The website http://astronaut.io/ does a similar thing but for recent videos, and not just from iPhones. From the home page:
> These videos come from YouTube. They were uploaded in the last week and have titles like DSC 1234 and IMG 4321. They have almost zero previous views. They are unnamed, unedited, and unseen (by anyone but you).
At one point you might be at a school recital in Malaysia, and the next minute you are at a birthday in Ecuador. It's amazing!
Hey, OP here! This is my first ever HN post- I appreciate the warm reception.
A couple hours after posting this on my site, I found this incredible vid of a woman telling her partner she’s pregnant. Incredibly heartfelt, and only 16 views https://youtu.be/refKFdcojlE?si=l-PssLVYmmOPjjjA
It was posted over 10 years ago. I wonder if the family even knows that this video still exists.
/r/DeepIntoYouTube addict here. There are a lot of patterns like this you can use to find bizarre YouTube videos with next to no views, based upon the default numbering scheme of various cameras. Just one example: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=MVI_7812.MOV .. and yes, you can rattle through thousands of numbers for just that one.
I love the rawness of this. I've noticed I tend towards a feeling of everyone else in the world being so alien, living some totally different incomprehensible life from mine. (Or more than I'm the alien, and everyone else is living a normal, enviable life.) Seeing little snapshots like these, most of them seemingly just for memory's sake, makes me feel a little more human. Hard to get on any social media, where there's also some curation going on.
Twitter used to have an app, Periscope. You could start a livestream any time, anywhere. And viewers could fine live streams on a world map.
For a few months, it was possible to feel the incredible simultaneity and richness of human lives. Someone biking, another person cooking. Day in one place, night in another place.
It was ahead of its time. And too expensive for Twitter to keep running for too long. But it was a precursor to today's Snapschat's map view and Instagram live streams.
> YouTube automatically removes harmful or violent content, so what remains exists in a unique, almost paradoxical state: forbidden, yet harmless.
What exactly is forbidden, by who? I don't get the use of that word there.
Also, anyone who doesn't know the "before" and "after" search operators is missing out on some excellent nostalgia-trawling similar to what is described here.
"cat before:2007" -> 2005 to 2007, the OG cat videos
"skateboard before:2010" -> yes
"assange interview before:2016" -> then filter for longer videos
"parkour after:2009 before:2015" -> parkour videos from 2009 to 2015
From my notes. Maybe it's useful to someone. Not comprehensive as there are other brands and other iterations I'm sure. Many dpreview.com sample galleries show original filenames. Some forums list filenames, youtube descriptions can list model names, pdf manuals and manufacturer websites sometimes list the names. There isn't really a good list of these that I know of.
Very heartwarming. I have an "android named" video uploaded to YouTube a few years ago, and because there is copyrighted background music going on (which I didn't realize at the time) YouTube is threatening to delete it. I don't know if they will or not, not sure when they put the "will delete" tag on it.
My late wife is in it. She died recently. I didn't know that video was still up there until I read your post. And now my heart breaks.
This reminds me of something I've been thinking a lot about. which i think is big techs greatest failure: interoperability
I first thought of this when seeing someone take a picture of their computer screen. There is just so much friction in moving data.
I should be able to take anything off any screen and move the source material to any other screen on any device or cloud with a simple 1-click process. Including the devices of a friend or family member.
Microsoft forced OEM's to replace the right ctrl key with a copilot key. really it should have been an 'interoperability' key.
In about 2007 or so my brother and I used to find super obscure blogs with no comments, read them and then write detailed responses to the author and share it with our friends. We always kept it positive, and said encouraging things. Most of the time the posts had been written in the 90s or early 2000s. We just did it knowing that probably one or two people would get notified of a new comment and maybe feel happy that someone read their post.
This reminds me the trick to make recent text-to-image model generate highly realistic (but amateur) photos by adding "IMG_XXXX" into the prompt. Although these videos have nearly zero views on YouTube, they may be part of the training data behind these models.
