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YouTube

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YouTube
Information
Industry Video Sharing
Founded February 2005
Founder Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim
Headquarters San Bruno, California
Products YouTube VR
Parent Google
Website https://www.youtube.com/

YouTube is a video-sharing platform founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim.[1] Its website domain was registered on February 14, 2005, and Google completed its acquisition of the company on November 13, 2006.[2][3]

For virtual reality, YouTube distributes spherical video, stereoscopic video and content with spatial audio. These are separate properties: a video can cover a surrounding scene, contain different images for each eye, or include directional sound.[4][5] YouTube VR is the dedicated headset application; ordinary videos can also be watched on a virtual theater screen.[6]

Reviewed 18 October 2026. XR video formats, current official viewing and upload documentation, dated platform history and original scientific-visualization example; company founding and acquisition background. About review dates.

YouTube and virtual reality

Video formats

Format Viewing characteristics
360-degree video Covers a surrounding spherical view. Viewers choose which direction to look while the video runs. The recording may be monoscopic or stereoscopic.[7]
VR180 Concentrates the capture on the scene in front of the camera, with separate left- and right-eye views for stereoscopic headset playback. YouTube introduced the format with Google's Daydream team in June 2017.[8]
Rectangular 3D video Contains a stereoscopic image pair within a conventional rectangular video presentation, rather than a surrounding sphere. YouTube documents rectangular 3D, VR180 and 360 3D as distinct supported 3D upload formats.[4]
Ordinary rectangular video in a headset Appears on a virtual screen. YouTube's November 2015 Cardboard announcement distinguished this theater presentation from its new stereoscopic VR videos.[9]

Spherical video normally lets the viewer change orientation around a camera location or path chosen by the creator. It does not provide the position-dependent rendering of a scene that the viewer can walk through. This distinction separates looking around a recorded panorama from the translational movement available in a six-degrees-of-freedom environment.[10]

Watching videos

YouTube's current upload guidance lists Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Opera for spherical playback on computers, and the YouTube app on mobile devices. The desktop player allows the view to be changed with a pan control, WASD keys, or mouse dragging.[11] The 2015 mobile rollout initially used the Android app and Chrome; iOS playback and Google Cardboard viewing on Android followed in May that year.[12][13]

The YouTube VR help page checked on October 18, 2026 lists Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro, Meta Quest 3, PICO 4 and Apple Vision Pro. Its search filters include 360-degree, VR180 and 3D content. On Quest, the app supports both an immersive environment and a panel mode; its mixed reality environment can anchor the theater screen in the physical surroundings when spatial-data access is granted.[14]

YouTube on Android XR has separate home-space and full-space modes and filters for 360, 3D and VR180 videos. Its documentation states that 3D videos are available, while 3D movies are unavailable on Android XR. The Android XR app does not itself upload videos, although uploads can be made through the device's browser.[15]

Preparing spherical and stereoscopic uploads

Footage from 360 cameras may need stitching before editing. YouTube's guidance calls for editing-sequence VR settings that match the source footage, high-resolution encoding, and the appropriate metadata before upload. An editor that writes the metadata, such as Adobe Premiere 2019 or later, or a script can prepare the file. Spherical processing can take up to an hour after upload; checking the pan controls before publication helps confirm that YouTube has recognized the format.[11]

Projection metadata describes how a video image maps onto a viewing surface. Google's Spherical Video V2 scheme separates spherical projection information from stereo layout: in MP4, sv3d describes spherical video and st3d identifies its stereo arrangement. The specification includes equirectangular, cubemap and mesh projections.[7] Google's VR180 format uses a separate projection mesh for each eye and can include camera-orientation metadata for stabilized playback.[16]

For 3D uploads, YouTube's help page specifies left-right side-by-side stereo and describes stereo metadata in MP4/MOV, Matroska/WebM, or H.264 frame-packing information. A tagged upload can initially appear as two adjacent views while processing; 3D playback becomes available after processing finishes.[4]

Spatial audio

YouTube supports first-order Ambisonics, with an optional head-locked stereo pair. The Ambisonic sound field provides directional audio, while head-locked material such as narration or music stays the same as the viewer turns their head.[5][17]

