How To: Compress And Re Encode A 360 Video Using Handbrake For Use On Speedernet Sphere

In the Speedernet Sphere software, you can add 360 videos, with no weight nor size limit. Though, the heavier your video, the more your browser will struggle to read the video properly while playing your experience. Therefore, we recommend the use of 2K videos with the following dimensions: 2048x1024. In order to facilitate the encoding of your videos with the appropriate parameters, we advise you to use:

• HandBrake: An open source software that enables video encoding
• json: a preset to encode videos in 2K

Start by downloading « HandBrake”:  https://handbrake.fr/

Compress and re encode a video

Step 1:

Import the 360 video:

• Click on “File” to select the video you want to encode
• Wait until the video is uploaded

Step 2:

Add the preset:

• Click on the “Presets” tab
• Click on “Import from file”
• Select the “sphere.json” preset

Step 3: 

Apply the preset:

• Click on the “Presets” tab again
• Click on “Presets”
• Then on “Custom presets”
• Select the “sphere.json” preset

The software will automatically integrate the right parameters for the encoding. The selected preset will appear in the software window.

Step 4:

Select the location to save your video after encoding:

• Click on “Browse”
• Select the location for your video (folder)
• Give your video a "name"
• Click on “Save”

Step 5:

Encode the video by clicking on “Start Encode”: wait until the end of the encoding process. You’ll find your video in the folder you selected at Step 4. The video is now ready to be used in Speedernet Sphere! 

Compress and re encode several videos at once

With HandBrake, you can import and encode several videos at the same time. These videos can be located in one or several folders of your computer.

Step 1:

Import the videos:

• Click on “Folder”
• Select the folder where your videos are
• Wait until all your videos are imported

Step 2:

Add the “sphere.json” preset and apply it just like we saw earlier.

Step 3:

Select the location where your videos will be saved after the encoding by clicking on “Browse”.

Step 4:

To start encoding several videos at the same time, you need to create a waiting list:

• Select the first video to encode in the “Title” dropdown list
• Check that the file extension in the “Save as” field is ".mp4". Otherwise, change it manually.
• Click on “Add to queue”

The number of videos added to the waiting list is visible in the “Queue” tab. Click on this tab to see the videos that you added to the list. If you want to add more videos to the waiting list:

• Click on “Open Source”
• Select the video or the video folder to import from
• Add the imported video(s) to the waiting list and check the file extension in the “Save as” field
• Click on “Add to queue” for each video

Follow the same steps to add more videos.

Step 5:

Encode the videos:

• Click on “Start queue”
• Wait until the end of the encoding

Don’t hesitate to send us your comments and questions!

See you soon on the next tutorial!