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The software gimbal is a very nice trick: instead of moving the camera (with jerkiness and balance and extra control channels), they have a slightly down-angled

The software gimbal is a very nice trick: instead of moving the camera (with jerkiness and balance and extra control channels), they have a slightly down-angled 180-degree fisheye lens onto a big sensor. Then software stabilises and crops to present a slice of the view as if you were panning and tilting. Slick.

gadders 12y ago
Isn't that what the military do with their cameras on helicopters etc? Take a too big picture and stabilise the middle?
- cushychicken 12y ago
  That's actually what cellphones do as well. Your picture represents about 80% of what hits the sensor.
dirktheman 12y ago
It is a nice trick, and the footage seems pretty solid. Will the quality match a real brushless gimbal with a good camera attached? I don't know, but for the majority of people this will do just fine I guess.
- thisjepisje 12y ago
  If the resolution is high enough and the processing fast enough, I don't see why not.
cuu508 12y ago
I've often had problem with stabilizing shaky GoPro footage where the footage has geometric distortion, and after the stabilization it gets very noticeable: as the image is panned around, at the edges it appears wavy and flowy. A workaround for this is to account for geometric distortion when stabilizing. For example, in VirtualDub, use barrel distortion filter to "un-distort" the image, then do the Deshaker pass, then use barrel distortion filter to get the fisheye look back. This is a manual, error prone process, it takes time to get filter parameters right and to make sure no edges come into the view etc. Too much hassle if you want to process many videos. When stabilization happens in-device, they can tune it for the exact lens used, and they can work on raw video data, before compression. They can also account for rolling shutter and avoid the "jello effect". Plus there is one less post-processing step afterwards. So this has good potential and I'd like to see in-device stabilization in more action cameras too (Sony actioncams do have steady shot, but they also have some other shortcomings--lower max bitrate than GoPro, kind of bulky with the waterproof case).
gcb0 12y ago
uh, why even have the user control then? just send in the full image. or is that bandwidth now more of a problem than image sensor quality?
- andygates 12y ago
  A twenty-degree down very high-res 180-degree fisheye isn't a very useful output. A distortion-corrected slice is much more valuable. As for bandwidth, generally these things record best video onboard and the transmitted stream is allowed to get glitchy with distance / interference / alien jamming.

gadders 12y ago

Isn't that what the military do with their cameras on helicopters etc? Take a too big picture and stabilise the middle?

cushychicken 12y ago
That's actually what cellphones do as well. Your picture represents about 80% of what hits the sensor.

dirktheman 12y ago

It is a nice trick, and the footage seems pretty solid. Will the quality match a real brushless gimbal with a good camera attached? I don't know, but for the majority of people this will do just fine I guess.

thisjepisje 12y ago
If the resolution is high enough and the processing fast enough, I don't see why not.

cuu508 12y ago

I've often had problem with stabilizing shaky GoPro footage where the footage has geometric distortion, and after the stabilization it gets very noticeable: as the image is panned around, at the edges it appears wavy and flowy. A workaround for this is to account for geometric distortion when stabilizing. For example, in VirtualDub, use barrel distortion filter to "un-distort" the image, then do the Deshaker pass, then use barrel distortion filter to get the fisheye look back. This is a manual, error prone process, it takes time to get filter parameters right and to make sure no edges come into the view etc. Too much hassle if you want to process many videos. When stabilization happens in-device, they can tune it for the exact lens used, and they can work on raw video data, before compression. They can also account for rolling shutter and avoid the "jello effect". Plus there is one less post-processing step afterwards. So this has good potential and I'd like to see in-device stabilization in more action cameras too (Sony actioncams do have steady shot, but they also have some other shortcomings--lower max bitrate than GoPro, kind of bulky with the waterproof case).

gcb0 12y ago

uh, why even have the user control then? just send in the full image. or is that bandwidth now more of a problem than image sensor quality?

andygates 12y ago
A twenty-degree down very high-res 180-degree fisheye isn't a very useful output. A distortion-corrected slice is much more valuable. As for bandwidth, generally these things record best video onboard and the transmitted stream is allowed to get glitchy with distance / interference / alien jamming.