I have been described as a "wonk" by a former manager.
That's not a bad thing, actually.
Personally, I don't really learn much from Apple Insider; I really appreciate the community.
Sometimes I go straight to the thread. An article on stock price doesn't interest me much, but in mynah threads there are well reasoned, valid post from posters like yourself. Sometimes responding to the article, sometimes after some fool makes a total ... of himself.
Although I haven't posted any comments of significant length recently I continue to investigate evidence of future developments at Apple. I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am by the concurrent development efforts at Apple. Frankly, I should have seen True Tone flash coming considering the indications I just didn't imagine that Apple had a contingency plan when their supplier failed.
Tim wasn't just making stuff up when he said they had great things coming out in 2013. I think thy are executing really well. Maybe the last Mac & MP should've been ramped up more before dealing them. Though that might have had different repercussions that I haven't thought of. People who ordered and have to wait is only understandable, but I understand them being 'annoyed' by it as you don't want to wait ofter making a decision and having placed the order.
Perhaps Steve was right that the best times for Apple are ahead of them.
In a desire to understand the specifics of JBIG2 I did some research and immediately learned of the issues with JBIG2 which may have me overly concerned at the moment.
Can you post the link where you read that Apple claims to be able to capture a sustained 30 highest res (8MP) photos per second in burst mode with the shutter button? Do you have access to a 5S?
I believe the official Apple 5S camera spec is 10fps.
However, SnappyCam never actually was able to achieve 20-30 8MP frames per second for 10 seconds. The counter on the camera view would show that frame rate but when you go to review, over half of the images are gone forever presumably lost or dropped due to memory constraints.
It seems that you are completely right.
I saw 30 fps in Apples advertising web pages, but this is only for panorama photos.
(A bit odd because panorama photos need a sequence of full resolution photos, but apparently this isn't so.)
I did a photo burst test and I got 36 pictures in 4 seconds; my impression was that it was much faster.
Burst mode is only 10 shots per second with a maximum of 999 shots per run which I believe is 1m:39s.
I wonder if the SnappyCam algorithm or the developer's talent can also be used to improve the number of frames for the slo motion camera. 120fps is alright but I'd really like to see slo mo increased many more times past that in the next couple iterations.
Your right I overlooked that 30 fps was mentioned in the context of panorama photos (see my other post).
H264 compressions is based on (Motion) JPEG so it could be that that part of hand translated code is comparable, but the algorithm is much more complex than that and should require a lot more translation.
This is a huge task and possibly not doable for one person.
Another point is that (ARM) instruction sets change and that you have to update the translation when a new set of instructions is added to the architecture, or the architecture is renewed as is the case of 64 bit ARM (I suspect one of the reasons to write it in assembly code was that 64 bit ARM has (more) instructions that can combine operations and run them in parallel and that compilers are currently not good enough).
If I would look at optimising the compression algorithms I would look at the GPU(s) and write the code in OpenCL and C to make it portable and future proof (and possibly much faster than is possible when using a CPU).
P.S. thanks for your 'signature', I wasn't aware of that.
That's an interesting technique and perhaps patentable. If two images can be quickly compared and the differences show less than a certain percentage of difference start with a new image and/or it could section off an image into quadrants then do micro comparisons since only small portions of an image seem to have any real change when shot in rapid succession.
They can supplement it by translating successive images based on the sensor data in the device too. If you are panning the device for example, there would be a lot of differences between frames but if it knows that you moved the device to the right relative to the comparison frame, it doesn't have to try as hard to find the common elements as it knows the kind of movement you made to get the new frame. With normal video, the compressor doesn't know how the camera was moving in the scene. It might be an idea for Apple to store this motion data along with a video. It shouldn't use that much space as it would just have to be a vector per frame. This would help with video stabilising and removing motion blur as it would know the exact movement that caused the effect. They can also store exposure info per frame to be able to correct abrupt changes.
1. It's important to me to clarify the facts.
2. I'm honestly not jealous. Just passionate.
3. Tons of people on the forums have already emailed me for promo codes and I have sent them out. Those people seem pretty happy to me.
4. I don't believe writing assembly code is necessary unless the results prove it was worth the effort. I think that is relevant to the devs on here.
5. Fast Camera is not a competitor to Snappy Cam. Fast Camera is the de facto standard in burst photo apps with much higher revenue and user numbers. It's my obligation to comment on an article that suggests SnappyCam was the fastest or best.
Just to close the loop on this. I got a promo code and played with the app on my iPad 4. and my iPhone 5S.
The App is easy to use, and performed as advertised. It did take, what seemed to be a long time, to save the pictures.
It has the unexpected capability to perform time-lapse photography – where you take a picture every n seconds or minutes.
All that said, the need for this burst mode capability on the iPhone 5S, it appears unnecessary for many uses -- You can just as easily take a short video at 120 frames per second and a larger picture.
However, if the user wants to take a burst of action shots, then select one or more and immediately post on, say, Facebook this is a very good solution.
Just to close the loop on this. I got a promo code and played with the app on my iPad 4. and my iPhone 5S.
The App is easy to use, and performed as advertised. It did take, what seemed to be a long time, to save the pictures.
