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Level 2

351 points

BEWARE: iCloud Photo Library COMPRESSES your video. Not 1:1 copies.

iOS 8.1. iPhone 6. MacBook Pro Yosemite 'Retail'.

I remember reading somewhere (and possibly hearing during a keynote) that iCloud Photo Library stores full fat video from your iPhone, that being 1080p 60fps. Basically 1:1 copy of whatever is recorded.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE

My 1080p 60fps videos are reduced to 720p 30fps on the iCloud Photo Library website on my mac. They looks like garbage compared to the originals. If I select to download, I get the 720p version. This happens if the phone is set to either 'Optimize iPhone Storage' or 'Download and Keep Originals'.

I haven't tested photos yet to see if they are 1:1 copies, but definitely staying away for now. Granted, it's BETA. But why say it does one thing when it clearly does another?

If this is the intended behavior, then it's a pretty big fail in my opinion. I get that it would take more storage space for 1:1 copies, but that's MY CHOICE to pay for it.

What's really stupid, is iCloud is ALREADY uploading 1:1 copies of everything anyway, during iCloud backup, so clearly it's capable.

Frustrated. I've been looking forward to trying this out too.

Posted on Oct 20, 2014 5:09 PM

Best reply

Mark Paterson Author

Level 2

351 points

Posted on Oct 20, 2014 5:24 PM

Full resolution photo and video falsely reported in this article too. The comments section disagrees and confirms my own tests, downsampling of video AND PHOTOS…

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/131422-apple-icloud-photo-library-in-beta-explai ned-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work

For example…

Wayne1212

"The author is mistaken. The photo version saved on iCloud is not the original high resolution image. If you download that image from the web (beta.icloud.com) you get a reduced image size (resolution). It doesn't matter which option you use on the iPhone the iCloud version is not the full resolution taken with the iphone. Just installed the iOS 8.1 update and tested. You lose big if you think Apple is backing up your photo in full fidelity. Maybe this will change once it's out of beta, I have no idea. Test for yourself, take a photo, email to yourself at "Actual Size" and then go to iCloud and download that image. It will be about half the size and resolution that you just email'ed to yourself."

JoshuaDotson

"I agree. 1080p@60fps was getting converted to 720p@30fps. That's no good."

View in context

24 replies

Mark Paterson Author

Level 2

351 points

Oct 21, 2014 2:01 PM in response to rarmellini

I'm guessing it first uploads all the 1:1 original photos and videos, then has to either…

(A) convert the photos and re-encode all the video to optimized versions right on the phone itself

or (more likely)

(B) download optimized versions of the media from iCloud.com

Either way, I would assume it would take a while before you'll see a change in iPhone storage space. How long have you left it on that setting for?

Oct 21, 2014 2:11 PM in response to Mark Paterson

I have left it sitting there the entire night. I noticed that my battery was almost completely drained over night, and I left it off the charger since the status of the IPL was "Updated" and I thought that it had already done his job. However, it looks like is was still doing something and I interrupted it when I left home. At work I don't connect it to the WiFi network, and now the IPL status is stuck at "Updating...". I am hoping you are right and it's still working on the optimization thing.

dbanon

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2014 4:13 AM in response to Mark Paterson

Thanks for the test on the iPad!

TonyB99

Level 1

43 points

Oct 25, 2014 7:49 AM in response to dbanon

I think I will stick to uploading my photos to Dropbox. I found iCloud Photo Library reduced the resolution of the photos when I downloaded them to my Mac (It appears there may be a way around that in the future). However I cannot delete the photos from my phone to make room for more without them also being deleted from the iCloud Photo library, which is the major fail for me.

dbanon

Level 1

0 points

Oct 31, 2014 10:35 AM in response to Mark Paterson

I think it's OK now. I took a picture today with my iPhone, and when I download it on icloud.com, the size is the same as on my iPhone!

It's OK for videos and older pictures too.

Great news!

Jun 11, 2015 6:11 AM in response to Mark Paterson

I can't figure this out. The full file size of a picture on my iPhone, taken with iPhone, is 6.4MB. If I download the version that is in iCloud, or copy over the version that is in the Photo's app on my mac, it is 3MB or even smaller! I tried exporting the original, but still 3MB. I'm scared that the files in iCloud are indeed around 50% compressed over the originals on the phone.

Seperatly, trying to get the full picture off the phone is not easy either. Airdrop reduces it. MacMail of course reduces due to their refusal to treat pics as attached files. Text reduces. Only way I found is to use my Yahoo Mail app to email it to myself, then I get the full 6.4MB.

Anybody know what I'm doing wrong, or if I (we) are just SOL?

Jul 1, 2015 11:40 PM in response to Mark Paterson

My reply here is not related to iCloud, but rather to a local workflow where you simply Import into the Photos Library, then want to save with no changes back to a file. At first it was vexing me why all of the copies I made of 1080p videos by simply dragging videos to my Desktop or into a folder were being reduced to 720p.

“Import” will stored the videos in the original resolution in the Photos Library (1920x1080p in my case coming from an iPad Air). But then how do you get them out? It turns out that there is a “File > Export > Export Unmodified Original” menu item for this purposes. You can also use “File > Export > Export N Originals” if N videos are selected (N≥1), and then select a common format that they should all be converted to. This could be useful if your video editor of choice can’t handle source videos in different formats.

My workflow doesn’t include iCloud; and frankly I don’t want to ever use it. But perhaps there are some nuggets in the observations that I have made which will help others dealing with iCloud or Dropbox conversion issues.

[I upgraded this morning to OS X Yosemite 10.10.4, and am using Photos 1.0.1 with an iPad Air 128GB running iOS 8.3.]

Jul 6, 2015 12:55 PM in response to Bert Sierra

My results show that iCloud Photo Library IS compressing photos&videos...or it is not uploading all of my content. See these screenshots.

The size of my Photos Library is 77.2 GB, but below the size of my iCloud Library according to System Preferences is only 34.45 GB.

Jan 24, 2016 1:23 AM in response to Riceman67

Hello,

As iCloud Photo Library exists for some time now, I have two questions before I decide to enable it:

1. Is iCloud Photo Library copies photos and videos with the same quality as originals or conpresses it? When I record a 4K movie with iPhone 6S will I be able to download original quality video from iCloud Photo Library after some time or not?

2. How the space on devices is managed? Will I get message saying about lack of storage often or not? let's say iCloud Photo Library fills my iPhone's memroy and one day I want to download big game. Will iPhone free storage in the background or I get the message that I need to do it manually?

BEWARE: iCloud Photo Library COMPRESSES your video. Not 1:1 copies.