Blog · Dev update 03
irl dev update 03: as your camera sees it
We planned this one as “Featherweight: 11.11 seconds in about 100 KB”. Then we watched our own loops on our own phones, and they looked soft. So this update is about the camera: loops that look like what you saw, a faster way to make them, and new ways to play with the picture.
Original: the loop as your camera recorded it
A loop squeezed into a third of a megabyte can’t look like your camera. That’s about 0.2 megabits a second. The camera app on your phone records at roughly 10 to 17.
- Original is the new default for regular loops. Your phone records at the best size its camera gives, up to 1080×1920, with its own hardware video encoder, the same kind the camera app uses.
- Nothing is compressed a second time. The recording itself is sealed as the loop, so making it takes a fraction of a second after you stop.
- It’s bigger: about 4 to 14 MB for 11.11 seconds. It goes from your phone straight to our storage, and the server still checks every loop before anyone sees it.
- HD (up to 333 KB) and Data saver (about 100 KB) are still there, one tap away. A phone that asks to save data starts on Data saver.
- If a big upload fails, it tries once more, then offers to share the same loop at HD. Your loop is never lost.
- Picture and sound stay together. The sound now starts with the first picture, and a phone that can’t draw every 1080p frame in time skips a frame rather than falling behind the sound.
What we still need to learn: how every phone’s hardware encoder behaves, and how a 14 MB upload feels on mobile data. Tell us how it looks on yours.
Faster when it does compress
HD and Data saver loops are made two to seven times faster than last week. A busy 11-second clip went from 83 seconds to 15, and came out at a bigger size than before. The encoder now steers its bitrate every two seconds of video instead of making the whole loop again, gives up early on sizes that can’t fit, and measures quality while it encodes. You see real progress as it goes: “Encoding AV1… 45%”.
Play with the picture, in the camera
- GPS mode. Eleven glitch looks from glitchpixelstudio (MOSH, SORT, MENK, MOLN, UCNV, GYSN, ASEN, JODI, ARCN, PAIK and FENT), drawn live in the viewfinder and recorded into the loop. It’s the next pack: 50,000 $IRLING to unlock, free to preview.
- Pixel. A low-res camera with Colours (32-bit, 16-bit or 8-bit) and Pixels (Lo-res 180×320 or Chunky 90×160). You see the look while you frame. On playback every pixel is snapped back to its exact colour and drawn with hard edges, so it stays crisp at any size.
- Anon. Hides the person in the picture behind a pixel mask, adapted from Faraday, and keeps the background. The mask is applied on your phone before anything is kept. If it can’t load, the whole picture is covered. Sound starts off; you can choose a generated sound, a disguised voice, or your real voice, and we tell you a voice can say who you are. Your @name still shows on the loop.
- They stack: Anon first, then a GPS look, then Pixel.
- Flip the camera mid-recording, and choose your sound before you start: On, Off, or Generative, made from the picture.
No beauty filters
We used to say “no filters”. With glitch looks, pixels and effects, that isn’t quite true anymore, so we changed it everywhere, in all seven languages. irl.ing has no beauty filters: nothing smooths skin or reshapes faces. Every look and effect is labelled on the loop, wherever it plays.
Also since 02
- Video messages that feel like talking, as promised in 02: reply with a loop from inside the conversation and stay in the thread.
- Pixel feelings. Seven pixel reactions, including a heart. They move, and the most-tapped one moves the most, with small counts on loops in the feed.
- Categories you can search. If one doesn’t exist yet, start it. Subscribe to the ones you like. Nothing is ranked by an algorithm.
- irl Spots. Businesses can verify a real place, and loops can say they were made “irl at” it.
- Every phone plays every loop. Phones that can’t decode AV1 video now play it with a small WebAssembly decoder.
- Play counts on or off, your choice.
- A two-step safety check. A fast model screens every loop, and anything borderline goes to a stronger model or a person.
- The camera speaks seven languages, like the rest of the site.
- Sign out from the You sheet or your profile, and a soft glow on the one button that’s waiting for you.
What we’re building next
- A full camera. One settings panel for every camera in the app, with a clear Regular mode as the default, effects you can turn on and off while you record, and a timer, grid, torch, zoom and exposure where your phone supports them.
- Sign in with an email code, for people who don’t want to use a fingerprint or face. It’s built and switches on once our email sending is set up.
- Smoother 1080p playback on slower phones, by drawing frames straight from the video decoder on the graphics chip.
- Native speakers reviewing our seven languages.
Coming up in this series
- 04: Honest Zoom, sharper without making things up
- 05: Real people without ID checks
- 06: Featherweight, how Data saver fits 11.11 seconds in about 100 KB
Try it at irl.ing. Hold the red dot.