Cheap 360 Degree Camera

Wallace · **Posted:** Wed Nov 08, 2017 4:23 am **(#21)**

PhotoMaster wrote:

I really love the camera. The app is terrible and the only thing worse than the app is the lack of support.
Now I see why everyone on the site is giving them bad reviews. They are aware of the problem but won't
fix it. Everyone is having the problem of transferring files.

Looks like you would have to make a number of short videos then edit them together.
If that's possible,
or even worth the trouble?

Onkel Hatti · **Posted:** Thu Nov 09, 2017 12:04 pm **(#22)**

PhotoMaster wrote:

Here is an important update (WARNING) on the LG 360 degree camera!

Still photos can be transferred through the phone app or via a USB cable, without a problem. Videos, however, MUST be transferred through the phone app. Transferring the files by USB gives an unstitched video that CANNOT be stitched after the fact! What's worse is that the files get large quickly and a 20 minute file is just over 2G. The phone app will not allow you to transfer large files. Trying to download a 20 minute file gives the error that the phone does not have enough free space to download, OR VIEW, the file. That's right! You can't even view it! This is on a phone with 8.5Gb free on the phone and another 13+ free on the SD card. The developers literally told me it is too hard (???) to write the code to allow the file to be downloaded directly to the SD card! Every other app developer can do it but LG can't?? The support person on the phone said it would work if I took a few hundred and bought an LG phone.
Sorry LG! I'm not buying anything from you again!!!

I love the camera but HATE their tech support/customer dis-service. Amazon's site says it's too late to return it, but I will talk to an Amazon rep to try and get it returned anyway.

Are you quite sure? The internet says, that the unstitched Video shall be loadad in "LG 360 CAM Viewer". "...The software will start the stitching process..." It is a Windows/Mac Software indeed. But maybe you have a friend with windows (Or you buy a license and install windows in a virtual machine for Linux). So please have another try. If you were right, the camera was to be wasted (garbage collector) :hehe

I have a Gear 360 and there is no Linux Software either.

Hatti

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Thu Nov 09, 2017 9:48 pm **(#23)**

Running Win 7 - 64bit and the program can't stitch it. I have tried about a dozen times. If I run it in native Win 7 mode it sits at 0% indefinitely. If I run it in Administrator or in Compatibility Mode, I get the following Microsoft Visual C++ error:

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:43 pm **(#24)**

My last attempt was 3 hours and still 0%.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:56 pm **(#25)**

Basically they are telling me that I need 4.8 - 7.2G free on the phone, just to run their Android app!
On top of that, they gave me this super duper list of minimum requirements to run the Windows program!

Needless to say I can't follow their advice, which was to go out and buy all new LG equipment!!

Sorry LG, I'm not made of money! So their cheap camera is to get people to buy their expensive crap???
What a SCAM!

sallyanne · **Posted:** Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:39 am **(#26)**

What a let down :gaah

racer-x · **Joined:** Apr 15, 2017 **Posts:** 1837

I'm not at all up on these 360 degree cameras. I don't even now what the attraction is. It's my understanding that it requires a special viewer to utilize the functions? If so, I can't see any practical use for them in the wild....

Just out of my curiosity, can you post some Un-Stitched images, so that I can evaluate them. Put them in a zip or 7zip file. If I can stitch and pan though them, then I can also do the same for Un-Stitched video clips.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Fri Nov 10, 2017 5:39 pm **(#28)**

Still images come from the camera as an already stitched jpg image. Videos, on the other hand, come out as very large unstitched mp4 files. A 20 minute file is 2.4Gb. Using VLC media viewer I saved 3 screen captures, giving me the 3 images below. I have stitched images before, but this is unlike any I have ever worked with.

I even tried a video splitter to cut the file in half so that it might actually be able to send it from the camera to the phone in smaller files. The videos cannot be stitched by LG's software once they are split. It appears that data is missing, so the transferred video looks like you are looking through binoculars.

