iOS 17.2 Beta 2 Includes Feature for Recording Spatial Video on iPhone 15 Pro

[jonnysods]

THIS!!! Times about 5,000.

I have home movies shot as far back as the 1950s or so... rendered as good as we could render from the originals. ALL of the adults in those videos are no longer with us. Some of them I personally never got to meet in person, but without a few of them, I wouldn't even exist. I would pay a LOT to be able to somehow reshoot the same stuff in the highest resolution possible and also capture sound, so I could hear what their voices sounded like too. In some, it appears there is lively conversations going on... and LAUGHTER... but that re-visit is relatively poor visually... and as if we are deaf time travelers.

Home video is a funny thing. Minutes after it is captured- unless something very special happens- it might be viewed as near worthless. But let time pass. The more time that passes, the more you value having such things captured. I consider videos of family I never met, barely remember, somewhat remember or even soundly remember- but sadly, no longer with us- as some of the most valuable assets in my household. I would rather lose the house then lose the home video collection... because only one of those can be re-constituted.

There's no going back to get a second chance at accumulating such assets.

I am so paranoid about our family pics and videos that I have them backed up in 3 different places.

My kids are teens, and sometimes we just sit around the computer and watch videos of when they were younger, it’s a profoundly enriching experience. I would love to capture a deeper 3D experience of those memories.

 

[spaxxedout]

I would not be surprised if, in a few years, a vision headset will be able to convert a 2D video into stereo using an on-board Ai processor design specifically for this use case.

2D to 3D conversion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I semi-agree. I think every home will have a mini-fridge sized AI processor that runs on 240v

 

[Polinsky]

Outside of that, I have no use for this at all.

I'll be first in line to get a Vision Pro.

 

[spaxxedout]

I'll be first in line to get a Vision Pro.

Right behind you.

 

[HornOfAbraxas]

The only thing that could sell me on the Apple Vision Pro would be this. I can't imagine having life-like video to look back on when family members and pets die. Outside of that, I have no use for this at all.

Really? There's not a single happy instance in your life that you could imagine would be enhanced by having 3d video? That's a shame, man

 

[Jensend]

My thinking was using left and right parts of each sensors to increase space between frames. Your explanation makes sense, though.

The only way that would work is if you physically moved the lenses relative to the sensors. But that would make no sense to do, and could only increase the IPD by like 1.4 mm.

Regarding framerate, do you think they stuck with 30 because 60 wouldn’t look good on VP’s 90?

They felt it was important to have a 96Hz mode just to support 24fps movies with no judder, so it was likely part of their considerations. But there could be other factors as well. Maybe a blown up crop of the ultrawide sensor looks too noisy at 60fps, and they want to reduce the chance of distracting noise, especially when the main wide camera is better. Or it could be a performance issue. Who knows?

 

[Think|Different]

Some incredibly negative comments in here, sheesh. This is awesome.

 

[HornOfAbraxas]

I'm so disappointed that it's capped at 1080p. 1080p is gross and pathetic in 2023 going into 2024. I'm so glad I stuck to my 13 Pro Max and didn't upgrade this year. That, combined with the fact that Apple is apparently going to software lock some iOS 18 features concerning generative AI to the iPhone 16s has completely destroyed my interest in upgrading. If you're on an older phone, I can confidently say, DO NOT BUY THE 15 now

Have you ever heard the phrase "Make it work, then make it work well"?

This is the first iteration. What resolution spatial video could you take on your cell phone prior to this beta?

Would you rather have 0p, or 1080p? They have to start somewhere.

 

[Jensend]

I'm so disappointed that it's capped at 1080p. 1080p is gross and pathetic in 2023 going into 2024. I'm so glad I stuck to my 13 Pro Max and didn't upgrade this year. That, combined with the fact that Apple is apparently going to software lock some iOS 18 features concerning generative AI to the iPhone 16s has completely destroyed my interest in upgrading. If you're on an older phone, I can confidently say, DO NOT BUY THE 15 now

Only 3MP of the ultrawide image overlaps with the main wide sensor. How are they supposed to get 8MP/4K images from that? At best they could do some fancy post processing to try to apply the detail from the 4K video from one lens to the 2K video from the other lens, but that will inevitably lead to artifacts that could be especially annoying with stereoscopy.

