[HN Gopher] Show HN: Unscreen - Automatically remove video backg...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: Unscreen - Automatically remove video backgrounds with ML
        
       Author : groe
       Score  : 212 points
       Date   : 2020-08-05 08:04 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.unscreen.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.unscreen.com)
        
       | victornomad wrote:
       | Looks very impressive, but please do not autoplay all the videos
       | at once on the website. My computer fans started to spin like
       | crazy!
        
         | mmwelt wrote:
         | It killed my Android tablet running Firefox! First everything
         | slowed down, then the status bar disappeared, then... black
         | screen. Had to restart.
        
           | cjmcqueen wrote:
           | I'm genuinely surprised my Pixel 3 phone had no problems with
           | it in Chrome. That was a lot of video.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | Asuchug4 wrote:
       | Somehow I parsed the title as next-gen adblock. Well, it is great
       | to see the required technology is already here.
        
       | CyberDildonics wrote:
       | This is an area of research called natural image matting that has
       | been going on for over 20 years.
       | 
       | Some influential papers include:
       | 
       | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
       | 
       | https://webee.technion.ac.il/people/anat.levin/papers/Mattin...
        
       | mobilio wrote:
       | From same authors that make tool for removing backgrounds from
       | images - remove.bg
       | 
       | It was discussed here:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18697601
        
         | anchpop wrote:
         | I'm curious if this is just repackaging existing OSS algorithms
         | for isolating foregrounds, or if they have an actually new
         | implementation that outperforms them
        
         | Jaruzel wrote:
         | BEWARE. remove.bg seems to have a malware/fake Chrome update
         | popup.
        
           | groe wrote:
           | It's a hint for outdated browsers, it's not an ad and there's
           | nothing malicious behind it (unless there's an issue in your
           | local network or machine perhaps?).
           | 
           | http://browser-update.org/
           | https://www.npmjs.com/package/browser-update
           | 
           | It's a fine line though to not get into the way with things
           | like this, and we could certainly improve it's appearance a
           | bit - sorry for that.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | TonyTrapp wrote:
           | Fresh Chromium installation, no adblocking or other content
           | blocking plugins. Zero advertisements and popups on that
           | site. I keep reading these kind of comments on HN and
           | everytime it seems to be only that one person reporting the
           | problem that sees that behavior. Are you sure your network is
           | not compromised?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | Jaruzel wrote:
             | > Are you sure your network is not compromised?
             | 
             | It's definitely not. Also used 3 different browsers - each
             | one showed the same dialog but with the name and version of
             | that browser. It doesn't happen on my mobile over WiFi
             | (rules out network injection).
             | 
             | This is what I'm seeing: https://imgur.com/a/o9PNmaU
             | 
             | It's being inserted via a .js file on static.remove.bg:
             | 
             | https://static.remove.bg/remove-bg-
             | web/38c6be57b031c26a2186b...
             | 
             | (search for 'out of date' )
             | 
             | So either the site owner is complicit, or they've been
             | hacked.
             | 
             | Edit: Fired up a VM of Windows 7 - Same message - so unless
             | my routers been hacked to inject that script somehow, i'm
             | 99% certain it's not me.
        
               | ninjaranter wrote:
               | Are you sure it's malware? Looking at the code it seems
               | to redirect to "browser-update.org" and is genuinely
               | redirecting only older browsers based on unsupported
               | features.
        
               | aembleton wrote:
               | Looking at the code, it is using a script from Browser
               | Update[1] to determine whether to show that message.
               | 
               | Here's the line from the js you linked to that checks the
               | browser version:
               | window.checkBrowserVersion = function() { i()({ required:
               | { i: 12, e: -4, f: -3, o: -3, s: -1, c: -3 }, insecure:
               | !0, unsupported: !0, reminder: 0, reminderClosed: 168,
               | style: "corner", api: 2019.06, test: !1, onshow:
               | function() { window.track &&
               | window.track("BrowserUpdate", "outdated_version_dialog",
               | "Browser version outdated dialog") } }) }, $((function()
               | { window.checkBrowserVersion() }));
               | 
               | The c: -3 is the crucial bit that should cause it to
               | trigger if your version is at least 3 versions out of
               | date.
               | 
               | Yours isn't though. Can you access http://browser-
               | update.org ? If not, then there might be something with
               | your DNS settings. Have you tried tethering through your
               | phone? Have you changed your user agent?
               | 
               | 1. http://browser-update.org/#install
        
               | aembleton wrote:
               | Just checked, and my Chrome is on version 84. Version 80
               | is out of date.
               | 
               | You need to update Chrome.
        
