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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

There's an interesting example they use to show the ostensible improvement of Pix over the Apple's Live Photo:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

The Pix-enhanced version:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

Sure, the Live Photo version has distracting movement, but it also has much more natural motion in terms of hair flow. And I feel that the camera instability helps give context to the video, that it's some kind of impromptu selfie on a windy day.

The Pix version offers a clearer image at what I feel is a large cost to the image's integrity. It looks a bit creepy. That said, there are probably lots of good situations for Pix's stabilization tech, but that example didn't seem optimal as a landing page demo.

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The original creates the perception of realness and dimension through the effect of wiggle stereoscopy.[1]

Wiggle stereoscopy: http://i.imgur.com/FhA9aZI.gif

In contrast, the Pix version removes that sense of depth, and turns it into what is essentially a cinemagraph.[2]

Cinemagraph: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5303/5659130034_7fc3dcfb8c_o....

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiggle_stereoscopy [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinemagraph

Cinemagraphs are all the rage now. Maybe it was intentional. Probably compresses much better.

I'm sure you're right on both accounts, but man, they are really creepy. I keep thinking I'm watching the trailer from a horror movie and something is going to jump out of the frame - or that I'm staring at a mannequin that should be still, but isn't. Very odd.

About creepy, but in another sense. They are used alot in public ads instead of static pictures, and i think i found one reason they dont do full on video. Saw a underwear ad in the subway with full blown video, as in the whole model was moving, and that looked like a porn ad, nobody dared to stare at it.Especially compared to the ad next to it with some subtle motions of just the hair.

Just as a point of comparison, I thought it was creepy for about 10 seconds, too. Then, for some reason, my brain adapted to where I think I'd now prefer the Microsoft Pix version of the image over the Apple one. Brains are weird, I guess.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lf89wxB3ja1qe0eclo1_r34_50...

I don't find them creepy at all. Guess it's just a preference thing.

Indeed. The LiveImage example reminded me of the paintings on the walls at Hogwarts :)

Seems to me cinemagraphs and wiggle stereoscopy are both red hot right now. I'm sure someone will combine them soonish, creating cinemawiggles.

Cinemagraphs. So hot right now (https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Mugatu-So-Hot-Right-Now.jpg).

The Pix version looks like one of those old computer games when they wanted to animate some wind, but cut only afford to animate a handful of sprites on the screen. So everything is stiff as a board except for some flipping scarves/hair/etc...

I think you're referring to color cycling, and it's a much interesting technology than just a handful of sprites:

http://www.effectgames.com/effect/article-Old_School_Color_C...

I think that effect (of having a large static background with a few small sprite overlays providing motion) was largely orthogonal to color cycling.

They're talking about the more general effect of a complete hand-drawn background with mobile sprites/items layered on top (usually with somewhat different color palette &al, so you'd "see the seams" so to speak between what would or had moved and the actual immoveable background)

Kind of like the SF2 Ryu victory pose (except in that case, it's intentional, and makes him look badass, not creepy).

[1] http://street-fighter-sprites.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Street...

I am imagining a developer at Microsoft somewhere holding their head in their hands when they saw the Live Photo comparison made by the marketing team. To me, they don't really seem to be aiming for the same thing at all - the Pix version is a highly stylised animation whereas the Live Photo is simply a very short, silent video.

I know the Live Photo example on this Pix page is silent, but it's important for people to realize that Apple Live Photos are not -- they capture several seconds of sound.

I "know" this but often forget. When I look through iMessage history at pictures I've sent and received, there are often stray bits of overheard conversation that the sender wouldn't necessarily want or intend to include.

> I "know" this but often forget. When I look through iMessage history at pictures I've sent and received, there are often stray bits of overheard conversation that the sender wouldn't necessarily want or intend to include.

I was surprised with this too. This should be really made more clear.

The Live Photo is not silent at all, in fact it is very loud with the noise of water and phone fiddling.

It wasn't silent for me, I could hear the wind.

Live photo is not silent.

> It looks a bit creepy.

It's not just a bit creepy, it's firmly planted in the depths of the uncanny valley. The other (still photo) examples make me think they are pulling tricks with exposure and light balance, but the live photo feature is cheesy and gimmicky (and yes, highly unsettling in the example they give).

I'm going to try it out on my iPhone 6, but I expect I'll stick with the iPhone camera app for serious photos unless Pix blows me away.

