When viewing 360-degree video images with an HMD or simple viewer, you can browse content with a greater sense of immersion if the intensity of the sound changes according to the direction you are facing. In order to play Spatial Audio, which is 360-degree audio, the viewer software side must be compatible, and there is a Youtube Android application as a general service.

On this page, I'll show you how to use Zoom's “H2n” recorder equipped with a Spatial Audio mode that can be used with the Youtube app. On the video side, I used THETA S, which makes it easy to shoot 360 degrees.

Shooting and recording in Spatial Audio mode

After setting the H2n recording settings to Spatial Mode according to the instructions in the PDF below, shoot video and audio with Theta and H2n (Spatial Mode). When shooting, when the liquid crystal part of the H2n and the Theta shutter button are oriented, the direction of the image and sound matches.

⇒https://www.zoom.co.jp/sites/default/files/products/downloads/pdfs/H2n_Ver2_OPmanual_J.pdf

Spatial Audio video editing

Combine video and audio with video editing software that can export multi-channel audio, such as Premiere.
(References:https://support.google.com/jump/answer/6400185?hl=en)

Preferences in Premiere

Go to Edit > Preferences > Audio and set Multichannel Mono Media: Adaptive.

Create a sequence

Go to File > New > Sequence to display the New Sequence dialog and go to the Track tab. After setting the master to multi-channel, set the number of channels to 4 and make each track type adaptive.

Importing sound sources

Imports a 4-channel uncompressed audio file. Drag an audio file (.wav or.mov file format) onto the track.

export

Set the export settings as follows.

• Format: Quicktime (.mov)
• Audio codec: uncompressed
• Sample rate: 41000 Hz or 48000 Hz
• Sample size: 16 bits
• Output channels: 4 channels
• Channel layout: mono

Adding Metadata

Spatial audio metadata is added to the output video.

⇒https://github.com/google/spatial-mediaI will use the script.

$ python spatialmedia -a -i video.mov video_meta.mov

360-degree video upload

Upload videos with metadata attached to Youtube. For information on uploading 360-degree videos to YouTube, check YouTube Help.
(referencehttps://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6178631?hl=ja)

360-degree audio viewing
As of the end of 2016/7, 360-degree audio can be viewed on the Android Youtube app, and stereo playback is available on the iPhone.