               | Jaruzel wrote:
               | To be frank, I don't _need_ to do anything. I 'll update
               | Chrome when I'm ready, thanks.
               | 
               | What I object to, is a dodgy popup appearing on an
               | unrelated website.
        
               | sreekotay wrote:
               | That's interesting. Number of versions is probably a weak
               | signal for this --- but how many browser versions should
               | the dev a small site be looking for? Things DO break...
        
               | noja wrote:
               | You don't _need_ to call an ambulance when you break your
               | leg, but your browser has at least five high
               | vulnerabilities (and one critical vulnerability).
        
             | noja wrote:
             | Perhaps the GP is receiving malware through a targeted or
             | non-targeted advertising campaign.
        
       | sytelus wrote:
       | If you want to get traction, you need to be far more creative in
       | your business model. The main application of background removal
       | is online meetings and its already well implemented but it leaves
       | a lot to be desired. One thing you can do is to make service
       | completely free. Offer a desktop app that creates a virtual
       | camera that you can use in Zoom, Teams etc. Differentiate
       | yourself by adding features such as much more cool and fun
       | background wall papers or even live videos. Focus on adoption,
       | not revenue. Once you get traction, offer premium background
       | images or videos. Create a marketplace where people can buy/sell.
       | Focus on buyout by big players because ultimately they have the
       | platforms with millions of users where you can provide far more
       | value.
       | 
       | Removal of background in images is also big (your site only seem
       | to offer video/gifs). I've personally tried half dozen solutions
       | and all fell short in low lighting scenario. If you are actually
       | doing good here, you can beat competition. There are probably
       | hundred websites out there for background removal for images,
       | none works well.
        
         | isochronous wrote:
         | The very first thing I thought when I saw this wasn't "ooh,
         | cool tech for voice chat", it was "man, the special effects
         | industry will KILL for this - no more manually going through
         | every frame of an effects shot and painstakingly removing
         | background elements!"
         | 
         | So basically, I think the main assumption on which you built
         | the rest of your advice is flawed.
        
         | bergstromm466 wrote:
         | > Once you get traction, offer premium background images or
         | videos. Create a marketplace where people can buy/sell.
         | 
         | A lot of this seems like guesswork, and honestly also like
         | terrible advice. Maybe if the person had added their experience
         | or a story about their own experience. Like the other person
         | wrote, some advice might be irrelevant because this person
         | hasn't understood the product to know it's it's for existing
         | footage only, not live footage.
         | 
         | Sometimes advice can be useful, but be wary when it sounds
         | useful at first glance but includes no examples, and no
         | credentials.
         | 
         | Then often it's someone who considers themselves a success
         | guru, without much sincerity. They just think that their advice
         | is obvious, when its probably outside their domain. It's not
         | bad faith, it seems to me they're just a wannabe startup
         | guru/investor/founder/whisperer (what I write here might also
         | be crap).
         | 
         | The best advice I've found comes with intimate stories of
         | failure. Stories that help you understand the underlying
         | friction, yet aren't specific to the exact challenges you're
         | facing, but leave you with solid hypotheses to explore.
        
           | sytelus wrote:
           | There is a lot of negativity in your response without even
           | deluding to what's really wrong with the advice. There are
           | tons of very successful founders recommending focusing on
           | adoption instead of revenue in initial period. Freemium is
           | very well adopted all over. Literally entire app industry
           | worth billions of dollars use this model. Again, I'm not
           | claiming to be expert in this domain. You are entitled to
           | your opinion and frankly we are all armchair pundits here,
           | however, it's bad form to spew out so much negativity without
           | any reasoning or even alternative.
        
