The invention discloses a panoramic video positive mapping method and a panoramic video reverse mapping method, and relates to the field of a VR (Virtual Reality) video. In the invention, according to the positive mapping method, based on a main viewpoint, regions I, II and III on a spherical surface are respectively mapped to corresponding regions on a plane, wherein the region I corresponds to a region with an included angle of 0 degree to Z1, the region II corresponds to a region with an included angle of Z1 to Z2, and the region III corresponds to a region with an included angle of Z2 to 180 degrees. According to the panoramic video positive mapping method, a spherical surface corresponding to a panoramic image A is mapped onto a plane square image B; and according to the panoramic video reverse mapping method, the plane square image B is mapped back to the spherical surface to carry out rendering playing. According to the panoramic video positive mapping method and the panoramic video reverse mapping method which are disclosed by the invention, a resolution of the video can be greatly reduced, a code rate of panoramic video encoding and complexity of encoding and decoding are effectively reduced, and the aims of reducing the encoding code rate and ensuring video quality of an ROI region are fulfilled.