This is a follow-up to my post on still photo quality called Google Maps PHOTO Quality Test Results.
Years back a few simple tests made me believe that the video quality on Google Maps was inferior, and that vertical videos (tall format) survive the video compression better than horizontal videos (wide format). Was I ever wrong? Indeed!
If you read my post on still photo quality, you’ll know that the Photo servers don’t degrade the files when they’re stored. All of the issues stem from the photos being compressed as they are requested for display. This turns out to be true for videos as well. Here’s how I discovered it:
Videos are saved in high res
After much research and testing, I came to the conclusion that there is no way to trick Desktop Google Maps into showing us the videos in high resolution. I then went to Google Takeout. You can specify which data on Google’s servers you want a copy of here. It will compress all of your contributions into a single large zip file and notify you when they are ready for download. I ordered my Maps data only to discover that it was 31.56 GB in size. This is divided into 16 files, each containing 2 GB of data. My internet connection isn’t all that great!
I then went to one of my secondary Google accounts that had no Maps contributions (easy now: the secondary account is not enrolled in the Local Guides Program!). I decided to use this 5-sec video for the test. I realized that I no longer have the uncompressed file, but in Google Photos I have this copy which is 5.9 MB. Please wait for the video to fully load before comparing the quality from Google Maps and Google Photos.
Then I used Google Takeout to retrieve the file from Google Maps. And, to my surprise, the file size remained at 5.9 MB. Horray!
This is how I reached the conclusion, that videos are not degraded as they are stored by Google Maps, but only when the videos are requested for display. Just as is the case for still photos.
Perhaps one of the readers would be willing to repeat this test with larger files to see if really large files are compressed as they are stored on Google Maps.
Testing video quality on Maps
For this test, I went to Copenhagen’s historic military fortress, Kastellet, and shot two short videos. One 360-degree pan from the fortification’s top shows views of Copenhagen harbor beginning and ending at an old cannon. The second video shows some red buildings and reveals a yellow building inside the fortress. I created two versions of each video, one horizontal and one in portrait orientation. The goal was to validate my old (now debunked) theory that tall videos are superior to wide videos. So this test includes a total of four videos.
Please forgive me, but it was a rainy day, and I made no changes to the video files taken with my Huawei P3+ Pro cameraphone. Here is the data on the original files:
Original videos directly from the camera |
Length Sec |
W x H pixels |
File size MB |
Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cannon wide |
0:27 |
1920 x 1080 |
48.72 |
See the original file |
Cannon tall |
0:29 |
1080 x 1920 |
56.59 |
See the original file |
Red and yellow buildings wide |
0:16 |
1920 x 1080 |
31.39 |
See the original file |
Red and yellow buildings tall |
0:17 |
1080 x 1920 |
30.39 |
See the original file |
On a PC I then downloaded a chrome extension that allows the capture of videos shown on the screen. The files produced are listed below.
Videos downloaded from Google Maps |
Length Sec |
W x H pixels |
File size MB |
Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cannon wide |
0:27 |
640 x 350 |
1.64 |
See the downloaded file |
Cannon tall |
0:29 |
350 x 640 |
1.75 |
See the downloaded file |
Red and yellow buildings wide |
0:16 |
640 x 350 |
1.02 |
See the downloaded file |
Red and yellow buildings tall |
0:17 |
350 x 640 |
1:03 |
See the downloaded file |
I must admit that the size and quality of these files are not necessarily what Google Maps is capable of displaying and displayed on my PC. The capture software could easily have played a role as well. However, based on my observations of the videos on Google Maps, I believe that the majority of the degradation is due to Google Maps rather than the capture software.
To compare the compression and quality loss, I also uploaded the original videos to Google Photos. I used Storage Save mode. Here are the results:
Videos downloaded from Google Photos |
Length Sec |
W x H pixels |
File size MB |
Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cannon wide |
0:27 |
1920 x 1080 |
2.1 |
See on Google Photos |
Cannon tall |
0:29 |
1080 x 1920 |
2.1 |
See on Google Photos |
Red and yellow buildings wide |
0:16 |
1920 x 1080 |
2.1 |
See on Google Photos |
Red and yellow buildings tall |
0:17 |
1080 x 1920 |
2.1 |
See on Google Photos |
Update March 31th 2023:
The above-mentioned file sizes of files downloaded from Google Photos changed dramatically after a few more weeks. This could be due to Google making the final compression at a later date, so the 2.1 MB files were just temporary preview files (or maybe I made a mistake).
These are the new filesizes:
Cannon wide: 32.5 MB
Cannon tall: 34.1 MB
Red and yellow buildings wide: 17.4 MB
Red and yellow buildings tall: 16.6 MB
The table below has been updated based on this finding (5% was changed to 60%).
Here are the results after seeing the larger Google Photo files:
Calculated reductions |
Google Maps |
Google Photos |
|---|---|---|
Video length |
No reduction |
No reduction |
File size |
Reduced to 2.7% |
Reduced to 60% |
# of pixels |
Reduced to 10.8% |
No reduction |
Conclusions
It’s no surprise that the videos displayed on Google Maps can look crappy when the number of pixels is reduced by nearly 90% and the file size is reduced by 97%!
However, the compression is truly impressive. Only 1-2 MB is can store 16-29 seconds of video. When viewed on a small mobile screen, it appears to be adequate. Also, keep in mind that videos on Google Maps begin playing almost immediately, making the locations appear more interesting. I believe the majority of Maps users appreciate this aggressive and impressive compression. No one wants to wait for a video to start or pay for extra data or bandwidth.
When Maps videos are displayed on a desktop computer, especially when blown up, the video is extremely poor. I’m curious if Google could detect when videos are shown in larger formats and then instruct the servers to deliver higher quality. We now understand that higher-resolution files are available.
My assumption that portrait videos would survive compression better than wider videos was incorrect. This test demonstrates that tall videos are not technically superior to wide videos. However, when displayed on a mobile screen, the taller format look bigger while the wide videos are shown with huge black bars over and under the video.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end!
Cheers
Morten
PS: Another reason for conducting these tests is that Google has been tight-lipped about the quality of videos we should upload to Google Maps. Only vague terms such as “720p or higher” have been used.
