App Interaction on video (above) yields image (below) result
Summary
Motion Image Utility, simply scans and copies (if so desires) all motion photos of your choosing.
Then copies them into separate standard image and video files. These new files can be viewed or modified by most software.
Why is it Needed
This small utility was created to help people get FULL access to their most prized
digital asset; the photo. We believe: "That you own your data, and thus you should be able to access it anywhere". There are
countless incredible applications to work with standard images and videos, but they are rendered useless with this unfamiliar format.
What is a Motion Photo and What is the Problem?
A Motion Photo
Most Android phones (I.e. Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel phones) take a so called “Motion Photo”.
On your phone you can view a Motion Photo as a still image, and the short video. However when you copy or move
these images onto your desktop computer or virtually anywhere else (Mac/ Windows/ Linux/ Appliance) you can
only see the image!
The Problem
Can't see video portion of Motion Photo on desktop.
A lot of desktop applications, destroy the data imbedded in these files.
The video portion of the file takes up a considerable amount of space, yet it is not possible to view that information outside the phone!
Extra file storage for data that is not readable. As the video portion takes up considerable amount of space.
The Solution
With Motion Photo Utility - now that the photos are converted to a universally usable format,
the resulting data (photo and short video) can be viewed on the virtually any device. Edit that data
with your favorite software and share. One important use case is being able to get access
to more information in a photo that did not turn out, but captured an important event. By look at the
short video frame by frame and pick out a still image out of the video.
Need Your Support
Please consider donating to support this cause, which might help justify further
such side tangents that will benefit a lot of people in the future, and/or improve
this one. It took a considerable amount of time to decipher the content of the Motion
Photo JPEG file. Then develop a robust algorithm that could restore the data into standard
file formats. Where nothing is lost in the translation, META data tags and all. We were not able to
find any reference standards how the information was crammed into a jpeg file. Long story short,
with no roadmap of the modified file contents, special utilities were written just to help decipher the binary
data in order to help recognize standard image data blocks etc.
Download
Motion Photo Utility Java App
Quick Setup Guide
Download MotionPhotoUtil.jar, and double click to run.
If above does not work, you don't have java installed. Download Java 8, install and reboot system.
Double Click on MotionPhotoUtil.jar
Download the Motion Photo Utility Self Contained JAR (Java Archive)
- MotionPhotoUtil.jar Version 0.3a Size 64KB
Motion Photo Utility will run as a stand alone desktop app. Downloading the JAR is preferred method as it is the lightest and most
flexible way to run/install Motion Photo Utility. MotionPhotoUtil.Jar will run on any platform supported by Java 8.
Download the JAR anywhere, double click and it should run, provided you have Java 8 installed. It is suggested you move the
downloaded MotionPhotoUtil.Jar to a convenient location such as your desktop. Unlike Platform Installers, the app will not create a start menu icon, everything is contained in one file.
Troubleshooting Installation and Run in Rare Cases
If double clicking on MotionPhotoUtil.jar does not Start the App
1. If you have just installed Java, reboot your system and try again.
2. A few platforms don't support double click to execute the JAR in those cases you can execute via command line argument.
java -jar MotionPhotoUtil.jar
3. Check that the Java version is Java 8 via:
java -version
4. Check and/or change the permission to add executable to jar file.
Trouble with Some Different Versions of Java such as OpenJDK
MotionPhotoUtil.jar requires JavaFX, which is bundled in Java 8. There are many flavors of Java (OpenJDK) some newer none desktop versions of Java, do not have necessary JavaFX bundled. If you are developer and don't want to add a JRE, or for OpenJDK only platforms like Raspberry PI OS Raspbian.
Newer versions of OpenJDK should work, provided the corresponding OpenJFX is also installed correctly. Short version Java 8 is still being updated for security and bug fixes, and seems to be the last Java
platform with a focus on Desktop UI Support.
The Path Nightmare Due to Multiple Java Versions Installed
For those of you advanced users (developers) with multiple versions of Java installed, and the default is not compatible,
make sure to use the full path in command line or terminal. I.E. [Path]java -jar MotionPhotoUtil.jar. Where [path] depends
on your system for example: "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_191\jre\bin\" or
/usr/bin/ or /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk<version>/Content/Home/bin/ and even the horrible new path
of ~ /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/. Once this is working create a shortcut.
Operating System Warning
If run from Windows command line, windows might complain about not having access to registry. It will not affect app running in any major way. This is due to a Prefs bug in jdk, Prefs stores users preferences
such as app settings by user. Prefs info is only local to user information, color settings, window location of app... To find out more see Prefs Bug Issue
For the Java Version, this should typically not happen. However, you might get a warning from your operating system that this app is not from app store...
We could only reproduce warning with Java version of app, if we downloaded app from website. But after accepting as trusted app works fine.
Updates / Release Notes
Version 0.3a is out
Fixed major bug, supporting a much wider array of motion photos. Images are now extracted differently and are more compact. Meta data is improved and no longer
incorrectly report file as motion photo. Note only JPEG motion files are supported at this time, HEIF coming soon.
We can't fix what we don't know.
Version 0.2a did not support newer Motion Photos
Motion Photo file format changed for newer devices, on Android API 13. MotionPhotoUtil v0.2a over
cautiously thought those new motion photos files were normal images.
Version 0.2a Minor Bug Fix
Launching app with different version of java will no longer give a class path error. But correctly indicate that JavaFX module is needed to run app. Java 8 worked fine.
Other minor improvements.
Coming Soon??? Standalone Platform Installer version of Motion Photo Utility
News Update of Installer
Current the java version is the only version available. If you are interested in getting a platform specific installer of app then please let me know via the contact page.
Note the app will be a lot larger, ~50MB. After some research distributing of exe/msi/dmg installer outside of app store is not practical.
Desktop apps for Windows and Mac are increasingly App Store only, thus we have delayed producing installers for different platforms until
we find time to go through that process. App is free after all. When that happens, we will update a link to the various stores.
