Saturday, July 21, 2018

First time user of Insta360 ONE with Android and PC

My primary phone is Android and I edit with a PC. Insta360 ONE was initially made with IPhone in mind. So a few gotchas cropped up on first use.

1. The camera has a partial charge.   It also comes with an 8GB microSD card (You need a "3" card .. 30MB/s minimum).   Take this opportunity to go to the download site and pickup the latest Firmware and Insta360 Studio for PC/Mac.   The android apk is available from this same site. Though it is also available via Google Play.

 2. The Insta360 ONE app for Android is needed to connect to it via Bluetooth. You can't pair it directly yourself. 0000 and 1234 are not valid PIN. You must use the app to connect. To access the camera first you have to select the Camera icon on the lower right side of the app. You select blueooth and pick out the Insta360 ONE in the next screen. Once connected it will ask if you want to switch to Android mode (apparently you have to switch it back and forth between Android or IOS control). Do it. You will be rewarded with an obtuse screen showing how to connect with an adapter directly to the phone.



 I didn't have that adapter, I had to connect to via the bluetooth icon again. Then you get a screen where you can remote control the device. You won't be able to preview anything via Bluetooth apparently.

3. First time opening the SD Card on the PC showed a DCIM\Camera folder.   No JPG or MP4 here.  Instead we have INSP (Photo) and INSV (Video) files.   Since these extensions are not standard you will have to back it up manually.  Insta360 Studio is necessary to make these files usable.



4.  Installing the Insta360 Studio had some oddness to it.   There was a pop-up to install two drivers with Chinese names on it.  Couldn't read it, but it didn't really give me a choice to I blindly clicked ok.   Next odd thing was Microsoft C++ 2013 Redistributable would be stuck there waiting for prompt if you already had it installed from another product.   I chose the repair function and it required a reboot.





It takes some time to export files, which is also where the image stabilization occurs, so factor that in.   The Insta360 Viewer is available for PC/Mac/Android/IOS if you want to view the raw files.