Slashdot Mirror


Google Photos Can Now Stabilize All Your Shaky Phone Camera Videos (theverge.com)

In early August, Google announced a feature for the Google Photos mobile app that would automatically stabilize videos in your camera roll. That feature is now rolling out via Photos v2.13 on Android. The Verge reports: A lot of flagship smartphones offer optical image stabilization when shooting video, a hardware feature that helps keep footage smooth. Others, like Google's Pixel, use software to try and stabilize jerky movements. Putting stabilization inside the Google Photos app could enhance results further if you're already working with hardware OIS, or improve recordings significantly if your phone lacks any means of steadying things out of the box. The stabilized video is cropped in a bit, as you might expect, and the original clip remains in your Photos library; there's no overwriting. Here's a side-by-side demo someone else made of the app's latest trick.

29 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. So tired by ve3oat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    God, I am so tired of TV news programs that show jiggly, bouncy, shaky video clips from some "witness's" cell phone. These clips rarely contain any useful or even relevant information and whatever might have been learned from them is totally obscured by all the camera motion. And the TV producers think it is news! More often than not, I have been quite happy to wait until next morning to read all about the event, whatever it was, in the newspaper.

    1. Re:So tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      God, I am so tired of jiggly, bouncy,

      I'm not!!!!

    2. Re:So tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It makes it look "edgy".

      Like some of those cable news reporters who have those jerky footage in war zones even they actually videoed that segment in some compound protected by a Marine division miles and miles away from the front lines and and shooting.

      People are suckers for that shit.

    3. Re:So tired by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I am so tired of TV news programs that show jiggly, bouncy, shaky video clips

      OK, reason #759 to not watch television 'news'.

      What is your excuse on the first 758? Obviously you have an Internet - make a news tab set and set up a smart list on your podcatcher.. Stop wasting your time/life on their ancient propaganda mechanism where they decide what you will know.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    4. Re:So tired by pjbgravely · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What I can't stand is when news programs play vertical videos instead of telling the submitter that they were holding their camera wrong.

      If Google could find a way to stop people from making vertical videos the world would be a better place.

      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
  2. Good start by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let me know when it can convert the video to landscape mode and then punch the person who recorded it.

    1. Re:Good start by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Let me know when it can convert the video to landscape mode and then punch the person who recorded it.

      You can watch a vertical video on a landscape screen if you have to, but complaining about it instead of watching it on a vertical screen is just a sign of neuroticism.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Good start by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      If you're lucky that the vertically video wasn't letterboxed already, so that watching it on a vertical screen results in letterboxing on all 4 sides. I saw that the other day. Good thing I'm not neurotic.

  3. Stabilize by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'll be impressed when it stabilizes the middle east, and my meth lab

  4. ffmpeg vid.stab repackaged by at10u8 · · Score: 2

    ffmpeg has had the vid.stab filter for several years. The only news here seems to be another cloud service.

    1. Re:ffmpeg vid.stab repackaged by swillden · · Score: 1

      ffmpeg has had the vid.stab filter for several years. The only news here seems to be another cloud service.

      YouTube's stabilization is better than vid.stab, and the new Google Photos stabilization is better than YouTube's, so I'd say there's something new here.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  5. You Tube has done this for years by turp182 · · Score: 2

    I've used the stabilization feature a few times in the past 3-4 years. It works very well in my opinion.

    Surprised it took them so long to apply it to other services.

    --
    BlameBillCosby.com
    1. Re:You Tube has done this for years by The+Raven · · Score: 1

      They specifically mention the YouTube feature in other articles, along with comparison videos. The feature added to Photos is far superior to the implementation in YouTube.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
    2. Re:You Tube has done this for years by The+Raven · · Score: 1

      This might be helpful. On the left is YouTube stabilization. The right is Photos stabilization. They are not the same.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
  6. It is using parallax by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative
    Looks like it is using parallax to determine the depth and the pixels at "infinity". Surprised it took this long to develop parallax based image stabilization.

    One possible bug: If a moving object approaches the camera at the same bearing, parts of it would be marked as "inifinity" and create weird effects.

    Parallax based depth determination is one of the reasons for birds striking aircraft. Aircraft might escape with minor damage or a major disaster, but the bird almost always dies! It is in its interest to avoid hitting the plane. But birds have eyes on the side, not overlapping stereoscopic field of vision. The determine depth by parallax, they are constantly moving, and unchanging parts of the image on the retina are at infinity and changing parts are closer. That is why birds sitting on branches constantly cock their heads back and forth to get depth perception. When a bird approaches a plane such that the plane is at constant bearing, it things the plane is far way at inifinity.

    Would very much like to test this "app" by approaching the camera at a constant bearing to see what it does.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  7. Demo by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    The demo is interesting, but the results look bad to me. Cropped for sure, but also looks blurry and lots of parallax. I'd rather watch the original, but it is interesting.

