There is the option to upload the video to an external repository, and then place a link to it in the description. For the few times that a full video vs GIF would help, I think this option is best. At least until iNat’s resourcing and development is at a point where they naturally look to extending to video support
Allowing 10 to 15 second videos would be excellent. When taking photos of plants with the phone the number of times I have had birds start to call, and having to go and find the recording device, and then find the app, start the app. Or abandon an entry to try and get a recording. Switching mode in camera is quick and easy. Interrupting an observation is painful.
Also there are camera traps and security devices that take short videos, so they are primed and ready to go with no work. Twitter does a great job of allowing sections of videos to be uploaded.
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My birdbath cam takes great short images of visitors. I can also use it remotely to record sound/image, so would be great for uploads without having to do any extra processing.
https://twitter.com/kerritbareetcam
Those were great snippets of bird behavior - and such gorgeous birds!
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the point is to add a video option just like how you add a photo or audio. it shouldn’t be this difficult especially for how big Inat is getting.
sound calls are not videos. We need videos
its time to add video observations. its taking too long.
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Continual growth might actually make it more difficult because it raises our infrastructure costs and we need to update our database and other functionality to deal with the growth. This is not to say we don’t want more people to use iNat - we do! - but as iNaturalist doesn’t charge fees for use, nor do we sell our users’ personal information, I want to be clear that growth in use is not necessarily coupled with growth in income.
Adding the infrastructure to upload, play, and store video files, plus the user interface and design work for it, is a pretty heavy lift, and as mentioned above it’s something we want to do (I voted for this request) but we’re limited by resources, or lack thereof. In the meantime, there are workarounds involving other sites like Vimeo, YouTube, Google Photos, DropBox, etc, where you can upload videos for free and link to those in your observation (eg this observation of mine).
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(we/us pronouns) If there was a storage (MB) limit per observation with the ability to use any and all media (including video), we would have lots of dynamic options. We think a short video (3 seconds) would be ideal for our footage of Flying Squirrels. Still photos from the video seem very, very poor. But the motion might be enough for an ID. We tried to download the recommended GIF maker from one of the forums, but it was too technically challenging for us to figure out, whereas shortening a video to a few seconds is something we can accomplish. Thanks.
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i think inat staff knows you eventually have to make the move to invest in the video options eventually. I am just sick of getting great video (like today when i got an osprey doing a dive bomb on a fish) and not being able to upload it so i just put it on youtube instead. thanks for the conversation tim, appriciate your work.
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