creators

Publishing to Oculus Video

Oculus Video features high quality content that demonstrates the immersion of VR in engaging short 360 videos.

Overview

Anyone can submit a video to be featured prominently in both Rift and Gear VR. These videos can be short movies, trailers, or advertisements if they have standalone value. These videos will be published on demand and will be placed on the front page of Oculus Video.

Note: No revenue will be generated or payment remitted from the views on any Oculus Video. Oculus Video is offered as a promotional and marketing platform.

Requirements

The video must be hosted on a Facebook page and have the appropriate marketing assets associated (title, description, custom thumbnail).

  • The video may be hosted as a secret video or a public video on a Facebook Page . Secret videos will not be surfaced on your Facebook page, but will be included in Oculus Video at your request. Public videos will be hosted on your Facebook page (and the Facebook mobile and 360 VR apps) and in Oculus Video at your request.
  • The video includes a 16:9 custom thumbnail that accurately reflects the content of the video.
  • The video must be a 360 video. Learn about uploading 360 videos on the How do I upload a 360 video? page.

The video is suitable for watching in a VR headset.

  • The resolution of the video must be at least 4K.
  • The video does not induce motion sickness by being shaky or having too much accelerated motion.

The video contains content that is suitable for a wide audience.

  • The video must comply with the Facebook Community Standards .
  • The video contains an original narrative or shares a unique experience.
  • If the video is an advertisement, it must have value as a standalone piece of content.

Submitting your video to Oculus for review

Before your video can be hosted in Oculus Video, you'll need to publish it to your Facebook page and then send it to us for review using the Creators' Manage dashboard.

Recommended Video Specifications

The following are the recommended specifications for videos hosted on Oculus Video.

  • Container: MP4

    • Enable Fast Start

  • Video Codec: H.264

    • Progressive scan

    • Key frame distance: 2 seconds (2 x frame rate—e.g., 60 for 30 fps content)

  • Resolution: 4K to 6K

    • Recommended resolutions:

      • Monoscopic 360:

        • 3840 x 1920 (4K)

        • Up to 6144 x 3072* (6K)

      • Stereo 360:

        • 3840 x 3840* (4K)

        • Up to 6144 x 6144* (6K)

      • * These resolutions are out of the standard h.264 profile/level specifications, but are supported when uploaded to Facebook. See “Encoding 6K video for Facebook” below for encoding tips

    • We recommend a 2:1 (1:1 for stereo) aspect ratio, but others are supported (e.g., 3840 x 2160, which is 16:9).

    • If you are uploading large 6K videos (or file size is greater than 5GB), please notify us in advance so our team can help you process the video.

  • Frame Rate: 30 or 60 fps

  • Bit Rate:

    • 4K: 40-60 megabits/sec, or 300-450 MB/min

    • 6K: up to 133 megabits/sec, or 1 GB/min

  • Pixel Format: yuv420p

  • Color: Full range (0-255)

  • Projection Format: Equirectangular

  • Audio: MP3 or AAC audio, at 128 kbps or higher (for stereo audio; see Spatial audio support, below, for more information)

  • Spatial Media Metadata: 360 videos require spatial media metadata in order to be processed correctly when uploaded. Here are some useful tools for injecting metadata:

  • Marketing Metadata: When uploading the video to Facebook, please also add a title for the video and upload a custom thumbnail (at least 1280x720) in the upload dialog box.

Encoding 6K video for Facebook

You may wish to encode a video in 6K. Encoding >4K videos in h.264 can be done with a tool like ffmpeg . You could use a command similar to the following that will encode a >4K source video into a MP4 container as h.264: 

              ffmpeg -i input6k.mov -c:v libx264 -preset fast -crf 18
              -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags faststart
              output6k.mp4

Encoding with a crf value of 18 creates “visually lossless” output and maps nicely to around 1 GB/min for 6K x 6K stereo video and 325 MB/minute for 3840 x 3840 stereo video. Increasing the crf value decreases video quality and reduces file size.

After encoding using ffmpeg, inject the proper metadata before uploading to Facebook:

Adding Spatial Audio

We recommend using the Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation to create spatial audio for videos. The Spatial Workstation download comes with the FB360 Encoder standalone application that will inject the necessary metadata and combine the audio and video files together into a single MP4 ready for uploading to Facebook.

Suggested input formats:

  • 8+2 channel Facebook 360 format audio

  • 4-channel 1st order ambisonics (ambiX or FuMa)

  • 9-channel 2nd order ambisonics (ambiX or FuMa)

Alternatively, an MP4 file with 1st order ambisonics audio muxed and injected with the Spatial Media Metadata Injector tool will also work.

Preview your video in Oculus Video

Prior to uploading the video to Facebook, you can preview your video in Oculus Video by copying the video to your Samsung phone and opening it in the My Videos section of the Oculus Video app. Note that this preview is only supported if:

File naming and location:

  • Append the following to the video's filename:

    • _360 if monoscopic (e.g. test_video_360.mp4)

    • _360_TB if top-bottom stereoscopic (e.g. test_video_360_TB.mp4)

  • Place video in /sdcard/Movies

Max resolution:

  • 3840x1920 resolution at 30 FPS

  • 2048x2048 resolution at 60 FPS

Bitrate: 20 megabits/sec

Publish your video to a Facebook page

We require that you first publish a secret video on Facebook to allow the Oculus team to preview your video and provide feedback at least 5 business days prior to the intended launch date. Secret videos will not appear on your Facebook page, but anyone who knows the URL will be able to view the video.

To publish a secret video to a Facebook page:

  1. Navigate to the Facebook page where you would like to publish the video.
  2. Select Photo/Video at the top of the page timeline.
  3. Click Upload Photos/Video and select your video.
  4. In Video Details, enter the video’s title in the area where it says “Add a title for your video here…”
  5. Then add a video's description in the box that says "Describe your video…"
  6. Select “Thumbnail” and then add a custom image. Please do not use a screencap from the video, at least 1280x720 in size and a 16x9 aspect ratio. If using text in a the thumbnail be careful when selecting the size of the font. Fonts that are too small may be difficult to read.

  7. Select the 360 Director Tools tab and make sure the “360 Mode” button has been selected.
  8. Select the Distribution tab. Then select the “Add as Secret Video” checkbox. (You may skip this step if you want to create a public video)
  9. De-select Allow Embedding and/or Turn Off Reactions, Comments and Shares if you wish.

  10. Click the Publish button and select Publish Now.

To retrieve the URL for your secret video:

  1. At the top of your page, select Publishing Tools.
  2. Open the Video Library and select your video.
  3. Select the video post you just published as secret in the Video Details section.

  4. Click View Permalink to retrieve the URL for the secret video.

At any time you can convert your secret video to a public video.

  1. At the top of your page, select Publishing Tools.
  2. Click Video Library and select the box next to your secret video.
  3. Click the Actions button, scroll down and select the “Create post with this video…”
  4. In the Distribution tab, make sure “Add as Secret Video” is NOT SELECTED.

  5. Click the Publish button and select Publish Now. Everyone will see this post on the timeline of your page.