             | Pyramus wrote:
             | >There are tons of very successful founders recommending
             | focusing on adoption instead of revenue in initial period.
             | 
             | As of 2020, this is the exception rather than the rule. The
             | problem is that focussing on adoption before focussing on
             | value is very risky. You are constantly flirting with
             | premature scaling before having found product/market fit
             | (see e.g. Startup Genome project).
             | 
             | However, successful businesses that have been built on
             | adoption are _by-design_ much more likely to be well known.
             | Again, it 's entirely possible to build a business that
             | relies on network effects or economies of scale, but it's
             | not the default advice I would give to founder.
             | 
             | >Freemium is very well adopted all over. Literally entire
             | app industry worth billions of dollars use this model.
             | 
             | No, you are confusing freemium with advertising here, which
             | is the predominant business model. The challenge with
             | freemium is the conversion into paid, which you cannot
             | predict unless you have proven the value hypothesis
             | already.
        
             | bergstromm466 wrote:
             | Yeah I understand where you're coming from, and maybe my
             | reply broke my own rule of giving advice without a personal
             | story.
             | 
             | Where i'm coming from is having listened to advice from
             | people who I looked up to, but who did it to get rid of me
             | (because I was ignorant of protocols/etiquette), rather
             | than being genuinely interested in my project. I've learned
             | that the SV world has a high rate of failure and many are
             | hungry, and they try to also carve out a role for
             | themselves, or try to get involved somehow, even if that
             | means they'll claim competence in an area they're not
             | competent in. I was more naive then, compared to today, but
             | believing these 'gurus' was a painful learning experience
             | for me, because their advice often left me stranded in the
             | end.
             | 
             | I'm not negative, it's more just sharing my disappointments
             | and struggles. Thanks again for your comment, which made me
             | see I kinda broke my own rule
        
             | abraae wrote:
             | > Again, I'm not claiming to be expert in this domain.
             | 
             | Actually nowhere in your original post do you include this
             | "not claiming to be an expert" disclaimer.
             | 
             | As a result, when I read your original post, I assumed that
             | perhaps you were an expert as there was no self-doubt at
             | all evident.
             | 
             | I think perhaps that's what the allegedly negative post
             | that you are responding to is getting at.
        
         | bitL wrote:
         | This looks like it's targeting pros like me who need to remove
         | background from high-quality videos. The price is completely
         | OK.
        
         | Hydraulix989 wrote:
         | Right, this seems like a feature, not a product -- and it's not
         | difficult to replicate. ML is becoming more and more of a
         | commodity these days.
        
         | onion2k wrote:
         | _The main application of background removal is online meetings
         | and its already well implemented but it leaves a lot to be
         | desired._
         | 
         | That's the most obvious case people see right now because we're
         | doing more video calls in lockdown and people see it as a funny
         | gimmick to play with on Google Meet, but background removal has
         | been around for years in the professional video and film
         | industry. Video chat is absolutely not the main application of
         | the technology.
        
           | abraae wrote:
           | The video chat market though would be approximately a
           | gazillion times larger than the professional video and film
           | industry wouldn't it?
        
             | cvhashim wrote:
             | What about marketing to live streamers and youtubers
        
             | nl wrote:
             | Pretty hard to compete with the free implementations in
             | most video chat tools...
        
             | onion2k wrote:
             | I have no idea. There's a gazillion times more people doing
             | video calls than make professional videos, but not all of
             | them would be willing to pay for the software and those who
             | are probably wouldn't pay very much. It's the age old
             | question of whether or not it's better to sell something
             | cheaply at high volumes or more expensively at lower
             | volumes.
        
               | addandsubtract wrote:
               | >the age old question of whether or not it's better to
               | sell something cheaply at high volumes or more
               | expensively at lower volumes.
               | 
               | Factor in the support you need to accommodate your
               | customers and you have your answer :P
        
               | onion2k wrote:
               | You can just ignore support entirely and then it costs
               | nothing. It's what Google does.
        
