I know the design was probably optimized for each video to load really fast (and also they don't want to serve a TON of bandwidth and use up a lot of storage space), but if we assume that many of these park videos were recorded on current gen phones at 2160p30 or 2160p60, it looks like the videos are being significantly downscaled in resolution and bitrate. Even compared to what Youtube does to a high bitrate 4K phone video when it gets re-encoded to sub 25 Mbps bitrate. Something like a "1 minute 4K park" as a toggle option?
Admittedly I've spent far too much time recently staring at AV1 test encodes, and optimizing things... Not really a complaint but just an observation that the design of the site is clearly for speed and quickly playing html5/webrtc video (it sure looks like H264 to me).
For many years, long ago, I did a similar project called One Minute Vacations, archived here: https://www.quietamerican.org/vacation_1.html
There are about five years' worth, organized by year; little album covers function as tabs of a sort.
Quite relaxing.
My one feedback would be to show me an example of a few images where there is activity without one dominating element
When you click on "contribute a park" there are some kind of examples: https://www.are.na/elliott-cost/one-minute-park
Very nice, shows different parks for 1 minute
I know the design was probably optimized for each video to load really fast (and also they don't want to serve a TON of bandwidth and use up a lot of storage space), but if we assume that many of these park videos were recorded on current gen phones at 2160p30 or 2160p60, it looks like the videos are being significantly downscaled in resolution and bitrate. Even compared to what Youtube does to a high bitrate 4K phone video when it gets re-encoded to sub 25 Mbps bitrate. Something like a "1 minute 4K park" as a toggle option?
Looks fine here at 1728x1117. Unless you're using VR goggles, how much resolution do you need for a park?
Seems like a pro-touch-grass web site. Worrying about the encoding and how it compares to YouTube seems like the opposite of its purpose.
Admittedly I've spent far too much time recently staring at AV1 test encodes, and optimizing things... Not really a complaint but just an observation that the design of the site is clearly for speed and quickly playing html5/webrtc video (it sure looks like H264 to me).