 

[CBlakeston]

This may sound cheesy, but the only reason I upgraded a year early to the 15 Pro was for this feature. My fathers not in great health and his grand kids are 6, 4 & 1. I have been waiting for this feature to take some 3D video of the kids with him to show them at some point. It would defy all odds if he were still around for the 16 Pro launch, when I had planned on upgrading from my 12 Pro.

Not cheesy at all. I lost my mom earlier this year and I would love to have had spatial video to remember her.

 

[victorvictoria]

I imagine there are legions of people who want to spent $5,000 to watch 3D movies (videos in modern parlance). That's what we used to call spatial video back in the day. The only difference is that the special glasses needed were free with your movie ticket. Not so much anymore, I guess.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

This is going to lead to some sad Minority Report / Strange Days scenes where people sit around drinking at night trying to make their kids and exes come back.

 

[Bigkool2inSC]

The only thing that could sell me on the Apple Vision Pro would be this. I can't imagine having life-like video to look back on when family members and pets die. Outside of that, I have no use for this at all.

Not unless you go before them.. then it's no good to you..

 

[Agent007]

Don’t we want 8k/60 for this thing?…

By early 30's, recording/display of video on most devices will be like the "Retina" concept where you can't tell pixels apart at a certain distance. I imagine frame rates will be insane, too.

 

[silviodomingues]

This may sound cheesy, but the only reason I upgraded a year early to the 15 Pro was for this feature. My fathers not in great health and his grand kids are 6, 4 & 1. I have been waiting for this feature to take some 3D video of the kids with him to show them at some point. It would defy all odds if he were still around for the 16 Pro launch, when I had planned on upgrading from my 12 Pro.

Unfortunately, this is the same reason I'm motivated to buy the iPhone 15 Pro

 

[zakarhino]

This may sound cheesy, but the only reason I upgraded a year early to the 15 Pro was for this feature. My fathers not in great health and his grand kids are 6, 4 & 1. I have been waiting for this feature to take some 3D video of the kids with him to show them at some point. It would defy all odds if he were still around for the 16 Pro launch, when I had planned on upgrading from my 12 Pro.

Not cheesy at all, that's beautiful. In fact that's why I'm 100% getting a 15 Pro Max before I go back to visit my grandparents in the UK, I want to capture Spatial Videos of them. That's also why I'm hoping to visit the UK quickly after Vision Pro's launch, I'd like to see them try out the device. I get the feeling they won't be able to use it because of vision problems (especially with my grandfather) and the mode of interaction may not be compatible with very old people (also my grandfather has an essential tremor so the finger pinch action may not be possible for him, Apple will apparently have accessibility workarounds for this so we'll see).

I remember the first time I got them an iPad, it changed their life because it gave them a dead simple way to video call with FaceTime. They never forget to mention it whenever I visit. I think trying out this device will be yet another magical moment of technology for them.

 

[zakarhino]

Seeing this article is kinda surreal because it's an indication that this is actually happening. The "future Apple AR platform" is something we've all discussed and theorized about for years (if not decades for people interested in this technology outside of Apple) and now we're just a couple months away from actually using it. Even the WWDC launch didn't quite hit like this article because the vague "2024" launch date felt distant as if we were being shown a tech demo.

We've had AR glasses and VR goggles for years, sure, but those are like how we had touchscreen devices before iPhone. I honestly believe Vision Pro is the milestone point where we officially demarcate the beginning of a new era for consumer computing. Just like ChatGPT marked the beginning of a new form of software and programming (we've barely scratched the surface on this one).

