Horizon – Record horizontally. Always • Hacker News Board

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#21

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 1:26 PM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #9

rplnt wrote: post #2

This is a very nice idea and should really be available in stock cameras. Maybe they could license it to phone manufacturers to include it in their camera apps? Anyway, what I wanted to ask.. how do they go around the loss of quality? It's not a simple crop? Can they somehow utilize any part of the chip they want (as long as the maximum is the same?) since the chip is much bigger than the max possible video it can re…

License it? Is this such a revolutionary idea that other companies can't "invent it" themselves without licensing it? This is an obvious idea that everyone has been craving for, and I don't think such ideas deserve patents. If stock cameras adopt this idea, tough luck, they'll just have to compete like everyone else and add more differentiation. It's not the implementation that matters here, it's the idea. And compan…

They may not have to license it, but for a reasonable price I'd rather use a well-implemented library that excels at what I need it to do and goes beyond, than spend time hacking up something equivalent but inferior (hey, I've got other stuff to do too).

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#22

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 1:31 PM UTC

mxfh wrote: post #19

Quite the trade-off, so instead of shaky unaligned horizons you now get irritating zooms effects [1], plus up to more than 2/3 of the original frame missing? (at least that's what the online demo represents). At least the constant zooming could be easily lessened by defining a safe area of the frame as the active content while using the remaining sensor area for compensation only. [1] http://www.horizon.camera/demo

As a Horizon user, it bugged me that so much of the image was cropped to ensure stability (portrait width in landscape orientation - grrr). The rotate-to-zoom effect isn't perfect, but at least it gives the option to use more pixels when available (and I'll take zoom over wobble). Otherwise you're using an HD camera to take stable SD video.

You do have the option of turning off rotate-to-zoom and stick with the prior low-res stabilized image.

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#23

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 1:33 PM UTC

stelabouras wrote: post #12

randunel wrote: post #10

Extremely shaky result, see unedited demo video on http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/14/horizon-shoots-all-of-your-... For those wondering, it's not free. It used to be $1, now it's $2.

Hey randunel, this is Stelios from Evil Window Dog :) The TechCrunch post you are linking to was posted back on our initial launch at January 14th. This video was shot with the first version of Horizon that didn't feature any stabilization. Moreover, our straightening algorithm has improved a lot since back then (6 months ago). Plus we are always working on updates to improve it even further! Concerning the price, Ho…

Yay free updates! Nothing kills my interest in an app like having to buy it again, and manage multiple versions in my app collection.

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#24

Post by NicoJuicy » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 1:52 PM UTC

I came accross this problem recently (while using Google Autoawesome for a compilation of videos and photos)..

Suddenly vertical videos are zoomed in and create ugly compilations :(

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#25

Post by fgvb » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 1:57 PM UTC

Better idea: make a phone with camera rotated 90 degrees!

When I had old Nokia phone I didn't have to rotate phone to take horizontal photos.

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#26

Post by StavrosK » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 2:02 PM UTC

fgvb wrote: post #25

Better idea: make a phone with camera rotated 90 degrees! When I had old Nokia phone I didn't have to rotate phone to take horizontal photos.

"Horizon: Take videos by holding your phone vertically!"

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#27

Post by ryanong » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 2:04 PM UTC

Hrm, great idea but not in practice?

This is a demo from youtube. Looks even more shaky than the default camera app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-S5SgQFVg

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#28

Post by StavrosK » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 2:24 PM UTC

ryanong wrote: post #27

Hrm, great idea but not in practice? This is a demo from youtube. Looks even more shaky than the default camera app. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-S5SgQFVg

Obviously, rotating your phone is going to be shakier than keeping it still.

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#29

Post by ryanong » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 2:38 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #28

ryanong wrote: post #27

Hrm, great idea but not in practice? This is a demo from youtube. Looks even more shaky than the default camera app. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-S5SgQFVg

Obviously, rotating your phone is going to be shakier than keeping it still.

I don't think they were rotating it. I think they were trying to keep it stable.

Re: Horizon – Record horizontally. Always

#30

Post by StavrosK » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 2:43 PM UTC

ryanong wrote: post #29

StavrosK wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, rotating your phone is going to be shakier than keeping it still.

I don't think they were rotating it. I think they were trying to keep it stable.

What would be the point of that? It says "rotate-only", it's the mode where you rotate the phone and it stays horizontal.