown, and the company has currently declined to comment.

Back in March 2015, the company announced support for uploading 360-degree videos from the whopping three cameras that are compatible with its service. They include the Kodak SP360 4K camera, the Ricoh Theta and the IC Real Tech Allie. The devices record footage through multiple wide-angle lenses. Post-processing software is then used to stitch footage from each individual camera together to achieve the final spherical views. To enable live streaming of 360-degree video, it is expected that YouTube will have developed a specification that enables video stitching to be processed in real-time.



Kodak's first 4K 360-degree video camera, the PixPro SP360

With this in mind, it would make sense for the company to limit its support to just a few cameras on the market, as tens or hundreds of 360-degree live camera configurations could prove a very difficult task for developing a unified specification to accommodate live stitching. To work around these complexities, YouTube could have live stitching performed on the actual cameras themselves with initial support for just a few devices, including those mentioned above.

Currently, the service supports 360-degree videos at 24fps, 25fps, 30fps, 48fps, 50fps and 60fps. There is also a metadata requirement for 360-degree playback to be enabled, and YouTube has created a “360 Video Metadata” app for Windows and Mac that will do this for you automatically. Metadata can also be added manually using a “Spatial Media Metadata Injector” Python 2.7 script.

Interestingly, the company also recommends uploading 360-degree stitched videos in 4K (3840x2160p) resolution.

We are currently in talks with Kodak to get a review unit of its 360-degree SP360 4K camera so we can test it with EVGA’s upcoming