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Snapchat's New 'Crowd Surf' Feature Stitches Together Users' Concert Videos

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Snapchat is currently trialling a new concert-related feature on the platform that stitches together individual video clips from different users to create one seamless video.

Called Crowd Surf, the feature uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to work out when multiple users are actively recording the same event.

By combining the two technologies, Crowd Surf is able to match clips from various users filming at different angles in close proximity, and then overlay the environmental audio seamlessly, creating what's essentially a multi-camera video clip.

Users who later watch the video can then tap a button in the lower right of the clip to switch between angles, or simply sit back and let the transitions take place automatically as the action unfolds.


According to TechCrunch, the feature made its debut on the platform during a Lorde concert in San Francisco on Monday, the results of which can be viewed in the Featured section below the list of stories.

Snapchat says the Crowd Surf feature is still being tested, but will gradually be rolled out to coincide with more high profile events such as concerts and public speeches going forward.

Snapchat can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Snapchat's New 'Crowd Surf' Feature Stitches Together Users' Concert Videos
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/15/snapchat-crowd-surf-feature-stitch-videos/
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ugahairydawgs said:
....or people could just watch the concert they are at.
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Um obviously people aren't going to jump on the crowd surf while theyre at the concert. the good thing about this is you could only take 2 clips in the concert but you contributed to a multi angle video of the entire concert and look back at it in the future.
 
jerry16 said:
God, please no. Please, no. Not one more reason for people to record crappy concert videos and post them.
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They're only crappy now because cameras suck now. Once they get better, and this technology improves, this could become something incredibly cool.

Baby steps.
 
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I'm all for people enjoying a concert the way they want, but I still don't want to encourage more people to be on their phones the whole time
 
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thisisnotmyname said:
Copyright infringement lawsuits incoming...
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This is a point I've been thinking about lately. If I upload a vlog, a very faint sound in the background is immediately recognized by YT's Content ID and my video gets demonetized even if no one can tell what song it is by listening casually.

Yet, millions of people upload videos to SnapChat, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp (presumably?) every day. Yet they don't get any copyright infringements. Is it simply because these platforms aren't monetized?

I would assume a SnapChat CrowdSource of a musician's entire show is akin to recording the entire thing and putting it up on BitTorrent. How is this any different? I'm already unable to bring my Canon SLR into concerts because the artists / venues use approved photographers, how is recording video clips any different than me taking decent photos with my camera? You'd think by now, "no recording at all" would be instituted at venues given how advanced the phones & AI behind them can basically steal an entire show w/o permission from the artist.
 
Snapchat has come up with some really clever ideas, this included, but are held back by their unwillingness to improve fundamental features. As at least some of their focus has shifted towards content creation, there should be options to take HD video clips longer than 10 seconds (the auto splicing of 10 sec clips doesn’t really count), and auto-save clips shared to your story would be nice (auto exporting to your photo library would be a way around server-side storage limitation if that’s what’s holding them back).

As-is though, the platform isn’t really great for capturing memories such as concerts. The video/audio quality is terrible when you export from a story and anything else is only available for 24hrs or less due to Snapchat’s obsession with self-destructing content. Basically if they made the app more like a Camera+ utility on top of their social media platform, it could be infinitely more useful and set them apart from FB/Instagram, which they absolutely need to do, FAST, because they just copy/paste every feature Snap comes up with.
 
morphineseason said:
Snapchat has come up with some really clever ideas, this included, but are held back by their unwillingness to improve fundamental features. As at least some of their focus has shifted towards content creation, there should be options to take HD video clips longer than 10 seconds (the auto splicing of 10 sec clips doesn’t really count), and auto-save clips shared to your story would be nice (auto exporting to your photo library would be a way around server-side storage limitation if that’s what’s holding them back).

As-is though, the platform isn’t really great for capturing memories such as concerts. The video/audio quality is terrible when you export from a story and anything else is only available for 24hrs or less due to Snapchat’s obsession with self-destructing content. Basically if they made the app more like a Camera+ utility on top of their social media platform, it could be infinitely more useful and set them apart from FB/Instagram, which they absolutely need to do, FAST, because they just copy/paste every feature Snap comes up with.
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I agree that Snapchat overall is crap for the very reasons you mentioned above. However, that is the same reason it is still used regularly. 1) It has a platform with lots of people (you can share, and others/friends will see), but also 2) It is a live in the moment type of platform. While thinking about it, it kinda sucks that the 1-4 stories you share per day are never going to be able to be looked back on - but at the same time; that's part of the appeal. You can put whatever you want on there and know that it's just a short term thing. It's less judgmental that way, and that's part of the appeal of the platform.

Either way, I think Snapchat is dead in 5 years (relatively speaking), and I've been waiting on it for a little while now. Stock is tanking so bad now, which is not surprising to me.
 
VanillaCracker said:
I agree that Snapchat overall is crap for the very reasons you mentioned above. However, that is the same reason it is still used regularly. 1) It has a platform with lots of people (you can share, and others/friends will see), but also 2) It is a live in the moment type of platform. While thinking about it, it kinda sucks that the 1-4 stories you share per day are never going to be able to be looked back on - but at the same time; that's part of the appeal. You can put whatever you want on there and know that it's just a short term thing. It's less judgmental that way, and that's part of the appeal of the platform.

Either way, I think Snapchat is dead in 5 years (relatively speaking), and I've been waiting on it for a little while now. Stock is tanking so bad now, which is not surprising to me.
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Agreed, and I’m not saying they should remove the self-destruct ideology, as there is a fun, toy-like feeling to that, but just give some more options to the end user to be able to preserve clips they’ve taken, in high definition, and to give them more reasons to open Snapchat instead of the stock camera app. They already let users export Spectacles clips in HD at 60fps, so regular clips should be capable of that too. Sure, in most cases you don’t need high fidelity to snap a clip of your cat or food you’re eating, but if there’s going to be a focus on concerts, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to make the feature-set a little more diverse.
 
morphineseason said:
Agreed, and I’m not saying they should remove the self-destruct ideology, as there is a fun, toy-like feeling to that, but just give some more options to the end user to be able to preserve clips they’ve taken, in high definition, and to give them more reasons to open Snapchat instead of the stock camera app. They already let users export Spectacles clips in HD at 60fps, so regular clips should be capable of that too. Sure, in most cases you don’t need high fidelity to snap a clip of your cat or food you’re eating, but if there’s going to be a focus on concerts, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to make the feature-set a little more diverse.
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Yeah they could do a lot more. I think the idea is that they don't want to break what they have, and what is attracting people. You can save a clip you took immediately after taking it (bottom left I think), but it's not full HD. But I agree they could make it way more "official" of a platform. I could tell they were never going to make that move, when they started using bitmojis (lame AF - borderline anti-social, and I'm not a socialite myself).
 
unregenerate said:
They're only crappy now because cameras suck now. Once they get better, and this technology improves, this could become something incredibly cool.

Baby steps.
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Cameras are at the bottom of the list of why cell phone videos of concerts suck. At the top of the list:

1. Bad microphones
2. Bad videographers (portrait vs landscape)
3. Bad locations for videographers (footage of the back of other people's heads or footage of other people's phones)
4. People staring at screens instead of the person performing right in front of them
5. Phones blocking the view of the people behind the videographer
6. Camera quality
 
I’ve to tell tou guys. I had this idea back in 2013 and asked a friend to program it. He did not want to. And yes first issue with this is copyright/royalties. I just would let people to choose the angle that they would like to watch. And you can apply this to many sports, culture, etc. But youtube could made this happen some years ago.
 
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