 

[QquegChristian]

Did they announce what resolution and frame rate the spatial videos shot with the actual Vision Pro unit are?

This was also one of the reasons I got the 15 Pro, to shoot now for the future when I can afford a Vision Pro. Knowing the resolution is only 1080 on the phone, now I’m really hoping someone makes a way to watch these vids on a cheaper headset in the meantime.

 

[mjs916]

The triumphant return of landscape recording on mobile phones foretold by the elders is HERE!

 

[Neodym]

Anyone wanting to get an idea of how the experience of a VisionPro could feel like (after some iterations): Watch the movie Strange Days ! The VisionPro could become an early ancestor of a future SQUID-like device

 

[pacalis]

Let me be a little help (if perhaps you don't know some of this already):

• Edit and render it all for Apple tech playback... but KEEP your masters too for future, better codecs. Big HDDs are dirt cheap, so storing masters should be no great burden... ideally at least TWO copies so one can be OFFSITE to protect against fire/flood/theft scenarios.
• Consider tagging home movies as TV shows instead of home movies, so they can sort by "season" (year) and will present that way through AppleTV too. My own "show" tag is "Home Movies" and several decades of "seasons" sorts hundreds of home movies under that one "show." Going this way, if you want to watch Christmas 2013, you don't have to try to deduce which of the many videos that might all be called Christmas is that one. The one you seek is in the 2013 "season."
• Use Episode ID tags to even put home movies within a season into date order... thus JAN home videos will appear in a list before FEB videos... which will appears before MAR video, etc. My episode IDs are simply the day/date like 1109 for one today and 1119 for one shot 10 days from now. Episode Number tag is key to sequential ordering but episode ID helps remember exactly WHEN this video was shot.

I wish the "home videos" tag worked as well at allowing such groupings. But until then, using the TV Show tag provides a great way to organize the ever-growing collection so that anything is easily found... FAST!

For Photos, you can do some of the same stuff with Albums... and make efforts to assign "dates" to old scanned photos with perhaps some "best guess" help from relatives who were THERE at the time. If you can get rough dates assigned to photos shot before date, time & location data was auto-tagged, your photos library can sort into date order.

And photo albums- like videos tagged as TV Shows- can organize events or collections by events and/or by year. This can make it much easier to find the ones you want to review vs. the endless scroll & hunt approaches when it's just one gigantic library of photos.

Yes, it's some work to curate and tag it all, but get it done and it's all very nicely presented for the rest of your life.

As to presentation, I suggest using AppleTVs and the Computers app (instead of the AppleTV app, library), which does an outstanding job of presenting all of one's owned media, minus all the relentless pitches to buy or rent other content. If it's all tagged, it's easy to find what you want to see, watch, hear, etc. Computers is the second-most used app in the household. AppleTV+ app almost never even gets run.

Hey, thank you! I have all my masters, but will test out this idea on TV shows.

 

[tobybrut]

1080/30 is a bit disappointing, but I guess you have to start somewhere. Makes me wonder what resolution videos are when taken directly on the Vision Pro. The same, or higher quality?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

duplicate

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Hey, thank you! I have all my masters, but will test out this idea on TV shows.

If you name your "Show" (in the Show tag) a single name like I do: Home Movies, the entire collection will gather under the single title... like 20 seasons of show title Frasier or Gunsmoke. A few other tags set for season and episode number and it all will fall into place in date order. IMO, this is far superior to dumping all in one big list under the Home Movie tag and/or trying to identify them with their Names only: Christmas 2016, Christmas 2017, etc.

Hopefully, Apple will one day duplicate this functionality for the Home Movie tag too.

 

[LockOn2B]

Have you ever heard the phrase "Make it work, then make it work well"?

This is the first iteration. What resolution spatial video could you take on your cell phone prior to this beta?

Would you rather have 0p, or 1080p? They have to start somewhere.

Watch it be like cinematic mode and work in 4K next year if the 48MP ultra wide rumors pan out!