               | epanchin wrote:
               | Good webcams are hard to find at the moment because
               | people are very willing to spend money on their video
               | calls.
        
               | buzzerbetrayed wrote:
               | > people are very willing to spend money on their video
               | calls.
               | 
               | MORE people are willing to spend money on webcams than in
               | the recent past. That is why there is a supply issue.
               | This doesn't necessarily mean a huge number of people are
               | willing to spend money in it in general. Doubling a
               | relatively small number doesn't automatically make it a
               | big number.
        
           | mlthoughts2018 wrote:
           | Surveillance video processing and intelligence services are
           | probably by far the largest use cases for video background
           | removal and similar techniques. Far smaller in terms of
           | number of customers, but far far larger in terms of revenue
           | specifically for this capability.
           | 
           | Millions of people paying peanuts (attributable to this
           | feature) is way less than a few hundred or thousand research
           | / defense labs, contractors, etc., paying tens of thousands
           | up to even millions on licensed software for this type of
           | thing.
        
             | rasz wrote:
             | In both teleconferencing and surveillance you are dealing
             | with static background, no need for fancy ML algorithms.
        
               | mlthoughts2018 wrote:
               | No, not true. Surveillance cameras mounted on police
               | cars, helicopters, etc. Even in stationary cameras, scene
               | understanding is a hard problem. Suppose someone wheels a
               | dolly of boxes into a warehouse and leaves them. Are they
               | now part of the background? Are they suspicious boxes?
               | The coarse level state transition of objects in the scene
               | is really hard to solve even with heavy ML.
        
         | CathedralBorrow wrote:
         | My rule of thumb for advice on the Internet is that if it is
         | mostly in the form of statements like "You need to do X, Y and
         | Z" and has very few questions intended to dig deeper into the
         | nuances of the product and business model... then it's not
         | generally worth much at face value.
         | 
         | Essentially: The less information a person needs to dish out
         | advice, the less value I am going to place on their advice.
        
           | bergstromm466 wrote:
           | haha you said what i wanted to say in a way more concise way.
           | nice one
        
         | rbinv wrote:
         | Sounds like that would evolve to become Google AdSense for your
         | home office.
        
         | lawlorino wrote:
         | According to the FAQ this only works with prerecorded video,
         | not live video.
        
         | codethief wrote:
         | > I've personally tried half dozen solutions and all fell short
         | in low lighting scenario.
         | 
         | Have you tried https://www.remove.bg ? I came across that site
         | a while ago and was surprised how good the results were that I
         | got. YMMV, though.
         | 
         | [EDIT]: Looks like Unscreen is actually from the same people as
         | remove.bg. [0]
         | 
         | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24058701
        
           | groe wrote:
           | We've built Unscreen on top of the tech of remove.bg, at
           | least partly, and the #1 design goal for both products is a
           | high result quality. We've summarized a few of the
           | improvements recently here, if you're curious:
           | https://www.remove.bg/b/introducing-remove-bg-x2
        
           | htrp wrote:
           | remove bg/unscreen are pretty much cool ML applications
           | looking for a market
        
         | bioipbiop wrote:
         | There is a reason background removal sucks on chat apps. I
         | fiddle around with the state of the art approaches, it takes a
         | very expensive machine to get to an acceptable frame rate. It
         | wouldn't scale.
        
           | mattigames wrote:
           | Would this be a good candidate for P2P? As what if your
           | computer GPU could be used by other app's users to do a small
           | part of such heavy operation? (when your GPU is not doing
           | anything else)
        
             | theon144 wrote:
             | Latency.
        
           | Roritharr wrote:
           | Can you elaborate more? What are the approaches?
        
             | aspenmayer wrote:
             | Not OP, and not in this field, so do some more research, I
             | am just sharing what I found:
             | 
             | https://paperswithcode.com/task/video-background-
             | subtraction
        
           | maktouch wrote:
           | I'm pretty happy with XSplit VCam
           | (https://www.xsplit.com/vcam)
        
             | atombender wrote:
             | Anything like this for macOS?
        
