iOS LivePhotos Implementation

[frozen junco]

Hi Guys,

I am working on the iOS LivePhotos implementation and currently working on displaying the motion aspect on the web. What do you think about hovering on a LivePhotos image and have the motion part play, similar to playing the video on hovered on the timeline. I can see this can be a little annoying for some people

Another path we can take is to have the same interface as Google Photos to have a play button in the detail asset viewer that would play the motion part

What are you thoughts?

[cobalt bronze]

I like the automatic play when you hover over the asset imo

[junior pond]

same here

[mellow charm]

Is there a performance hit having the hover to play option?

[frozen junco]

No, there isn't

[junior pond]

I'm seeing iOS in the PR as well, does that mean Android LivePhotos are not part of it yet?

[frozen junco]

I think it is related to the Samsung's specific technology

I am not sure I know about the LivePhotos as a general technology of Android

[junior pond]

any phone with Google's Camera have this technology as well

(meaning Pixels and users using a GCam port, which is quite popular)

[mellow charm]

In which case I think hovering to play would be my preference. Perhaps with a 500-1000ms delay or something

[frozen junco]

Delay is a nice idea

[mellow charm]

Nothing too long as you don’t want to risk the app feeling sluggish at all, but something at least

[warm rain]

I say there should be a setting to turn auto play off and require them to press play button. Just in case they’re trying to save some cpu cycles on a weaker host machine.

[novel cave]

I hate having to click a play button

So +1 for the hover to play

Maybe have it be like YouTube.com, where on the home page, when you roll over a video, it starts playing a preview. Except for immich, the “preview” would just be the whole Live Photo

[frozen junco]

On the timeline it would auto play, in the detail viewer you can click on the button

[novel cave]

Oh thats super slick

[gaunt nimbus]

@frozen junco can you copy Apple Photos' behavior? It shows as a photo, but there is a [live] button where you press and hold to "play" the live photo. Otherwise it shows as a picture

[frozen junco]

Yep same here

[frozen junco]

Do you mean this feature on the timeline?

[gaunt nimbus]

Yes

[cobalt bronze]

its beautiful 🥹

ty Alex

literally doing God's work out here

[mellow charm]

That's a point actually, I think they might do it by hovering over the live photos icon at the top left (or right) of the thumbnail, if that makes sense?

So hovering over the photo thumbnail itself doesn't autoplay, but hovering over the icon at the corner of the thumbnail does. Might be a good compromise of the two options

[swift sparrow]

How does this affect already exiting and backed up Live Photo’s

[frozen junco]

You have to re-upload them

because the previous version doesn't have the mechanism to upload the motion part of the LivePhoto asset

[swift sparrow]

Okay and we currently don’t have a way to know which photos are actually live ones

[frozen junco]

Correct

with this implementation, we will know

[swift sparrow]

That’s gonna hurt 🤕

[frozen junco]

Yep, this is anticipated though

[swift sparrow]

Yeah it’s a one time effort

[frozen junco]

I like this suggestion

[tiny gust]

Sounds good to me, maybe include an option in settings to disable it for those who do not like it

[frozen junco]

The implementation is done, waiting for review to merge and will be available in the next release https://github.com/immich-app/immich/pull/950

[runic mural]

@frozen junco current version of immich is not backing up live photos or just not showing them on the frontend?

If they're not being backed up, is this new release going to back it or do we need to re-sync the library?

[frozen junco]

Correct, the upcoming release will have this mechanism, you will have to reupload them

[runic mural]

nice! then I don't have to delete my library, thanks!

[frozen junco]

I am afraid you will have to reupload them for getting the Live portion of LivePhotos

[runic mural]

Ahh ok! Then I will wait until this is released so I can re build the library!

[radiant pollen]

how would rebuilding the library work?

[frozen junco]

By creating a new instance

[radiant pollen]

how would I import my old library into the new library without duplicates?

I would assume the step will be,

1. create new immich instance
2. login with iphone and upload all photos to immich
3. use CLI to upload the images that does not exist on the phone anymore to immich?

[frozen junco]

The file that you uploaded to Immich prior to the LivePhotos implementation doesn't have the "motion" part

so even if you reuploaded them to Immich with the CLI now, the motion part will be missing still

[radiant pollen]

yes, I understand that part, so I would need to start new immich and upload those images again, but how would I get the old images that are already deleted off the phone?

[frozen junco]

Unfortunately those will not have the Motion part

[radiant pollen]

I understand, and that is totally fine, but since this is a new instance of immich, how would I import the images from the old immich instance back into the new instance without creating potential duplicates?

[frozen junco]

Ah I see

I think the best way is backup what you have on your phone first

then use the CLI to upload the rest from the old instance

so that if there is any duplication, it will be rejected

[radiant pollen]

fantastic, that was the steps I outlined above I think?

[frozen junco]

Yes

Sorry I misundestood

[radiant pollen]

so it wont upload the one without motion photo again

resulting in duplicated photos

[frozen junco]

Yes, if the one without motion is duplicated, it will be rejected

[radiant pollen]

fantastic, good to know!

thanks for the great work!

[frozen junco]

the motion part and the still part have their own hash so it can be detected if duplicated