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Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

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Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#171

Post by jpap »

sytelus wrote: post #156

Looks like the most interesting part here is "living photo" that instantly responds to interactions. Can this be standardize as new video format? It would be very cool to have all cameras be able to save video in this format. @jpap should consider formalizing this format, produce viewers on different platforms and license this tech to manufacturers of point-and-shoot cameras, GoPro, WebCams, camcorders etc. This feat…

I'm really glad to read this! :-)

I had similar thoughts myself, and forms a part of what I have in mind for the next major SnappyCam release (a taste is what you see on SnappyCam.com today). My thoughts are perhaps more web-focussed that what you describe, but the thought is really encouraging!

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#172

Post by jpap »

dlsym wrote: post #163
jpap wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw this a couple of days ago. Are you using Chrome? It might be yet another Chrome canvas bug. :-( Try Safari and let me know if you can? :-)

Does not work in FF 22.0, neither in Chrome: 28.0.1500.71 or Opera. (OS: Linux Mint)

Ouch. Looks like some work for me ahead.

The problem with Chrome 28.0.1500.x (.95 here) is troubling me. It seems a more recent problem that I'm convinced is another browser bug.

Thanks for the detailed version report, that's really going to help. :-)

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#174

Post by jpap »

Martijn wrote: post #168
ianb wrote: post #167

I take a fair number of casual action shots – mostly of the kids. To get something to come out I often take a handful of pictures in a row; even that's often not enough, or the "right" scene happens in between these slowish frames. This could be cool for those cases. Except... I also get annoyed sorting through those pictures afterwards. It would be interesting if with some post-processing it could sort through the p…

If I remember correctly the automatically sorting through your pictures and picking the best is exactly what Google announced for Google+ at their last I/O keynote.

That's a cool feature, and not easy to implement. It generally ends up being a machine vision problem. (Google has both great talent and a lot more resource than a single-founder self-funded engineer like me.)

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#175

Post by jpap »

venomsnake wrote: post #157
lvs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might point out that, depending on the device, you could have many more cores to work with in Android-land.

We should create a "marketing core" term the same way we have marketing HDD size. I have seen big.little advertised as 8 cores. I think the main advantage of the androids will be the fact that high end devices have generally more RAM than iOS counterparts. So even if the codec cannot be pushed as far as on the iOS the bigger possible buffers can help.

Yes, more RAM definitely helps.

On SnappyCam, I had to arbitrarily limit the size of the buffer to a fraction of the system memory because there's no way to know "how much" RAM can be allocated to avoid the dreaded memory warnings until you hit one; and then it's a three strike's out policy: you get two and the third kills the app.

The first two are "soft" warnings, but I suspect have a lower threshold than the "hard" one that sends SIGKILL.

In setting the limit arbitrarily, I unfortunately have no choice but to select it rather conservatively: it might otherwise be (a lot?) higher.

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#176

Post by jpap »

femto wrote: post #66
jpap wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thanks! The Australian Communications Theory Workshop was such a long time ago--what great memories. :-) What are you up to these days?

Turning another incarnation of CSIRO's wireless research into a product, and still dreaming of the Free Space Optics stuff. Happy to buy you a beer if you are passing though SYD! Keep well.

Oh wow, that sounds really cool! :D

Will definitely look you up when I'm down next. Trying to drop by more consistently during the summer these days. I spent five weeks in Melbourne last Jan and loved every minute of warmth. :)

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#177

Post by jpap »

bobbles wrote: post #158
jpap wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's abs awesome to hear! Thanks for the wonderful complement. I played with price. Until now, most of my sales were word of mouth, and the $1.99 price hindered "growth". It's been an interesting game. Many people whom I demo the app to in person love it, then when they reach into their pocket to download it, realize it's a paid app, they place their phone back into the pocket. Still have lessons to learn in sales…

Well as a point of reference, I will never pay more than $0.99 for a camera app unless a friend has specifically shown me how it works. I have been burnt on too many photography style apps that end up either not doing what I expected from the pics and description, or just sucking in general. For me $0.99 just breaks that psychological barrier into 'who cares if it sucks'. I gotta say though, after playing with snappy…

I understand where you're coming from; social proof removes a massive barrier to conversion, even in my own experience.

I found that having it at $1.99 most definitely improved sales after it had been at $0.99 for about a week; after another week, it started to degrade again.

You're spot on in saying that $0.99 is a good price to get "disconnected" users who might experiment. If they like the app, they might make the personal recommendation to their "connections" where price is less sensitive.

After a while, that social proof and networking effect wears off and it's time to reset the price down to the "discovery amount" of $0.99.

To be honest, I'd love to flip SnappyCam over to freemium; but I feel that can't happen until the social sharing is bolted in and the app has a chance to sell itself organically.

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#178

Post by mrinterweb »

jrockway wrote: post #124

What's the breakthrough? My GoPro can take 120 photos per second. Futhermore, what happens if you point this at a device that can affect each pixel on the phone's image sensor 20 times a second? Is all the information preserved? If so, this is an interesting hardware hack. If not, this is an interesting shell game. But I don't see how it's a scientific breakthrough. (It sure is good for sales when TechCrunch prints y…

I agree that this is likely not a "scientific breakthrough". Every time I write some really cool software, I don't claim a new scientific breakthrough. I guess I could, but I'm pretty sure my coworkers would grow tired of my antics. Perhaps some graduates with CS degrees actually believe they are scientists.

Re: Scientific Breakthrough Lets SnappyCam App Take 20 Full-Res Photos Per Second

#180

Post by seldo »

jpap wrote: post #166
josh2600 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you thought about displaying a semi-transparent bar to show the buffer? Or maybe a one or 2 px white mark creeping up the side of the screen (turning to red as it get towards the top)? Just some thoughts. If you have a buffer, and I'm gonna get fubarr'd if I hit the limit, you should probably show me the buffer (not just a warning that it's too late).

Versions 1.x.x of SnappyCam had a linear buffer [1] but I felt it was distracting. I generally can see the "end" of the circular buffer around the shutter button, so it doesn't seem to be an issue for me. Perhaps I tend to touch it on the lower-right instead of dead-center. I made an effort to support lefties in the UI (see Advanced Settings), but the buffer doesn't spin the other way just yet. (To be honest, I've ha…

I hadn't realized the line around the shutter button was supposed to change at all. That's definitely not where I'd put it.
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