I understand that these videos were made public, but still this kinda feels like violating people’s privacy. They most likely never intended for us all to watch their personal videos a decade later.
this is what youtube and reddit was like during 2011. it was calm, serene, accepting, warm, human. it was just this perfect mixture of user friendliness, people knowing how to type and use computers and just before the internet was taken seriously by anyone and corrupted by money. before social media became a serious political consideration. i remember very clearly that even at the time it felt too good to be true. these videos capture that feeling pretty well. it was all unfiltered and it made you feel like you were connected to the world. like you had your finger on the pulse of the world. or like the entire world was inside your computer. really warm fuzzy vibes. i still miss that. but now i am too busy to spend so much time on the computer anyway.
Oh man this is so great: I’ve been having a shitty day and I’ve been smiling from ear to ear since about the second paragraph of this post. When no one is trying to actively distort the Internet for monetization it’s every bit as magical as it was in September of 1994 and I remember why I took this up as a trade.
Ah, this is where this comes from. There has been rumours flying around in Stable Diffusion / Flux circles that you would get much more realistic pictures when you include a photo id like IMG_0416.
Excellent read, OP! I really enjoyed this, especially being your very first post here. I hope to see more posts from you in the future.
I didn't know this feature existed back in the days, and you just cannot ignore the haptic feedback feeling when you watch original, unedited content from random people who were filming not for the sake of publishing to the mass but just for themselves and friends/family to keep these records as memories. This reminds me of the pre-smartphone era where people used to own handheld, personal cameras to capture special moments of their lives as souvenirs.
Also, regarding these "IMG_XXX" videos, one notable pattern is that they all have very low number views, for an obvious reason. The odd one to this pattern is this pregnancy video, which had the number of views jumped from 16 in ten years to to 1,650 in 10 hours. Also, checking the comments' section, they are all new, with the first (oldest) one being posted 9 hours ago.
This makes me hopeful, the internet can still be interesting when we manage to break away from the attention trap of infinite feed and the prepared content designed to optimize likes. Feels like the raw homepages of a long time ago.
Used to have a raspberry pi + small hdmi screen on a shelf, and it would randomly play these raw uploads 24/7, new video every 2 minutes. It was fun to encounter random home movies all day. Very hard to maintain due to use of YouTube-dl, plus legacy search API that I was eventually kicked off of after unsuccessfully arguing for my continued use as an art project. My version searched for 4-5 different camera prefixes including IMG_. Would be fun to remake the backend with a headless browser framework + YouTube-dl.
This is genuinely amazing. The complete lack of editing. And strangely some of the videos were allowed to have copyrighted content in the background (meaning ContentID wasn't live or hasn't been retroactively applied) really sells the scene. Like, the last one has Taio Cruz's Dynamite playing in the background. Amazing. The Ea-Nasir Tablet of our time.
Reading half way through the post, I thought what the author going to do was to analyze the distribution of numbers in the filename, and, I don't know, maybe give an estimation about how often people take photos or videos, based on the time, country, etc. That would be an interesting study.
Surprised that nobody is talking about the other obscure file name "Webcam video from" that was attached to untitled videos made in the webcam recorder that used to be built into the site.
Tangent, but I miss that iPhone era. I remember holding an iPhone for the first time. Someone showed me a map app (maybe Google Maps) and it took me a second to realize I was looking at a map of where I was, and remember thinking "how does it know?", and just being so mesmerized by it.
There were a time when you could had a 8" tablet on Win8 with People app having a feed from Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin and something else too (Twitter?)
In a mere months it was gutted on every side and Windows tablets (rspecially 8" favour) gone the way of DoDo
Videos are so big and cloud storage for it pretty expensive. since nothing I film is nuclear launch codes, I just upload it all to youtube as a way to store it for free.
Also gives me a handy sharing link for sending to friends too.
