Compression of Photos/Videos

[PretoEvo]

When I was trying to re-discover my identity after Sprint abandoned the Palm Pre line, I briefly dabbled in the world of iOS. One of the features that I appreciated was the fact that, no matter how large my photos or videos were, the iPhone would compress them so they could be sent by text or e-mail.

Most Android manufacturers, including Moto, have placed a premium on the pixel count on their cameras and on HD video. With these features, however, come large file sizes. Yet, when trying to send these files by text or e-mail, Android rejects them as too large rather than compressing them as necessary.

How do we get Motorola and/or Google to implement this feature? It is one of the few remaining software areas where iOS still has a clear advantage over Android.

 

[doogald]

I agree completely. Android (at least stock Android) is brain-dead when it comes to this. It's almost like Apple sweats the small details like this, while Google figures that they'll fix small problems like this later (and then forgets to) or doesn't even think of it as a problem.

When it comes to sending by text, though, that's an advantage for the third party app Textra - I believe it will reduce the size of media in order to send it out. (It's one of the settings - you set the maximum size for attachments.)

Well, Textra seems to just resize photos, but at least it does that.

The Moto Gallery app, if you hit the edit icon (the pencil), has an export command in the menu where you can manually set the size, though it's height vs. width, not "1.2 MB". But, of course, that also just duplicates the photo.

 

[Rukbat]

When I was trying to re-discover my identity after Sprint abandoned the Palm Pre line, I briefly dabbled in the world of iOS. One of the features that I appreciated was the fact that, no matter how large my photos or videos were, the iPhone would compress them so they could be sent by text or e-mail.

Actually, iMessage allows you to send large files, SMS doesn't. That's the difference. You still can't email a file larger than 25MB, no matter which phone you use. (That's limited by the email servers, it has nothing to do with the phones.)

(BTW, "compressing" most audio or video formats just adds about 40 bytes to the file, it doesn't compress anything, since most audio and video formats are inherently compressed formats. You can compress some files by 80% or more, you can't compress a compressed file by very much, if at all. [The video format is lossy compressed, compression algorithms are losless, so the video file in, say, mp4 format is probably smaller than a raw video file compressed with 7-zip.] But feel free to come up with an algorithm that can compress a compressed file by 80% - not only will your name be famous, you'll be rich.)

Most Android manufacturers, including Moto, have placed a premium on the pixel count on their cameras and on HD video. With these features, however, come large file sizes. Yet, when trying to send these files by text or e-mail, Android rejects them as too large rather than compressing them as necessary.

You can't compress a compressed file. You can't email a file larger than 25MB. All you can do is use an iPhone to send it by iMessage which, btw, is limited to about 3.5 minutes of video (according to Apple).

How do we get Motorola and/or Google to implement this feature? It is one of the few remaining software areas where iOS still has a clear advantage over Android.

Since the "feature" is merely your misunderstanding of the situation, we don't.

 

[doogald]

Can't you "compress" by resizing photos? When you attach a photo to a message or email on iOS, it offers to resize to one of several different sizes. I'm not sure about videos on iOS, but audio and video can be made smaller by using a smaller bitrate, etc.

However, it is really dumb that Gmail doesn't offer to resize photo contents the same way that ios does, especially for people who really want to reduce the amount of mobile data they use. It's really dumb that messaging doesn't do the same, particularly knowing that carriers have caps for the amount of data that can be carried.

 

[maxman1]

FWIW, the factory installed Verizon Message+ text app can compress video - it simply needs to be enabled in settings. I've only tested it a few times but it seems to do a really good job and does so fairly quickly. From what I've seen so far, the compressed file's playback quality is far superior to that of iPhones.

 

[88horizon5speed]

Honestly, I've never experienced this. I email and text pictures daily from my turbo, they're all the full size 21 mp ones also. Never experienced them not sending due to size limit. Can someone fill me in? I've used the stock Motorola messaging app, google hangouts and also google messanger

 

[maxman1]

Honestly, I've never experienced this. I email and text pictures daily from my turbo, they're all the full size 21 mp ones also. Never experienced them not sending due to size limit. Can someone fill me in? I've used the stock Motorola messaging app, google hangouts and also google messanger

True but the minimum for video resolution is 1080P & that gets huge in a hurry. Too big for most text & easy to exceed email size as well. I'd prefer an option to shoot natively @ reduced resolution specifically for text but although it takes a bit longer, Message+ does an adequate job for no frequently than I need to do it. As you said, no problem with still shots.

 

[doogald]

Honestly, I've never experienced this. I email and text pictures daily from my turbo, they're all the full size 21 mp ones also. Never experienced them not sending due to size limit. Can someone fill me in? I've used the stock Motorola messaging app, google hangouts and also google messanger

I think that you're right, but I have seen this when I have tried to attach any video to a message. Rather than let you know it's too large, or offer to reduce the size, it just fails to send. (But it's been a while since I've tried.)