Attachment:

vlcsnap-2017-11-10-17h13m19s446.png [ 3.76 MiB | Viewed 1346 times ]

Attachment:

vlcsnap-2017-11-10-17h16m56s132.png [ 3.65 MiB | Viewed 1346 times ]

racer-x · **Joined:** Apr 15, 2017 **Posts:** 1837

Wow!! That's one crazy wide-angle lens. I doubt I can do anything with that, sorry.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:32 pm **(#30)**

Yeah. 2 lenses at 204 degrees each, to provide a good overlap to help with stitching.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Wed Nov 15, 2017 12:55 am **(#31)**

My frustration is at an all time high! In an effort to try and get this thing to work, I have been updating a bunch of Windows updates, since I never liked them to begin with. Now my computer boots into the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and continuously reboots into the BSOD. A never ending boot loop! Safe mode boots into the BSOD. Trying to revert to last known configuration does nothing. Running the diagnostic says nothing is wrong. Such fun... NOT

Sorry to rant. I lost all of my work, some programs I can't get back and I can't use gimp!!!

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Wed Nov 15, 2017 3:59 am **(#32)**

After many hours and many failed attempts to roll back to pre-upgrade status, I finally got the damage undone!
Yes! I got my Gimp back!

Wallace · **Posted:** Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:45 am **(#33)**

PhotoMaster wrote:

After many hours and many failed attempts to roll back to pre-upgrade status,
I finally got the damage undone!
Yes!
I got my Gimp back!

That's terrible!
I'm curious to know,
what it was that finally got you up and running?

iarga · **Posted:** Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:22 am **(#34)**

Photomaster, Thank you for your information. I really appreciate it. So now we are warned.

Still I still like the stills.

And the single images of course.

I wish you good luck with this ongoing story.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Wed Nov 15, 2017 7:01 pm **(#35)**

Every time I tried safe mode it crashed. I chose the option to repair, but it said there was nothing wrong. Any attempt to restore a prior know good configuration said restore ended with an unknown error. After trying multiple times, and with the error message still showing, the computer rebooted itself. When it actually prompted me for a password I figured something might be working. It took about 20 minutes but then it said restore was successful. So much for "Windoze" updates.

Wallace · **Posted:** Wed Nov 15, 2017 7:33 pm **(#36)**

PhotoMaster wrote:

Every time I tried safe mode it crashed. I chose the option to repair, but it said there was nothing wrong. Any attempt to restore a prior know good configuration said restore ended with an unknown error. After trying multiple times, and with the error message still showing, the computer rebooted itself. When it actually prompted me for a password I figured something might be working. It took about 20 minutes but then it said restore was successful. So much for "Windoze" updates.

That's nuts!
Have you checked your drives health?
I would also do a RAM test and then a SFC /Scannow as well.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:02 pm **(#37)**

Memory and Drive test came back fine. The 1Tb HDD is only about a year old because my old drive was showing it's age.

Wallace · **Posted:** Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:49 pm **(#38)**

PhotoMaster wrote:

Memory and Drive test came back fine. The 1Tb HDD is only about a year old because my old drive was showing it's age.

That's good.
I've heard that sometimes a faulty power supply can cause issues.
However,
not many people have a spare PSU sitting around,
nor do they know how to test a PSU using a multimeter.
To find out if it's delivering the correct voltage across it's rails.
If there's any fluctuation either way,
it could cause a variety of issues.

PhotoMaster · **Posted:** Thu Nov 16, 2017 1:16 pm **(#39)**

My son's old laptop has the same P/S so if I continue to have trouble I can swap it out. I still have my meters, but no longer have my oscilloscopes. I'm sure I could rig up a heavy load to weigh down on the supply to test it's stability.

Wallace · **Posted:** Thu Nov 16, 2017 1:41 pm **(#40)**

PhotoMaster wrote:

My son's old laptop has the same P/S so if I continue to have trouble I can swap it out. I still have my meters, but no longer have my oscilloscopes. I'm sure I could rig up a heavy load to weigh down on the supply to test it's stability.

Other then testing the PSU.
Could be a motherboard capacitor issue,
or some other motherboard fault.
The other thing could be, that the CPU is heading south.
Although I doubt that it's failing.
Most times then not,
a CPU will just flat out die without much fanfare.