Two Left Wheels 360

Add your recordings and they appear as stitched MOV files in a folder your editor can import. The files are not stored on your disk: the folder is a virtual drive, and each frame is stitched from the camera file when the editor reads it. So there is no export to wait for before you start editing, and only the parts you use are ever stitched at full resolution. How Two Left Wheels 360 works

People export from Insta360 Studio in ProRes so their footage is not compressed twice. Two Left Wheels 360 gives you that without the export: your editor receives uncompressed stitched frames made straight from the camera file, so your final render is the only compression step. Do I lose quality compared with exporting from Insta360 Studio?

10-bit recordings, such as the Insta360 X6's and the DJI Osmo 360's, reach your editor in 10 bits, so gradients and colour grading keep their full range.

A ProRes export of 8K 360 footage takes hundreds of gigabytes per hour. Here no full-resolution file is written at all: each full-resolution frame is made when your editor asks for it. Only small proxy files are kept on your disk, for smooth editing.

Archive your camera files and your editor project, and nothing else. When you return to the edit there is nothing to export again: it opens as you left it. If the recordings are on another disk now, point Two Left Wheels 360 at the new location. Can I archive an edit and come back to it later?

Stabilization, direction, horizon and the other stitching settings are not baked into a file. Change them at any time, and the clips already in your timeline follow, with no new export. After a change, proxies are stitched live again while new proxy files are made in the background.

Recordings from the Insta360 X4, X5 and X6, as INSV files with their LRV proxy files. Which cameras are supported?

Recordings from the DJI Osmo 360 and Osmo 360 II work the same way, with their LRF files as proxies. DaVinci Resolve cannot open these cameras' OSV files by itself. Which cameras are supported?

Two Left Wheels 360 stitches recordings itself. No Insta360 or DJI software or plugin is needed. How Two Left Wheels 360 works

Uses the motion data the camera records. Choose whether the view follows the camera through turns or holds the starting direction, set the smoothing time, and keep the horizon level. Editing pack settings

Removes the wobble that fast camera motion and vibration cause. Editing pack settings

Evens out the colour difference between the camera's two lenses, so the two halves of the picture agree at the seam. Brightness stays as the camera recorded it. Lens colour matching

Put the camera's front, its screen side or any other angle in the middle of the 360° picture, for example a rider filmed from the bike in front, instead of splitting them across the picture's edges.

The stitched clips are standard MOV files with picture and sound, in a virtual folder on your computer. Any Windows editor that opens MOV files and edits with proxies can use them, such as DaVinci Resolve or Adobe Premiere Pro. DaVinci Resolve Studio is the editor tested so far. Which editors can I use?

Two Left Wheels 360 gives your editor the full 360° picture. Choosing where to look stays in your editor, with the reframing plugin you already use. In DaVinci Resolve, for example, KartaVR and DJI Reframe work on these clips. Reframe 360° footage

The low-resolution proxy file the camera records alongside each recording becomes a stitched proxy for smooth editing, available as soon as you add the recording. Keep these files with your recordings: when one is missing, Two Left Wheels 360 makes it in the background, which takes about as long as the recording plays. Proxies and audio

You start editing at once on proxies stitched live. In the background, Two Left Wheels 360 stitches each proxy once into a small video file and switches to it when it is ready. Cuts, clicks and opening your editor's project then respond faster, and the graphics card is left to your editor.

Each Insta360 clip carries a start timecode: the camera's own when it recorded one, otherwise the time of day the recording started. In DaVinci Resolve it is what lets you sort clips by the moment they were recorded, the reason many people otherwise rename their files by date and time.

Extras for DaVinci Resolve: proxies that Resolve links by itself, each clip's camera, serial number and date recorded, filled in by itself with Resolve Studio and in one import with the free version, and, with Resolve Studio, making a Resolve project with an editing pack's clips and a 360° timeline, or adding them to the project you have open. The first two work in the free version too. DaVinci Resolve integration

Each editing pack is a folder on one virtual drive, which appears as a folder on your computer. Add recordings from any folder or disk, give each editing pack its own processing settings, and rename or delete editing packs while the drive keeps running. An editing pack is not your editor's project: your editor's project uses the files of one or more editing packs. Manage editing packs and moved recordings

The original camera audio is carried into every clip and can be prepared in advance so it plays without delay in the editor. Proxies and audio

Play a recording, with its sound and your editing pack's settings, before you open your editor. You look into the 360° picture through a movable view: drag to look around in any direction, right-drag to straighten the horizon, and scroll to zoom in and out. Choose the picture size while playing; paused, you see the full resolution. Preview and export

Select a 360° recording in File Explorer and press Shift+Space, or right-click it and choose Preview in TLW 360: it plays at once, with its sound, and you look around with the mouse. No editing pack, no export. It also plays ordinary video files, and double-click keeps opening the program you chose. The TLW 360 viewer

Export full stitched 360° panoramas as video files when you need a copy outside your editor, with your processing settings and the original frame rate and length. Preview and export

Moved your recordings to another folder or disk? Point Two Left Wheels 360 at the new location and the editing pack keeps working. Manage editing packs and moved recordings

An Insta360 recording cut off by a power loss or a crash cannot be opened by any player. Two Left Wheels 360 spots it when you add it and makes a playable copy, even of recordings Insta360's own File Repair tool cannot recover. The original is never changed. Repair a recording that was cut off

Stitching runs on the graphics card through Direct3D 11. With an external graphics card it can stitch on the built-in one and leave the external card to your editor. An NVIDIA card is needed only for the optional image-based stabilization refinement.

Your editor can show any frame at full resolution, for example to check focus or detail, but an 8K frame takes a quarter of a second or more to stitch, so full resolution does not play smoothly. You edit on the small proxies, and full resolution is for checking frames and for the final render. Proxies and audio

Copy the LRV or LRF files from the camera along with your recordings. Two Left Wheels 360 can make missing ones, but that takes about as long as the recording plays. Proxies and audio

Two Left Wheels 360 is not a reframing tool. It gives your editor the full 360° picture, and you keep using the reframing plugin you use today. In DaVinci Resolve, for example, KartaVR and DJI Reframe work on these clips. Reframing

Each full-resolution frame is stitched during the render, so it is slower than rendering from exported files. The time you save is before editing. The final render

The graphics card decodes and stitches your footage next to your editor. See the system requirements.