They just need to get rid of the creepiness by mirroring the loop, so its not a sudden reset

That's not what I found creepy. It's the perfectly still faces with the hair blowing and whipping around.

The Pix example looks like a cinemagraph. They can be really neat and beautiful. There is a popular subreddit, /r/cinemagraphs, and other various google results. Maybe those are examples of what you could accomplish with Pix - but surely you would still need some manual touchup to make it loop perfectly as it should.

There was something happening to "cinemagraphs" in the few years since they became popular. I'm pretty sure it started with this blog: http://iwdrm.tumblr.com/ It took movie scenes/moments and tried to capture their essence in a few frames (of a GIF beneath tumblrs file size restrictions, as an additional challenge). The resultes were quite breathtaking and some of the best, to me, feel very "alive". You could see people breathe and blink and stuff:

http://67.media.tumblr.com/cf5c72b69133541626d6c1e7ff313926/...

Reddit has turned this into a kind of Matrix-time-freeze effect that looks totally unnatural:

http://i.imgur.com/FERUo.gif

It's a totally different thing. If Pix managed to do the first type of "cinemagraph" automatically, that would be pretty cool. But it seems to be more the second type of "cut out some part of the image and make it not move" type of animation. Too bad.

My first reaction to the Pix version was to shudder and think "that's creepy". Glad I'm not the only one.

I only saw the grass blowing scene in the main video and was like, "what do all these people mean about it being creepy?". That's some shit right there though.

Imagine looking back at your younger years from your pixel hammock overlooking the digital sunset, and you see a picture like that... now you're depressed because you remembered the physical world as being so beatiful compared to the digital world, esp after the big virus slowdown of 2251, but now you think "it must have been a creepy world after all".

Yea, it's interesting tech but it plain doesn't work right. It looks like a "cinemagraph generator" (like it was first popularized with this blog: http://iwdrm.tumblr.com/ ). Only it does the (IMO rather tacky or at least very stylized) version of it that makes people look "frozen in time" instead of trying to loop natural motion. It looks like a filter/effect rather than, well,... an enhanced video. Not better but different.

IMO this is one of those things Apple tends to "get". Did they have comparable tech to Pix somewhere cooked up in their labs? I dare to bet so. Did they use it as a suggestion for a "default" enhancement mode? Nope. That thing is a gimmick and seems more appropriate for a third party app.

The auto-adjust for faces looks nice but don't most cameras have that for years, now?

Since Pix is an alternative to the built in Apple app, it makes sense that it provides an alternative functionality from a user standpoint...and perhaps from a not-getting-booted-out-of-the-app-store standpoint.

As a person pushing get off my lawn age, taking selfies feels unseemly even though I know it is entirely mainstream among younger people. One of the things I find interesting about photography is how rapidly the 'uncanny valley' becomes normal. I look at Instagram filters and wonder 'why I would want to make something look like a Polaroid?' It just means the filter is not for me.

Just a matter of terminology: Instagram filters don't contribute to the uncanny valley--they may make a photo look less accurate, but they don't make the subjects look less like human beings (and therefore don't trigger the revulsion or at least discomfort that is the defining characteristic of the uncanny valley).

Now Snapchat filters, on the other hand... (e.g. the bee filter, shudder)

My first reaction to both of these is that they're unsettling, though the Pix version makes me feel more uncomfortable than the Live Photo.

I thought it was an interesting example because iOS 10 will stabilize live photos (at least on the new phones, I'd assume the 6s as well).

Looks like a much lower frame-rate too, like Pix is choosing a specific number of "like" frames and dropping the rest in the name of stabilizing the comp.

It probably looks creepy because they don't move a single muscle in their faces.

It might be attractive to people who want to loop an image, I suppose.

"The Pix version offers a clearer image"

For me the Live Photo version is more sharper than the Pix one and it has better exposure too.

they didn't pick the most in-focus frame for the still picture in the pix-enhanced version

Id love to know the image proc algorithms they used here.

Easy pick: the Apple version is natural, the Microsoft one is artificial. Maybe some cultural thing and Americans like the unnatural steady shot, I'm from the old continent and am completely distracted by the unnatural look of the Microsoft version.

Microsoft research came up with http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hype... and it was great. But Microsoft Pix, not for me.

This has nothing to do with Americans and more of a personal preference.

Apple has apparently ceased to be an American company there, as well.

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