Some time ago there was a website that showed you a random YouTube video. Like truly random. The biggest discovery to me was that a typical video has 0-1 views, nearly always <10. I bet most people don't realize this is how YouTube actually looks like. And I guess it's also a good small reminder to all people trying to become famous on social media.
I believe the website tried to find videos with least bias possible by doing some clever searches using YouTube API (so not just videos titled IMGXXXX). Maybe it was trying to do partial matches on video ID.
It’s sad that only Google can (and honestly a bit surprising that Google hasn’t) use multimodal video models to index the semantic contents & transcripts of these videos for search. Huge long tail of unique content.
> However, this two-click upload feature was short-lived when Apple severed ties Apple severed ties with YouTube by removing its homegrown app in 2012.
I'm so glad these videos are still on there. As much as I consume youtube now, this brings back memories of when it was literally "YOUtube". Truly a glorious time!
I'd love a tech write up from the YouTube folks starting from when someone was wondering "Why is all this data waking up from the lukewarm storage layer today lmao" opens HN "ah ok"
Not sure what triggered it, but I began odd searches a while ago and want to echo many of the "feels like the good old days" type comments.
Video made without any real production intent is compelling. It is pure, raw, just human and many of us hunger for that because the big media players dominate hard for fear of losing to their peers it seems.
You used to be able to do something similar (probably still can) by using common URL patterns for insecure/unauthenticated security camera feeds. You could even use google to find them! I loved the late 00's/early 10's web.
Watching these videos made me sad. It's a stark reminder that the old internet I grew up with is over. And I'm not even that old. I miss the candid content, from when people just uploaded whatever they felt like without incentive. YouTube is an industrial clickbait farm now. Social media is driving people apart and turning them into narcissists.
>Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app.
A feature Nokia with Android One used to have too, but Android itself doesn't have.
I am missing the link to the thread, but diffusion models also give a very consistent output when prompted with `IMG_{number}` part of the reason could be the training data distribution
Other/older digital cameras used similar sequences of letters and numbers like DSC_0001 and a few more I can't remember atm. It might be fun to search for those too.
I personally don't have a problem with this, but this really made me feel like I don't understand the community of this forum sometimes. HN every day has multiple posts which drive so many comments about how privacy is lost and everything needs full E2EE, trust no one, etc. Then there is this post which is also a breach of privacy (much more than some things complain about), and yet the reaction is "wow, this is so pure and amazing to view into these candid moments". It feels like some cognitive dissonance. Still, personally I thought this was a cool post.
Lots of digital cameras use an incrementing number in the filename. If you ignore the prefix part, I wonder what is the most commonly uploaded filename number for photos and videos?
A little bit tangent, and I'm definitely looking at it from rose colored glasses... but been playing with it for the 30 minutes, and most of the videos look so real? Like when you go on TikTok / Instagram nowadays, there are obviously unlimited amount of content. But there's this sense of everything being edited multiple times, people trying to create their own "brand", nothing looking real. It's a shame how we over-financialized everything and sucked out the fun. Or maybe I just got old.
Side note, I'll also recommend people to look up "X city in 1990s / 2000s" on YouTube. San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, London and etc. have cool slice of life content from people who were very into camcorders.
IMG_0416
(ben-mini.github.io)2240 points by bewal416 10 November 2024 | 321 comments
Comments
> These videos come from YouTube. They were uploaded in the last week and have titles like DSC 1234 and IMG 4321. They have almost zero previous views. They are unnamed, unedited, and unseen (by anyone but you).
At one point you might be at a school recital in Malaysia, and the next minute you are at a birthday in Ecuador. It's amazing!
A couple hours after posting this on my site, I found this incredible vid of a woman telling her partner she’s pregnant. Incredibly heartfelt, and only 16 views https://youtu.be/refKFdcojlE?si=l-PssLVYmmOPjjjA
It was posted over 10 years ago. I wonder if the family even knows that this video still exists.
