I've spent the last two weeks learning about 360/VR, prior to presenting my webinar " Introduction to 360/VR." It's been a fascinating learning curve. If you think of VR as replacing traditional media, I think you deserve to be skeptical - I certainly was and remain so. But, if you change the question to: "What can VR do well?" it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

So, this week, I have articles, reviews, videos and a webinar all related to 360° virtual reality. Actually, there's nothing "virtual" about it - any more than shooting a video creates "virtual reality." We are using traditional video cameras to record a different way to represent the world we live in. And in such, there's opportunity for traditional filmmakers.

In fact, my lead article is " Thoughts on Using 360/VR Successfully." But, before we get into that in more detail, I have news.

Last week, Pond5 announced the world's largest collection of royalty-free editorial video featuring content from Reuters and other leading global news organizations. If you've ever struggled trying to license current news footage for a project you know how difficult that can be. With the Pond5 Editorial collection, filmmakers and creators worldwide now have access to a massive collection of premium news, celebrity, sports, and archival footage with one simple license, at a fraction of the cost of traditional licensing options - footage in the collection starts at $79 a clip. Here's the link.

Next, Andy Marken told me about an upcoming Flash Memory Summit (FMS) conference providing free sessions on volumetric and VR video creation. This year's FMS on Thursday, August 9 at the Santa Clara Convention Center showcases content creators and M&E experts explaining how these emerging technologies help filmmakers create immersive experiences and traditional content for business applications and consumer entertainment. These no-cost sessions  walk attendees through the technologies, strengths and weaknesses and show real world word examples of recent projects. Here's the link. VR talks are on Thursday.

A heads-up. AppleInsider reports that running the Chrome web browser brings Final Cut Pro X to a halt. Apparently, " Chrome is causing Final Cut Pro X to become unresponsive and crash for some users by hogging video encoding frameworks, a noted video editor has claimed on Twitter." Here's the link.

I need your opinion. Our industry is awash in change, and keeping up is increasingly difficult. I'm in the process of re-thinking our training and need your advice. While I would like to offer all my training for free, I still need to pay the rent. So, what I want to learn in an eight-question survey is: What training should we provide that you would be willing to pay for? All answers are anonymous and I'm very grateful for your guidance. Only eight questions. Here's the link.

Next week's webinar is: " Get Organized for Editing." This remains a popular question in my email and I thought it would be fun to cover this. In this free session, I'll look at ways to optimize your workflow, files, media and thinking for video editing. This Thursday, 9 AM. Registration is always free. Here's the link.

By the way, I encourage you to email me your questions, I'd love to include them in my presentation. Here's the link.

Preparing last week's webinar - Introduction to 360/VR - was eye-opening to me. I finally had the time and opportunity to study this in some depth. So the webinar covers a ton of material starting with an overview of 360° VR, then illustrating shooting, prepping, exporting VR source media, then how to edit it in Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro X. Everything you need all in one place. In less than an hour, you can start productively experimenting with VR on your own. Here's the link.

All of us are aware of piracy and many of us have been hurt by it. A new company and registry has been created to help still photographers: CopyTrack. I have an interview with the founding CEO: Marcus Schmitt. What I like about this is that it doesn't cost photographers any money and, in many cases, photographers can make more money from enforcing their copyrights than in selling their images in the first place. Here's the link.

Finally, thinking of VR, I have a product review of the Vuze+ VR Camera. This camera is an inexpensive way to get started exploring 360/VR. However, it is not without limitations, so please read my review.

That's about it. PLEASE remember to take my survey - I really need your opinions on the kind of training/tutorials we should to create. In the meantime, edit well.