Producing High-Quality 360/3D VR Concert Videos with 3D Immersive Audio

Presenters:
Ming-Lun Lee, University of Rochester - Rochester, NY, USA
Steve Philbert, University of Rochester - Rochester, NY, USA

Our 3D Audio Research Laboratory at the University of Rochester has recorded over 40 concerts at the Eastman School of Music since Fall 2017. We have used an Orah 4i 4K 360 VR Camera and a Kandao Obsidian R 8K 3D 360 VR Camera to make 360/3D video recordings, as well as two Neumann KU100 Binaural Microphones, a Sennheiser Ambeo Smart Headset, a 32-element mh acoustics em32 Eigenmike microphone array, a Sennheiser Ambeo VR Microphone, a Zoom H3-VR Handy Recorder, a Core Sound TetraMic, and a Core Sound OctoMic to make 3D immersive audio recordings. With Adobe Premiere, we have been able to edit and render high-quality 8K 360/3D concerts videos mixed with binaural recordings for head-locked binaural audio or Ambisonic recordings for head-tracking binaural audio.

This workshop aims to show our optimized workflows for making high-quality VR concert videos from recording, editing, rendering, and finally publishing on YouTube and Facebook. We plan to demonstrate some essential recording and editing techniques with practical examples for the attendants to hear binaural audio with headphones. Making long concert VR videos is much more challenging than making short VR music videos. We have encountered and investigated so many technical issues, including stitching, video/audio drifting, synchronization, and equalization. Therefore, we also want to share our experiences in resolving some critical A/V issues and improving the audio quality. Our session also welcomes the audience to join discussions and share their experiences.