For a few months, it was possible to feel the incredible simultaneity and richness of human lives. Someone biking, another person cooking. Day in one place, night in another place.
It was ahead of its time. And too expensive for Twitter to keep running for too long. But it was a precursor to today's Snapschat's map view and Instagram live streams.
What exactly is forbidden, by who? I don't get the use of that word there.
Also, anyone who doesn't know the "before" and "after" search operators is missing out on some excellent nostalgia-trawling similar to what is described here.
My late wife is in it. She died recently. I didn't know that video was still up there until I read your post. And now my heart breaks.
I first thought of this when seeing someone take a picture of their computer screen. There is just so much friction in moving data.
I should be able to take anything off any screen and move the source material to any other screen on any device or cloud with a simple 1-click process. Including the devices of a friend or family member.
Microsoft forced OEM's to replace the right ctrl key with a copilot key. really it should have been an 'interoperability' key.
For what it's worth, Apple are just conforming to the JEITA/CIPA DCF standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_rule_for_Camera_File_sy...
“DCF file names” specification sez… http://www.kronometric.org/phot/std/DC-009-2010_E.pdf#page=2...
“File names conforming to the following rules are called DCF file names.
• The file name is 8 characters (not including the file extension).
• The first four characters consist only of the upper-case alphanumeric characters shown in Table 1
• These are referred to as the DCF file name Free characters. They shall not contain two-byte characters or special codes.
• The four characters that follow are a number between "0001" and "9999". "0000" shall not be used. These four digits are referred to as File number.
• Files with the same file number stored in the same DCF directory are considered to be object component files as defined in 4.3.2.”
Good job on putting this #1 HN.
I didn't know this feature existed back in the days, and you just cannot ignore the haptic feedback feeling when you watch original, unedited content from random people who were filming not for the sake of publishing to the mass but just for themselves and friends/family to keep these records as memories. This reminds me of the pre-smartphone era where people used to own handheld, personal cameras to capture special moments of their lives as souvenirs.
Also, regarding these "IMG_XXX" videos, one notable pattern is that they all have very low number views, for an obvious reason. The odd one to this pattern is this pregnancy video, which had the number of views jumped from 16 in ten years to to 1,650 in 10 hours. Also, checking the comments' section, they are all new, with the first (oldest) one being posted 9 hours ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DCFCQ9GYUY
By coincidence this is one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands.
https://old.reddit.com/r/IMGXXXX/
And Angry Birds.
In a mere months it was gutted on every side and Windows tablets (rspecially 8" favour) gone the way of DoDo
What I'm gathering from the comments here is that these videos excite faculties of man that are less carnal than the other examples.
Be that as it may.
Videos are so big and cloud storage for it pretty expensive. since nothing I film is nuclear launch codes, I just upload it all to youtube as a way to store it for free.
Also gives me a handy sharing link for sending to friends too.
I believe the website tried to find videos with least bias possible by doing some clever searches using YouTube API (so not just videos titled IMGXXXX). Maybe it was trying to do partial matches on video ID.
"Apple severed ties" repeats.
https://youtu.be/pLJ85XExZtQ?si=75ZykQeUjgItcpDM
Not sure what triggered it, but I began odd searches a while ago and want to echo many of the "feels like the good old days" type comments.
Video made without any real production intent is compelling. It is pure, raw, just human and many of us hunger for that because the big media players dominate hard for fear of losing to their peers it seems.
And that behavior is expensive to us.
What a bizarre and obviously false claim to make for no reason in the middle of the article
A feature Nokia with Android One used to have too, but Android itself doesn't have.
Thanks for the article
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOSWZduStYs
“THE CULT- SHE SELLS SANCTUARY- LIVE DETROIT 2010”
Pretty great.
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”
Proceeds to feature two videos from 2015.
Side note, I'll also recommend people to look up "X city in 1990s / 2000s" on YouTube. San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, London and etc. have cool slice of life content from people who were very into camcorders.