A biologist I know is getting budget for a 360 video editing machine for his lab and wanted my opinion on specifications for a machine to do editing. I believe the machine his lab gets should handle at least 4K video, but will need to go higher in the future. The intended use is scientific analysis of natural structures, not to produce entertainment videos. I believe they are using Premiere Pro. I do not know if they intend to use After Effects.
I recommended a budget system below. As I am not a video professional, I would appreciate feedback.
- RAM: 32 GB: $300
- CPU: i5 8400 6 core at $220
- GPU: GTX 1060 at $250
- motherboard, case, power support, hard disk: roughly $450 using mid-tier parts
Total cost is $1250 to $1450.
They may use the system to produce some public-facing videos to attract scientific interns or to communicate to other researchers, but I do not think they need to create cinematic videos with heavy effects. If the video resolution of the next-gen THETA is higher, there doesn’t appear to be any budget problem in upgrading to more expensive equipment. Thus, the video editing system should be able to handle current gen THETA V, limited to 4K for their use, and next gen models that we don’t know what the resolution is, but hope is higher than 4K. 
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2 questions:
1 - is there an off-the-shelf configuration that meets the specs you laid out? That seems pretty cheap to me.
2 - What editing software will he use besides the Ricoh tools. For instance, how will he rotate the videos, or zoom? I wrote software to do that some time ago, but perhaps there are pro tools now available.
I told him to look for an off-the-shelf configuration. I was not able to find one on the Dell site. The lab is in California.
I used this site to build the configuration and price it.
https://pcpartpicker.com/
I suggested that a large research site should buy something from a reputable vendor like Dell or HP. I was not able to find a standard system that met those specs. I did not look too hard.
He’s using Adobe Premiere Pro for the editing with Adobe After Effects and Media Encoder. Most recent versions of common video editing software can handle 360 video with zoom and rotation. I used Adobe Premiere Pro and CyberLink PowerDirector myself.
I think there are different aspects of the video for research. At the simplest level, they can just use YouTube unlisted video or Windows Movie and TV player to get an overview of what the environment and measuring equipment look like from different angles. I think they are starting off with using the 360 video for inspection and evaluation, not machine learning.
There’s a wide range of sensors that capture temperature, pH, and other standard data sets. Those are handled by a system written in R.