Free Tools to Play 360-Degree Videos on Your Computer: Ultimate Guide

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How to Watch 360 Degree Videos on PC?

Posted by Kaylee Wood | Last update: April 28, 2020

360° videos are inundant since YouTube and Facebook started supporting the special media files in 2015. However, over three years have passed, seldom 360 degree video players show great power to 360° video playback. So, how to watch 360 videos on PC to have the panoramic experiences from top to bottom or side by side? Here is a comprehensive way to help play the spherical 360° videos on PC from all directions, no matter the 360 videos are from online sites like YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo, or from 360° cameras like GoPro, Samsung Gear and Insta360.

Actually, 360 videos are larger than normal files that need time to load. So, sometimes you may see that the 360 degree video not moving on your PC happens. Different from the online 360° video playback that only needs the latest version and compatible web browsers like Chrome, Opera and Firefox, offline 360 video playing often requires high-end CPU and GPU, and also a professional 360 degree video player that supports high-res videos, and is better if it can activate hardware acceleration for videos with higher resolutions.

Besides, online playback often requires network and usually it happens at home. If you want to view 360° videos on PC from Dailymotion, Facebook and Vimeo, 360 video player Windows software is a good choice. If needed, you can also play 360 degree videos from 360° cameras like GoPro, Samsung Gear and Insta360 anywhere anytime.

How to Watch 360 Degree Videos on PC?

As Windows Media Player and Windows 10 Video app don’t support 360 video playback, you PC users need other workarounds of course.

Method 1. Watch 360 videos on PC with the Windows 10 Creators Update

In April 11, 2017, the Windows 10 Creators Update with 360° video support started rolling out to Windows 10 users. With the built-in Movies & TV app, you can watch 360 degree videos on PC from partners like GoPro, Baobab Studios, LIFE VR, NextVR, Littlstar, etc. At the same time, this app is also capable of handling videos captured by 360° cameras.

How to play 360 video on PC with the Movies & TV app: Click on Windows Start icon in the left corner of the desktop > search the Movies & TV app > explore 360 videos online or from your local folders at will > open a 360 video > drag your mouse around to view the 360 video.

However, Microsoft said that this app’s availability and experience may vary by region and device. Thus, you may be the unlucky one that can’t use this default 360 video player Windows app to play 360 degree videos on PC Windows 10. Besides, what if you are a user of PC powered by Windows 8 or 7, how can you watch 360 videos on PC with this app. In no doubt, you have to turn to a more compatible and powerful 360 video player 5KPlayer to play 360 videos on Windows 10/8/7 PC freely.

Method 2. View 360 Degree Videos on PC with Powerful 360° Video Player 5KPlayer

5KPlayer is what we recommend here. It’s free, clean and high-efficient. When playing 360 degree videos, you are allowed to move your mouse to pan around and rotate the 360° videos from all angles. To see every detail, you can switch from side-by-side mode to up-to-bottom mode of this 360 video player Windows without glitches to expand the viewing horizon. By enabling 5KPlayer’s hardware acceleration feature, the 4K 360° videos will also be displayed beautifully with super great smooth.

How to Watch 360 Degree Videos on PC/Mac with 5KPlayer?

Step 1. Free download 360 video player 5KPlayer on your computer, install and launch it.

Step 2. Click on Video icon on main UI of 5KPlayer, and then choose the 360° videos you want to play on your computer.

Step 3. When 5KPlayer starts playing your 360° video, you may see your video is in normal mode. Just right-click the 360 icon on the playback bar to choose 360°, 180° SBS or 180° T-B mode to play your videos in 360 degree. Then, you can click and drag your mouse to pan around your 360° video from all directions.

Notice:

If you need more 360 degree videos, you can get as many as possible from online sites or capture some with the 360° cameras.

Top 360° cameras: At present, there are various 360° cameras out the market for you to chose from. The cameras include Jaunt, Nokia OZO, Google Jump, Facebook Surround 360, Samsung Gear 360, Samsung 360fly, Insta360/Insta360 One X, NeoAirVR, GoPro Fusion/Omni/Odyssey, Matterport 3D 360 and Nikon Keymission 360. BTW, to watch 360 degree videos on PC from such devices, you need to first stitch the videos and then play them with 360 video player 5KPlayer .

How to download 360° videos: Besides a 360 degree video player Windows/Mac, 5KPlayer is also an online video downloader that let you download 360° videos from Dailymotion, Facebook and Vimeo without a dime.

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