         | dividuum wrote:
         | > Offer a desktop app that creates a virtual camera that you
         | can use in Zoom, Teams etc. Differentiate yourself by adding
         | features such as much more cool and fun background wall papers
         | or even live videos.
         | 
         | https://www.xsplit.com/vcam does exactly that already and is
         | available on demand or for a lifetime license of $40. It works
         | mostly ok. Unscreen's quality seems a lot better though.
        
         | NicoJuicy wrote:
         | Pre-existing example: Snapchat has an app to apply filters in
         | webcams
        
         | ponker wrote:
         | The quality level here is way beyond what Zoom has or needs.
         | This is a professional tool for creative pros -- knocking out
         | an image background is too easy but video is a real challenge.
         | And this kind of work at this resolution would be prohibitively
         | expensive to do for live video ... you'd need a Titan RTX or
         | similar.
        
         | manmal wrote:
         | I don't think it's feasible to do this level of processing in
         | real-time _for free_.
        
         | jchook wrote:
         | Reading "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries.
         | 
         | He argues that this kind of "build it; they will come" aka
         | "Just Do It" business process is a recipe for failure because
         | you make a lot of untested assumptions about your market, and
         | front-load a ton of (often wasteful) work.
         | 
         | He suggests the "Build, measure, learn" feedback loop, which
         | you actually plan backwards:
         | 
         | 1. Figure out what you need to learn by outlining the key
         | assumptions, including your value hypothesis and growth
         | hypothesis.
         | 
         | 2. Decide how you will measure your success in validating (or
         | invalidating!) those assumptions with science (eg he calls his
         | method "innovation accounting").
         | 
         | 3. Build the smallest experiments (or MVPs) that will allow you
         | to learn the things you need to learn.
         | 
         | 4. Make adjustments to your hypothesis, rinse, and repeat.
         | 
         | Another common theme, "get out of the building" and actually
         | speak with all kinds of potential customers. Since a start-up
         | operates in an environment of high uncertainty they cannot rely
         | on traditional planning.
         | 
         | Anyway I love reading the book and learning about the early
         | days of Intuit, Dropbox, etc and how sometimes the way to make
         | the most progress feels very counter-intuitive.
         | 
         | It almost feels like a real world version of Stochastic
         | Gradient Descent for businesses to mechanically gravitate to
         | various local minima on an invisible failure landscape.
        
           | cvhashim wrote:
           | Also recommend "The Mom Test".
        
           | bitL wrote:
           | The price and business model is perfectly fine:
           | 
           | 1) most pros use green screens for background removal
           | 
           | 2) for (rare) shots where background needs to be removed and
           | green screen cannot be applied, a high quality removal like
           | the one here is needed
           | 
           | 3) for such rare occurrences, charging higher amount of money
           | is completely appropriate and no reasonable pro would
           | complain as it would save them additional costs of re-
           | shooting the scene completely or doing the removal manually
           | 
           | 4) nobody has anything similar, so they can charge premium
           | while it's possible
           | 
           | Given what I mentioned I'd say their price is too low anyway.
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | the autoplaying movies are massacring my crappy cell internet
       | connection
       | 
       | (my home is currently one of the hundreds of thousands without
       | power on the US east coast)
        
         | aembleton wrote:
         | Set uBlock Origin to block media elements larger than 50KB or
         | whatever threshold you want. More info:
         | https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...
        
       | 23d wrote:
       | Video background removal, when hair is involved, is painful.
       | Clearly this is not targeted at webcam footage. Anyone who has
       | had to manually remove a background using a tool like Premiere or
       | After Effects from pre-recorded video would see the benefit of
       | this tool/api. It is pricey but i can see motion graphics studios
       | using this regularly.
        
       | cateye wrote:
       | It's actually quite funny that the Zoom auto remove background
       | does a pretty good job. I can't get the same results easily in
       | Adobe Premiere actually.
       | 
       | Snapchat filters are even more impressive and it is magnitudes
       | more difficult and time consuming to get similar results in After
       | Effects.
       | 
       | I really wondered if I was missing something so watched a lot of
       | YouTube tutorials on background removal and object tracking and
       | all I see is that it is very laborious and even than not always a
       | good enough results with edge/transparency artifacts etc.
       | 
       | Adobe really needs to implement new features for this because the
       | expectations are changed by these apps and the bar is much
       | higher.
        