    1. Re:Demo by dj245 · · Score: 2

      The demo is interesting, but the results look bad to me. Cropped for sure, but also looks blurry and lots of parallax. I'd rather watch the original, but it is interesting.

      Youtube has had image stabilization for some time, and I always prefer the original video. The added blurriness is too much to justify it. You could argue that removing the shakes alters the artistic character of the film as well (for better or worse). In the article's example (following a skier), removing the shakes makes the video feel like it was shot from a drone. The original video is more realistic representation of a first-person view.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    2. Re:Demo by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      It's probably not added blurriness, but original blurriness that is now out of context.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:Demo by Thelasko · · Score: 2

      The added blurriness is too much to justify it.

      Motion in photography creates blur. The blur was always there, you just didn't notice it while the video was shaky. Your brain expects it to be there. Once all of the motion is gone, your brain will notice the blur.

      Basically, it's all in your head.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    4. Re:Demo by Thelasko · · Score: 2

      What I'm interested in is some post processing that will clean up the blur. In video, there should be some way to compare the frames before and after to clean it up.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  8. Aliens, Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    Finally, I'll be able to see clear professional photos of Aliens Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster once Google takes away the shakes and blurs.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  9. Re:No more Shaky-Cam by Junta · · Score: 1

    Sorry, it would have to crop out 95% of the picture to have something stable to show.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  10. Throwback news consumption by sjbe · · Score: 1

    God, I am so tired of TV news programs that show jiggly, bouncy, shaky video clips from some "witness's" cell phone.

    You watch the news on TV? How quaint! I haven't seen a TV news broadcast in years since they're typically well behind the actual news cycle.

    And the TV producers think it is news! More often than not, I have been quite happy to wait until next morning to read all about the event, whatever it was, in the newspaper.

    Oh and you read a paper too! The next day even. You're quite the anachronism. The rest of us just found out about it on the internet a few minutes after it happened.

    1. Re:Throwback news consumption by ve3oat · · Score: 2

      The rest of us just found out about it on the internet a few minutes after it happened.

      What you get a few minutes after the event is less that 5% of the story and is based mostly on rumours and speculation. What I get the next day in my newspaper is almost 90% of the story and the journalists (if they are any good, depends on the newspaper) have already eliminated most of the speculation and rumours. Anachronistic a newspaper might be, but depending on the paper it can certainly deliver a more accurate, balanced and realistic view of the world.

  11. If the subject won't fit in horizontal video by tepples · · Score: 1

    Say someone is recording video of a subject that will not fully fit into the frame if the device is held horizontally. The camera's zoom feature is already at its widest. The person holding the camera cannot step back. Does it benefit the public more for an event to be recorded as vertical video or for it not to be recorded at all?

    1. Re:If the subject won't fit in horizontal video by pjbgravely · · Score: 1

      In a very few cases that is true. It creates a video that is only watchable ( in my opinion) on a mobile device.

      In the few cases that I watched (before I decided vertical video wasn't worth my time) a proper landscape video would have shown more of the action.

      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
  12. oh hell no by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    I suspect this is the same system they use on Youtube which is horrifically bad! The result is some warpy, nausea-inducing disaster.

  13. ffmpeg/vidstab by fche · · Score: 1

    See also the vidstab filter for ffmpeg - open source goodness that does about as well: https://github.com/georgmartiu...

  14. Limiting your news sources by sjbe · · Score: 1

    What you get a few minutes after the event is less that 5% of the story and is based mostly on rumours and speculation.

    What I get is all the available information at the time. As that information becomes available I get it basically immediately. You're assertion that just 5% of the information is available immediately is made up numbers not based on any actual evidence.

    What I get the next day in my newspaper is almost 90% of the story and the journalists (if they are any good, depends on the newspaper) have already eliminated most of the speculation and rumours.

    Even if we stipulate that "speculation and rumor" have been magically eliminated within 24 hours (rarely true in practice) it still is well behind the news cycle and an unnecessary delay. While you are waiting 12-24 hours for your paper, the rest of us have been reading the information as it comes out, much of it from those very same journalists. Newspapers in paper form aren't magically more accurate than the same words written online. Furthermore you are limiting yourself to a substantially smaller number of sources by getting your news from a paper (people rarely read more than 1-3) versus the entire spectrum of sources available through the net, both good and bad.

    Anachronistic a newspaper might be, but depending on the paper it can certainly deliver a more accurate, balanced and realistic view of the world.

    Newspapers do not possess information or analytical resources which are not available through internet sources. In fact most newspapers are working frantically to get online because their business model is dangerously close to obsolete so their thoughts are available online too. I can read your newspaper source plus literally hundreds of other sources at the same time without having to wait 24 hours for some journalist to spoon feed me their (probably biased) interpretation. I don't trust any single source no matter how reliable and if you depend on an actual physical newspaper for your news then you are doing yourself a disservice.