The published requirements specify AmbiX with ACN channel ordering and SN3D normalization, sampled at 48 kHz. A first-order Ambisonic track contains W, Y, Z and X; the version with head-locked stereo adds L and R. The file needs spatial metadata and a single audio track containing the required channels. Separate spatial and stereo audio tracks in the same uploaded file are not supported.[5]

History

Date Development
March 13, 2015 YouTube launched 360-degree uploads and playback on Android and Chrome.[12]
May 28, 2015 YouTube announced 360-degree viewing with Cardboard on Android and playback on iOS 8.0 or later. Stereoscopic 360 playback was still described as forthcoming.[13]
July 22, 2015 Google introduced 360-degree TrueView video ads. Bud Light was identified specifically as the first advertiser in the United States to launch a 360 video in TrueView ads.[18]
November 5, 2015 The Android app gained stereoscopic VR video support and a Cardboard theater option for ordinary videos.[9]
January 22, 2016 Scott Broock, previously vice president of content at Jaunt, announced his appointment as YouTube's global VR evangelist.[19]
April 18, 2016 YouTube introduced 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio for on-demand videos.[20]
November 10, 2016 YouTube announced its dedicated VR app as available first on Daydream, with a Daydream-ready phone, Daydream View headset and controller.[6]
June 22, 2017 YouTube and Daydream introduced VR180, including support for live streaming.[8]
November 12, 2018 YouTube announced the VR app's release for Oculus Go and described newly added head-locked audio support and VR180 production tools.[17]

Scientific visualization

Spherical videos uploaded to YouTube can also be rendered from simulation data. In a 2017 paper, Christopher M. P. Russell described a Galactic-centre hydrodynamics visualization, rendered as a panorama from the simulation's centre and distributed through YouTube. The workflow combined rendering, video encoding and metadata injection.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "YouTube". Sequoia Capital. https://sequoiacap.com/companies/youtube. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  2. ↑ "YouTube & the Online Video Revolution". YouTube Blog. 2010-02-14. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-online-video-revolution/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  3. ↑ "Google Closes Acquisition of YouTube". Google. 2006-11-13. https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2006/11/google-closes-acquisition-of-youtube_13.html. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Upload 3D videos". YouTube Help. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7278886?hl=en. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Use spatial audio in 360-degree and VR videos". YouTube Help. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6395969?hl=en. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "YouTube VR: A whole new way to watch… and create". YouTube Blog. 2016-11-10. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-vr-whole-new-way-to-watch-and/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Spherical Video V2 RFC". Google Spatial Media. https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/spherical-video-v2-rfc.md. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "The world as you see it with VR180". YouTube Blog. 2017-06-22. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/the-world-as-you-see-it-with-vr180/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "YouTube presses play on virtual reality". YouTube Blog. 2015-11-05. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-presses-play-on-virtual-reality/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "360-degree videos: a new visualization technique for astrophysical simulations". Christopher M. P. Russell, Proceedings of IAU Symposium 329 preprint. 2017-07-21. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.06954. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Upload 180- or 360-degree videos". YouTube Help. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6178631?hl=en. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "A new way to see and share your world with 360-degree video". YouTube Blog. 2015-03-13. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/a-new-way-to-see-and-share-your-world/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "360-degree videos now on Google Cardboard and iOS". YouTube Blog. 2015-05-28. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/360-degree-videos-now-on-google/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  14. ↑ "Get started with YouTube VR". YouTube Help. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7205134?hl=en. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  15. ↑ "Get started with YouTube for XR". Android XR Help. https://support.google.com/android-xr/answer/16644997?hl=en. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  16. ↑ "VR180 Video Format". Google Spatial Media. https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/vr180.md. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "New ways to create and watch VR videos". YouTube Blog. 2018-11-12. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/new-ways-to-create-and-watch-vr-videos/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  18. ↑ "See the future of video by looking behind you: Introducing 360 degree video ads". Inside AdWords. 2015-07-22. https://adwords.googleblog.com/2015/07/see-future-of-video-by-looking-behind.html. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  19. ↑ "VR/AR Business Roundup: Apple, Google, Starbreeze, Vine and Rothenberg". UploadVR. 2016-01-25. https://www.uploadvr.com/biz-roundup-apple-google/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
  20. ↑ "One step closer to reality: introducing 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio on YouTube". Google. 2016-04-18. https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/products/inside-youtube/one-step-closer-to-reality-introducing/. Retrieved 2026-10-18.
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