It has the unexpected capability to perform time-lapse photography – where you take a picture every n seconds or minutes.
All that said, the need for this burst mode capability on the iPhone 5S, it appears unnecessary for many uses -- You can just as easily take a short video at 120 frames per second and a larger picture.
However, if the user wants to take a burst of action shots, then select one or more and immediately post on, say, Facebook this is a very good solution.
Thanks for the follow up.
1. It does take a long time to export 8MP images to the camera roll because they are about 3MB each and that just depends upon the hardware. When people use the app to create high-quality 4K video, they use iFunBox or iExplorer to just transfer the image sequence from the app folder directly which saves a lot of time and avoids cluttering the camera roll.
2. Timelapse is one of my favorite features of the app. Even though you need an iPhone 5S to get 24p 4K from Fast Camera, you can use just about any iOS device to get high-quality 4K time-lapse video. You just bring the image sequence into Premiere, Final Cut or After Effects and apply motion blur to address the 90 degree shutter requirement of fluid 4K video.
3. The 120 frames per second video is 1920x1080 and uses heavy motion compression. Each 8MP photo is 3MB at a resolution of 3,264 x 2,448 which is quite nearly 4 times the resolution of 1080 HD. For best image quality, you really want to use sustained 8MP burst rather than extracting video frames. You also get the full sensor at 8MP.
4. Another important use for Fast Camera is group shots. You can set the timer on a tripod and tell the large family or group to just start smiling and posing. 20 seconds later you have 480 8MP images (on a 5S) to choose from and save only the best to your camera roll. You can also overlay them in Photoshop to get best faces from each. You can also export the sequence as a 1080p video but you still have the full high res best shots.
5. Fast Camera also has Stealth Mode and several other options for other scenarios.
3. Tons of people on the forums have already emailed me for promo codes and I have sent them out. Those people seem pretty happy to me.
4. I don't believe writing assembly code is necessary unless the results prove it was worth the effort. I think that is relevant to the devs on here.
5. Fast Camera is not a competitor to Snappy Cam. Fast Camera is the de facto standard in burst photo apps with much higher revenue and user numbers. It's my obligation to comment on an article that suggests SnappyCam was the fastest or best.
Just to close the loop on this. I got a promo code and played with the app on my iPad 4. and my iPhone 5S.
The App is easy to use, and performed as advertised. It did take, what seemed to be a long time, to save the pictures.
It has the unexpected capability to perform time-lapse photography – where you take a picture every n seconds or minutes.
All that said, the need for this burst mode capability on the iPhone 5S, it appears unnecessary for many uses -- You can just as easily take a short video at 120 frames per second and a larger picture.
However, if the user wants to take a burst of action shots, then select one or more and immediately post on, say, Facebook this is a very good solution.
Did you do any assessment of image quality compared to a regular iPhone camera shot?
Comments
That's not a bad thing, actually.
Sometimes I go straight to the thread. An article on stock price doesn't interest me much, but in mynah threads there are well reasoned, valid post from posters like yourself. Sometimes responding to the article, sometimes after some fool makes a total ... of himself.
Tim wasn't just making stuff up when he said they had great things coming out in 2013. I think thy are executing really well. Maybe the last Mac & MP should've been ramped up more before dealing them. Though that might have had different repercussions that I haven't thought of. People who ordered and have to wait is only understandable, but I understand them being 'annoyed' by it as you don't want to wait ofter making a decision and having placed the order.
Perhaps Steve was right that the best times for Apple are ahead of them.
That's a good thing, keeps you on your toes.
Can you post the link where you read that Apple claims to be able to capture a sustained 30 highest res (8MP) photos per second in burst mode with the shutter button? Do you have access to a 5S?
I believe the official Apple 5S camera spec is 10fps.
However, SnappyCam never actually was able to achieve 20-30 8MP frames per second for 10 seconds. The counter on the camera view would show that frame rate but when you go to review, over half of the images are gone forever presumably lost or dropped due to memory constraints.
It seems that you are completely right.
I saw 30 fps in Apples advertising web pages, but this is only for panorama photos.
(A bit odd because panorama photos need a sequence of full resolution photos, but apparently this isn't so.)
I did a photo burst test and I got 36 pictures in 4 seconds; my impression was that it was much faster.
Burst mode is only 10 shots per second with a maximum of 999 shots per run which I believe is 1m:39s.
I wonder if the SnappyCam algorithm or the developer's talent can also be used to improve the number of frames for the slo motion camera. 120fps is alright but I'd really like to see slo mo increased many more times past that in the next couple iterations.
Your right I overlooked that 30 fps was mentioned in the context of panorama photos (see my other post).
H264 compressions is based on (Motion) JPEG so it could be that that part of hand translated code is comparable, but the algorithm is much more complex than that and should require a lot more translation.
This is a huge task and possibly not doable for one person.
Another point is that (ARM) instruction sets change and that you have to update the translation when a new set of instructions is added to the architecture, or the architecture is renewed as is the case of 64 bit ARM (I suspect one of the reasons to write it in assembly code was that 64 bit ARM has (more) instructions that can combine operations and run them in parallel and that compilers are currently not good enough).