         | manmal wrote:
         | IMO Zoom's background removal is not good at all. It's surely
         | way lighter CPU-wise.
        
         | bonoboTP wrote:
         | In my experience zoom does a horrible job. It's a flickering
         | mess, half the head is missing, etc. Perhaps in great lighting
         | conditions it's better.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | KingOfCoders wrote:
       | EUR 1.98 / minute - wow.
        
         | eps wrote:
         | I'm guessing the OP aims at professional, high-quality video
         | editing rather than at a hobby use. Which is probably the right
         | thing to do as there are low-quality free options already. Hard
         | to compete with that.
        
           | crooked-v wrote:
           | Wouldn't somebody doing professional video rather use a green
           | screen instead, though?
        
         | slezyr wrote:
         | It's for 30 FPS. And only up to 1080p.
         | 
         | > Up to 30 fps: Base price
         | 
         | > 30-60 fps: Base price x 2
         | 
         | > 60-90 fps: Base price x 3
        
           | londons_explore wrote:
           | That pricing looks very much "what it costs to run the
           | service, plus some profit margin".
           | 
           | A service run by anyone with any business acumen will charge
           | what customers will pay, modified for benefits that customer
           | brings the company (like referrals, bigger revenue leading to
           | a higher company valuation, etc.).
           | 
           | None of that depends on the frame rate or resolution.
        
       | wodenokoto wrote:
       | Very impressive results and great presentation.
       | 
       | I imagine this can be useful for business that want to record
       | small 360 of their products, but not invest in a big Physical
       | setup.
        
         | groe wrote:
         | Thanks! Yes, professional 360deg product shots are way too hard
         | to produce right now and we're aiming make them much more
         | accessible, particularly for smaller vendors
        
       | bryanrasmussen wrote:
       | Since it doesn't do live video so no chat background virtual
       | camera tools - but what if you did a video in the area you wanted
       | to remove could you then use that for some sort of baseline for
       | removing the background? So you do a video in the area you want
       | to use your virtual camera in, and then when you're live it knows
       | what the actual 'background' looks like so it can be used to
       | remove live.
        
         | manmal wrote:
         | If you can keep the camera at a fixed position, that's surely a
         | great option. I think that's not the use case this tool is for.
         | A green screen would also work obv.
        
       | LyalinDotCom wrote:
       | How long before this is used to help fake political videos from
       | existing footage. Sigh
        
       | pabe wrote:
       | Looks great and is exactly what one needs for professional
       | screencasts if she doesn't want to fiddle around with a
       | greenscreen. Thumbs up!
        
       | Roritharr wrote:
       | Looking really cool, I just hope a Premiere / After Effects
       | Update won't kill your business.
        
       | dirtyid wrote:
       | Need longer demos to show temporal contiguity.
        
         | manmal wrote:
         | I think processing is done frame per frame.
        
       | tsherr wrote:
       | Looks very impressive, but it seems cripplingly expensive.
       | 
       | I don't play with this much, but when I use my green screen, I'm
       | often doing 15 minute videos, so it is well out of my hobby
       | budget.
        
         | rplnt wrote:
         | The application of this would probably be different from what
         | your use case is (since you can use green screen).
        
           | hadeson wrote:
           | Most kinds of professional applications I could think of
           | would better off with a green screen. On the other hand,
           | using this for editing videos in the wild with messy
           | background still not good enough.
        
       | billconan wrote:
       | I want to integrate your service to remove background for product
       | images. However, not everything works well, especially when
       | background and foreground color are close.
       | 
       | that's fine. The thing is that on the website, there is a tool to
       | fix imperfect results, but with the api, there is no such tool.
        