I can confirm by testing that you can select multiple photos and use the Google Messenger app to send them and it will resize them to small enough to be sent. So, that's good.

GMail definitely does not offer to reduce the size of media attachments.

 

[88horizon5speed]

Ok that makes sense, videos I know are a royal pain in the... But pictures send even with data disabled and wifi disabled. No problem.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Actually, iMessage allows you to send large files, SMS doesn't. That's the difference. You still can't email a file larger than 25MB, no matter which phone you use. (That's limited by the email servers, it has nothing to do with the phones.)

...
You can't compress a compressed file. You can't email a file larger than 25MB. All you can do is use an iPhone to send it by iMessage which, btw, is limited to about 3.5 minutes of video (according to Apple).

Since the "feature" is merely your misunderstanding of the situation, we don't.

You can't compress a compressed file, but you can downsize a photo in lots of apps. You can downsize a 21 megapixel photo a lot before it is possible to see the difference on a phone. IPhoto and the native mail program on a Mac both do this very well, so it seems likely the iPhone can do it, too.

These massive megapixel photos drive me nuts. I don't have the patience to downsize every photo I port to my computer, so they chew up disk space. And it's not as if phones take such awesome quality photos that I want to use them in some massive format where all those pixels would be useful.

 

[88horizon5speed]

We'll you don't have to take 21 mp photos, in any camera app you can go into seetings and use the resolution you wish. But I'm telling you, the lower resolution will not have the detail and sharpness the 21 does...and 5mb per photo is about the 21 mp, its really doesn't chew up THAT much room.

Fwiw my turbo takes amazingly clear and focused pictures. I dont see what all the fuss is about. I can zoom all the way in and it looks sharp and clear still.no complaints here, I can definetly tell the phone has an f2.0 rear and f2.2 front.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Really? I couldn't find any options like that in the stock camera app. I'd love to reduce the pixel-count. Please tell me how.

I would also share that with a friend who says it's the only thing he doesn't like about his new droid turbo.

 

[doogald]

Really? I couldn't find any options like that in the stock camera app. I'd love to reduce the pixel-count. Please tell me how.

I would also share that with a friend who says it's the only thing he doesn't like about his new droid turbo.

I believe that the free Google camera app from the play store allows you to change the pixel count of photos. When you open the app, slide to the right to expose controls on the left side. There is a gear icon the shows to the right; resolution and quality, rear camera, there should be some reduced size options for both 16:9 and 4:3 shots.

Other third party camera apps may expose reduced resolution as well.

 

[Puzzlegal]

No, at least, not in the version that ships with this phone. When I expose the controls, I can change from 16:9 to 4:3, turn on and off several other features (including hdr and a way to tell the camera where to optimize exposure/focus) but resolution is not an option.

Do you know of any other camera apps work with the nice "twist the phone to turn in the camera" feature? Because I used that all the time on the Moto X, and don't want to give it up.

 

[88horizon5speed]

The stock app let's you choose between 21 or 15.5. The google camera app allows down to 3.8. But honestly it will take much worse pictures at that resolution. I only use that when I need to upload a picture to any of my forum posts. But texting the 21 mp is fine and it doesn't take up much room at all. Only 5mb about

 

[Puzzlegal]

The stock app let's you choose between 21 or 15.5. The google camera app allows down to 3.8. But honestly it will take much worse pictures at that resolution. I only use that when I need to upload a picture to any of my forum posts. But texting the 21 mp is fine and it doesn't take up much room at all. Only 5mb about

How do I reduce the resolution?

I have a small camera that I use when I care about the quality of a photo. I use the phone for ephemeral stuff or documentation. I don't need or want 21mp. And 5mb is a big file, bigger than I want to email. Big enough to chew up my data allowance.

 

[doogald]

Do you know of any other camera apps work with the nice "twist the phone to turn in the camera" feature? Because I used that all the time on the Moto X, and don't want to give it up.

Only the stock camera app does that. Motorola has not exposed that as a programmable API for other camera apps, which is too bad.

 

[88horizon5speed]

The stock app (motorola) will not allow you to change the resolution. I think you should download the google camera app. Once open, slide your finger from the left to right and click the settings (gear) icon and then you can lower the resolution

 

[dungoyle]

"A Better Camera" is another popular alternative camera app around these parts. A quick check in the settings reflect that you can change picture sizes as indicated below. There are also size choices for Multishot, Night, and Panoramic height.

Video
1080P, 720P, 480P

Image Size 4:3
8M, 5M

Image Size 16:9
6M, 3.8M

 

[nedqadams]

I've been disappointed with the lack of the ability to send video (even small ones) through sms. I use Telegram now which works great. Video, Pics music and files send with ease.