If I would look at optimising the compression algorithms I would look at the GPU(s) and write the code in OpenCL and C to make it portable and future proof (and possibly much faster than is possible when using a CPU).
P.S. thanks for your 'signature', I wasn't aware of that.
They can supplement it by translating successive images based on the sensor data in the device too. If you are panning the device for example, there would be a lot of differences between frames but if it knows that you moved the device to the right relative to the comparison frame, it doesn't have to try as hard to find the common elements as it knows the kind of movement you made to get the new frame. With normal video, the compressor doesn't know how the camera was moving in the scene. It might be an idea for Apple to store this motion data along with a video. It shouldn't use that much space as it would just have to be a vector per frame. This would help with video stabilising and removing motion blur as it would know the exact movement that caused the effect. They can also store exposure info per frame to be able to correct abrupt changes.
And ... a few hours later, google announces ....
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/01/04/google-acquires-timely-alarm-app-developer-bitspin/?fromcat=google#!ruoZQ
Nothing special with that App. Just a timer!
But google proves they're an A$$. A very big, hairy and smelly A$$! ROFLAMO
And ... a few hours later, google announces ....
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/01/04/google-acquires-timely-alarm-app-developer-bitspin/?fromcat=google#!ruoZQ
Nothing special with that App. Just a timer!
But google proves they're an A$$. A very big, hairy and smelly A$$! ROFLAMO
What are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
Don't worry....
I'm lost as well.
Just to close the loop on this. I got a promo code and played with the app on my iPad 4. and my iPhone 5S.
The App is easy to use, and performed as advertised. It did take, what seemed to be a long time, to save the pictures.
It has the unexpected capability to perform time-lapse photography – where you take a picture every n seconds or minutes.
All that said, the need for this burst mode capability on the iPhone 5S, it appears unnecessary for many uses -- You can just as easily take a short video at 120 frames per second and a larger picture.
However, if the user wants to take a burst of action shots, then select one or more and immediately post on, say, Facebook this is a very good solution.
Just to close the loop on this. I got a promo code and played with the app on my iPad 4. and my iPhone 5S.
The App is easy to use, and performed as advertised. It did take, what seemed to be a long time, to save the pictures.
It has the unexpected capability to perform time-lapse photography – where you take a picture every n seconds or minutes.
All that said, the need for this burst mode capability on the iPhone 5S, it appears unnecessary for many uses -- You can just as easily take a short video at 120 frames per second and a larger picture.
However, if the user wants to take a burst of action shots, then select one or more and immediately post on, say, Facebook this is a very good solution.
Thanks for the follow up.
1. It does take a long time to export 8MP images to the camera roll because they are about 3MB each and that just depends upon the hardware. When people use the app to create high-quality 4K video, they use iFunBox or iExplorer to just transfer the image sequence from the app folder directly which saves a lot of time and avoids cluttering the camera roll.
2. Timelapse is one of my favorite features of the app. Even though you need an iPhone 5S to get 24p 4K from Fast Camera, you can use just about any iOS device to get high-quality 4K time-lapse video. You just bring the image sequence into Premiere, Final Cut or After Effects and apply motion blur to address the 90 degree shutter requirement of fluid 4K video.
3. The 120 frames per second video is 1920x1080 and uses heavy motion compression. Each 8MP photo is 3MB at a resolution of 3,264 x 2,448 which is quite nearly 4 times the resolution of 1080 HD. For best image quality, you really want to use sustained 8MP burst rather than extracting video frames. You also get the full sensor at 8MP.
4. Another important use for Fast Camera is group shots. You can set the timer on a tripod and tell the large family or group to just start smiling and posing. 20 seconds later you have 480 8MP images (on a 5S) to choose from and save only the best to your camera roll. You can also overlay them in Photoshop to get best faces from each. You can also export the sequence as a 1080p video but you still have the full high res best shots.
5. Fast Camera also has Stealth Mode and several other options for other scenarios.
1. It's important to me to clarify the facts.
2. I'm honestly not jealous. Just passionate.
3. Tons of people on the forums have already emailed me for promo codes and I have sent them out. Those people seem pretty happy to me.
4. I don't believe writing assembly code is necessary unless the results prove it was worth the effort. I think that is relevant to the devs on here.
5. Fast Camera is not a competitor to Snappy Cam. Fast Camera is the de facto standard in burst photo apps with much higher revenue and user numbers. It's my obligation to comment on an article that suggests SnappyCam was the fastest or best.
Just to close the loop on this. I got a promo code and played with the app on my iPad 4. and my iPhone 5S.
The App is easy to use, and performed as advertised. It did take, what seemed to be a long time, to save the pictures.
It has the unexpected capability to perform time-lapse photography – where you take a picture every n seconds or minutes.
All that said, the need for this burst mode capability on the iPhone 5S, it appears unnecessary for many uses -- You can just as easily take a short video at 120 frames per second and a larger picture.
However, if the user wants to take a burst of action shots, then select one or more and immediately post on, say, Facebook this is a very good solution.
Did you do any assessment of image quality compared to a regular iPhone camera shot?