         | groe wrote:
         | Since you mention images I assume you are referring to
         | remove.bg, not unscreen.
         | 
         | We're working on an SDK that will allow for editing on external
         | sites. You can sign up to our mailing list if you want to get
         | notified when it's ready: https://www.remove.bg/blog#subscribe
        
       | md5person wrote:
       | I think some of the artifacts on the video at 0:12 (handbag
       | thing) are very noticeable. Same thing at 0:19 (cat)and at 0:28
       | (cat again). Otherwise, looks nice :)
        
         | groe wrote:
         | Some scenes, foregrounds, backgrounds, lighting conditions,
         | movements, etc work better than others - there's a lot of
         | potential for errors in videos and the videos from the examples
         | page are straight from Unscreen Pro. We're continuously working
         | on improving the AI though (NB: We don't use video uploads for
         | that - see unscreen.com/privacy)
        
       | raobit wrote:
       | Looks Great! How tool is built?using computer vision,image
       | processing?
        
         | groe wrote:
         | It's a combination of deep learning and traditional computer
         | vision algorithms. We do a lot of basic research, evaluate many
         | different approaches, train them in dozens of variants and
         | ultimately combine what performs best, then try to make it as
         | easy to use as possible
        
       | nixy wrote:
       | This has been submitted multiple times as a "Show HN" but as it
       | is a paid service, I guess this is a marketing strategy.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=unscreen.com
        
         | abalaji wrote:
         | Doesn't this violate the spirit of Show HN? I thought only the
         | authors could submit them unless they are all authors of the
         | project.
        
       | thekevan wrote:
       | I feel like this could be presented in a much more engaging
       | manner.
       | 
       | There's one quick video on the main page which shows replacement
       | backgrounds, but the "Examples" page shows about 15 or 16
       | examples of the same thing, removing a background. It quickly
       | gets to the point of "Ok yeah, so what? Show me something cool to
       | do once the background is gone."
       | 
       | I get that it may be difficult to remove a background the way
       | this service does, but the customer is going to be less impressed
       | with the fact that it works correctly than they are going to be
       | about it having an actual engaging or useful purpose.
        
         | manmal wrote:
         | You can try it with an uploaded video or GIF here:
         | https://www.unscreen.com/upload
        
         | groe wrote:
         | That's a great idea, thank you
        
       | SEJeff wrote:
       | This is sort of the inverse of gimp's "foreground select tool".
       | It was a PHD thesis on the algorithm to select foregrounds that
       | was contributed to the gimp photo editor as open source.
       | 
       | https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-foreground-select.html
       | 
       | And the paper with an overview of the algorithm is here: "Image
       | segementation by uniform color clustering"
       | 
       | https://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/inst/pubs/tr-b-05-07.pdf
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | daertommy wrote:
       | Product hunt is full of this kind of stuff, is there anything
       | different on this project?
        
       | dandigangi wrote:
       | Whats the tech stack this was built on?
        
       | jacknews wrote:
       | $1.98 per MINUTE?
       | 
       | I thought I'd woken up in 1980.
       | 
       | But I guess this is aimed at people making professional video
       | presentations etc rather than for webcam meetings.
       | 
       | It seems to work pretty well, but none of the examples have any
       | sudden movement, which is where there's often tearing etc.
        
         | Insanity wrote:
         | It works on pre-recorded video so webcam meetings are not their
         | target market.
        
           | jacknews wrote:
           | Exactly as I concluded, and said above.
        
       | groe wrote:
       | Thanks a lot for your comments and feedback - some great great
       | advice and ideas in here!
       | 
       | This is the MVP release of Unscreen Pro, so there's many more
       | things to come in the future, from quality improvements, to an
       | API, integrations, editing tools and more. Appreciate all the
       | inputs :)
        
       | godmode2019 wrote:
       | Looks cool, this model is start of the art I believe
       | https://app.wandb.ai/stacey/greenscreen/reports/Two-Shots-to...
        
         | motoboi wrote:
         | I believe this is homegrow from their photo background-removal
         | tool remove.bg
         | 
         | Probably frame by frame, not real-time. But not less
         | impressive.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2020-08-05 23:01 UTC)