Views from Phanfare CEO and Co-founder Andrew Erlichson

Link New Phanfare release fixes some bugs

We did a quick release today that fixes some bugs in last week’s release:

  • Links pushed to facebook using the Phanfare Facebook app are fixed
  • Flash uploader now reads captions properly
  • Bug where Phanfare did not allow you to authenticate to multiple Phanfare sites simultaneously is fixed
  • Video from the 3Gs iPhone now converts properly. Note that we still have the rotation issue if you take video vertically, although we do support manual rotation of the video for proper display on the web.

Let us know if you see any other problems.

  • Brett
    The iPhone 3Gs video is not working well for me. The video seems to play OK (aside from the vertical issue), but there is no sound.
  • Sigh. Yes, audio seems to be broken again. This was the original problem we were having with iPhone videos. Ok, we are on it. sorry for the bugs!
  • mariohewardt
    Hi,

    I'm having the same problems with vertical and no sound. Is there an update on when this will be fixed?
  • There are still issues with iPhone videos. We thought we had it fixed
    but don't. We will likely need to use an entirely new method to
    transcode them and that will take some time, probably at least another
    two weeks. Sorry!
  • Mario Hewardt
    Hi,

    Are there any updates on the iPhone vide problems? Tried uploading yesterday again but it still having the same problems.
  • We are re-submitting a new version to apple that works with video to both upload it and sync it to the phone for offline use. We hope it is approved within weeks. Solving the conversion problems on the service is slated to be fixed by September.
  • Frank B.
    I've been a Palm Treo user for many years, and I recently upgraded the the new Palm Pre. I purchased an iPod Touch just to take advantage of the Photon features...loved showing off the slideshows! It would be awesome to have a similar app to use on the Palm Pre. Are there any plans for this?
  • We probably will not develop for the Pre until there is a critical mass of users out there. We need to see the platform get greater traction. There are far more blackberry users who would love Photon for the blackberry!
  • Jared Paul Haller
    I wouldn't say that video from the 3Gs iPhone now converts properly. I uploaded my videos again. This time the sound is working. But in solving that problem, you seemed to have introduced a new one. Now the videos are pixelated.
  • Can you post an example because the video I converted looks good. You can post an external link to an unpublished album on phanfare.
  • Jared Paul Haller
  • this is actually a social networking link and requires the viewer to be connected to you. where did you get the link?

    Anyway, I looked. The videos dont look great. Can you test one in landscape mode. I think this problem is limited to vertical shot videos. Also, these videos seem small. did you email them from the phone?
  • Jared Paul Haller
    Unfortunately, I cannot shoot any new video. The iPhone 3Gs and the account belong to my father. He is in France right now. He sent me the videos via e-mail, and I uploaded them to his Phanfare account using the Phanfare 2.0 desktop application and his username and password. I'm trying to get my father hooked on Phanfare so that he'll stop e-mailing me photos and videos. I'm a HUGE fan of Phanfare. I've been using Phanfare for a couple years. In fact, I bought the life-time membership when it was still available.
  • where did you get that link in the client?

    I think I got to the bottom of the video issue. Both horizontal and vertical video at full size converts fine from the iPhone. If you email a video, the phone converts the video to a smaller size. For a horizontal video, we still convert it fine. But for vertical video that has been re-encoded to be small by the phone, we have a problem converting the video.

    My understanding from engineering is that the metadata is not correct on a downsampled video from the phone, so we will probably have to do something hacky to fix, or wait for a new version of the apple firmware that fixes.

    However, you really don't want downsampled video anyway, so this is a minor issue.

    To get the full size video, use Image Capture (on a mac) to download the video to your computer and upload it to Phanfare. Or wait for the version of Phanfare Photon that can import video directly and wirelessly upload it to Phanfare. That should be out within a month.

    By the way, in our defense, we had no advance knowledge of the codecs that Apple was going to use on the rumored 3Gs phone. Hence, we had to scramble to make this work, and I think the fact that it works at all within two weeks of the phone's release is a huge accomplishment by our engineering team.

    Last thought: The high line park that you took video of is amazing. I definitely want to visit that park. I have been following that project for years.
  • Jared Paul Haller
    Where did I get that link? I was logged in as me online. I went to the page where users can manage friends and family and clicked on the link to "View Albums" next to my father's profile photo. From there I simply clicked on the album with pictures and videos from High Line Park.

    Thank you for looking into this for me. I'll pass all of this information on to my father. I know your engineering team did an amazing job in a short period of time. As I said, I love Phanfare. I just wanted it to work with the new iPhone 3Gs so that my father would love it too. I think it will work, but it looks like he will have to learn to handle it himself (since I won't be able to do it remotely).

    Thanks again!
  • videos shot in vertical format and emailed from the phone should convert properly now.
  • Jared Paul Haller
    I saw the tweet yesterday. That's wonderful. Thank you!
  • Unchecking the 'All album Sections' option under 'Download Album' after selecting an album section results in a zip file with all album sections, not the desired section. Tested 1 PM EDT 6/30/09.
  • We will investigate.
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