Why mobile video sucks | Hacker News Reader

Why mobile video sucks

blog.framebase.io

14 pointsvu0tran23 comments

IMHO, mobile video use is about to grow. This due to the amount of web apps coming out that focus on it. Ten years ago no one would even dream of a service like Instagram being a success. Who would want to take pictures with their cell phones and post them on a site? Turns out, millions of people. I think that video has that same potential. Just think about the possibilities:

- You can record the moment your {girl : boy}friend says yes to your marriage proposal and post it online ASAP.

- You can record that really funny joke your friend does and share it.

- You can do product placements and all kinds of marketing with it and people will never be any wiser.

This argument that people don't want to appear on video is wrong. People crave the attention video gives them. A quick visit to youtube is evidence enough.

I do think that the time limit for each video has to be around 10-15 seconds and not 6 seconds like Vine does. Its a bit too short.

> Ten years ago no one would even dream of a service like Instagram being a success. Who would want to take pictures with their cell phones and post them on a site?

Are you kidding? People were taking pictures with camera phones like crazy soon after they were widespread. Digital cameras and camera phones changed society. The only reason why Instagram took so long to appear is because the likes of Verizon and AT&T suck at software and aren't nearly as motivated by what people want as they like to think.

You obviously don't get my point. Which is that we are about to reach the point where video is going to be used for short communication like images, tweets, and status updates. That has not been properly done before due to network speed, phone hardware, and software.

> You obviously don't get my point.

No, I get that point. The "who could imagine" part about Instagram/digital snapshots is what I objected to. All it takes is to step outside of ourselves and look at larger trends. Easier said than done, I know, but the signs were all there for photos from the time of feature-phone cameras.

I'm not so sure the signs are there for video. Calls can be spur of the moment casual. So can sending a photo. Video calls are a little too much like a get together or a date.

When video calls get to the point of casualness where lots of people are drunk dialing so they can show an out of town buddy something stupid at a bar, then there will be something there.

> - You can record the moment your {girl : boy}friend says yes to your marriage proposal and post it online ASAP.

Are people really so blase about recording video that they would hold their phone in front of their face, recording the other person, while proposing marriage?

I think alot of joyous "yes" replies would turn into "get that thing out of my face at a moment like this, are you kidding?".

People do this all the time.

I'm wondering if the new iPhone is going to have better video capturing abilities due to the way the App Store is promoting video apps right now. They often feature video apps, and sometimes throw up large "In the director's chair" features on the front page, despite the fact that no one (at least right now) seems to be downloading the apps in them.

Not only better hardware but better software too. We are about to enter a period where mobile video will become mainstream. It is already happening on the older social netwrorks.

Why do you think mobile video will become mainstream? A lot of mobile video is hard to watch, and requires a better connection than other mediums. Vine is interesting in that the capture mechanism is interactive,but do you have any examples besides the use of Vine? I'm still unclear whether it will stay or will be a fad -- it's hard to tell due to their awesome distribution.

Faster mobile networks and apps that make it easy to share and fancy-up with filters and whatnot.

I was on a (p)review team for a short-film festival for a number of years. I learned a lot about what makes a video appealing to me, roughly in order:

1) Sound! Bad sound can ruin a video even if everything else is perfect.

2) Editing is key, we rejected a lot of 10 minute films that could have been turned into great 2 or 3 minute pieces.

3) A good story trumps a series of pretty pictures

All of these are big problems for quickie mobile videos so I think tools for sound and editing could really help.

What's your take on stories told in photos -- eg this http://backspac.es/r/V0bCokJWnt/how-it-happens

That was also made on a mobile phone

I think that's a great format for small screens. I could also imagine it as a storyboard for a video, or for mixed sequences of still images, audio, text and videos.

I think things like UStream combined with the likes of Google Glass is the future. Live stream voyuerism doesn't require editing. If drunk video calls could be made with the ease of drunk dialing or texting. We'll have passed the threshold.

I agree with all that, but I still shoot a lot of video--mostly of concerts. In fact, I just shot about 20 minutes of a Kate Nash concert last night in Boston with my iPhone. (She was great, by the way. She's gone punk!)

As a fellow concert goer, I generally hate that people do this. I think it's distracting to everyone. However, I'll admit I think someone should record the best moments. I think it's better to enjoy the music and show rather that spend the effort to try and properly catch it. Not only that, but even at events which have been professionally or at least well recorded, I rarely go back to watch the video later. How much video you shoot do you actually go back and watch?

What I find distracting is the 7 foot tall guy who always decides to stand right in front of me. People recording bits with their cell phones don't bother me. Generally, I don't hold the camera over my head, so that if your view is not blocked by the back of my head, it won't be blocked by my iPhone.

As to how often I go back and watch the clips, that would depend on how much I like the band. If I had been able to record Kate Bush perform in 1979, there was a time in my life when I'd probably watch it every day! I recorded two whole Marina & the Diamonds concerts and a bunch of clips, and I watch them from time to time. Also, 19,131 people on YouTube have watched one of the M&tD concerts my friend and I recorded. As for Kate Nash, I'll definitely watch the clips again, and I have some friends who will want to see them.

I also occasionally go back and watch these clips I took of Sade:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqdS-4J1_KY

333 other people have watched it.

But will that video you took of Kate Nash ever be content that thousands of people would enjoy watching? That's what a startup would be betting on. If so, where would they watch it? There's a big difference between viral videos, produced videos and videos from everyday life.

Well, my friend and I video recorded a Marina & the Diamonds concert and have 19,131 views at the moment:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evG3fGJrwRE

And I'm working on another one that we did with multiple cameras and some crowd-sourced clips from YouTube.

Though, in these cases, we recorded the entire concert. Even when I record just a bunch of little clips, I'll get a couple dozen to a few hundred views. And I certainly enjoy watching clips that other people upload now and then.

As to whether there is a startup that could do for me anything in this regard that YouTube and iMovie/Final Cut can't, I would tend to doubt it. Other than perhaps making it easier to piece together more of a concert from crowd-sourced clips.

That's very interesting! I bet it took a lot of effort to do that I didn't realize how nicely it was done. There is definitely value in clips like that for fans and the artists.

I see pubic statistics have been disabled, if you don't mind me asking, where are most of the views coming from?

I think it took me about a weekend to edit using iMovie, but I'm not very fluent with iMovie. And, of course, there was the effort of my friend, who discretely filmed the whole thing with a steady hand.

The newer one that I'm almost finished with has taken a lot more effort because of the multiple cameras. I've had to learn Final Cut Pro X, which is much, much, much more complicated than iMovie. This one has taken virtually all of my free time for that past month. Not that I have all that much free time, so it's not like it's any more effort than anyone would do for a hobby.

The Analytics on the video you were watching say that 7,307 views are from the US. 2,071 are from the UK, 1,510 are from Brazil, and 1,037 are from Germany. Then Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Poland. Then just about every other country has some views too.

I'm surprised that more of the views aren't from the UK, since it is the UK where Marina is from and is most well known, but I think her new album appeals more to an American audience with its electronic dance music sensibilities, while her first New Wave-sounding album appealed more to a British audience.

I think he's looking at it from the wrong perspective - the winner of mobile video will be the short-form "moment capture" apps, not the long-form edited video.

It needs to be fast and easy.

YouTube? UStream?

Video production isn't mainstream? Come on now.

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