Investigating user behavior in 360$\circ$ video watching and its effect on user experience in edited NFOV video

Abstract

360$\circ$ video is becoming more accessible as cheaper alternate devices and platforms arise. With the help of additional interaction methods such as mouse click and head movement, it offers user more immersive and informative experience than conventional 2D video. However, such interaction can be burdensome when it is done for a long period of time. Moreover, due to a limited field of view user has, there is a chance that user may miss important information in the scene. Resolving this problem by editing 360$\circ$ video into 2D video with narrow field of view (NFOV) base on conventional 2D cinematography reduces immersiveness and informativeness of the original video. If user's 360$\circ$ video watching behavior can be considered when editing 360$\circ$ video into NFOV video, the advantage of 360$\circ$ video may be preserved. In this paper, we investigate how users behave when watching 360$\circ$ video by setting up hypotheses, conducting user study, and analyzing the gathered data. Then, we edit 360$\circ$ videos into NFOV videos based on the findings and compare them with those edited in a traditional way. The experimental results show that user preferred edited NFOV video with browsing camera motion over those without it.