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Comment by dublinben | Hacker News Reader

It's certainly way better than the source video, but it's nothing close to what would come from a steadycam or dolly. You couldn't use this finished product in any kind of real production.

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That depends heavily on your definition of "real production," and probably quickly devolves to no true Scotsman. I absolutely think this could be used in productions I would consider real, particularly documentary/travel/reality programs and sports.

Yep, it has a definite 'look' to it, and it appears to work better for some types of material than others (the bicycling footage was far more watchable to my eyes than the climbing stuff), but the effect is engaging and not unpleasant to view at all.

Personally I thought the climbing video was breathtaking. With a decent film crew it could be an absolutely breathtaking scene in a climbing film.

There was a mildly annoying effect somewhat reminiscent to pop-in seen when terrain geometries go from lower to higher detail in video games. It was particularly evident here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpwHaQnRSY#t=170

It would, I think, be even more distracting if the video was higher resolution.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I wonder how much of that is really an artifact of the lighting and (relatively) low resolution of the camera. Something shot with a better camera and lighting that reveals more terrain might give the algorithms something better to latch onto so the terrain models more cleanly.

GoPros can shoot in 4K, they're not a low resolution camera by any means.

I wonder if you could apply it to higher-quality (i.e. already pretty stable) input to approach a steadycam though?

I think a higher frame rate would help a lot. It's a higher sampling rate basically.

Stereo input from two cameras might help with constructing the 3D scene.

For hobbyists like me, it is amazing.

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