Re-Opened Can we cut the page length in half?

[extropic]

On a PC, Intel, Win 10, Chrome.

I live in a rural, wooded area. There is no cable here. The trees make satellite access nonviable. I'm at the extreem end of the local DSL network.
A Verizon mobile hotspot provides my current internet access. Having 5 Mbps download speed is a rare good moment for me.

My complaint is that it takes Toooooo long to load some threads that I follow. It's common for the download to time-out and the little "image" icons will appear. At that point it seems faster to open the image in a new tab. I blame the proliferation of giant, unedited photos for the high data consumption needed to load a page of many threads.

Since I have zero expectation of all members posting reasonable sized photos, I wonder if shortening the length of a displayed "page" is a viable way to improve access speed. In other words, if the page was substantially shorter, there would be substantially fewer photos to load to view that page. It's frustrating to wait for last weeks photos to load in order to see todays photos at the bottom of the same page. I can't think of a downside to a much shorter page, but then I'm not an IT expert.

What say you?

 

[graham-xrf]

Since I have zero expectation of all members posting reasonable sized photos, I wonder if shortening the length of a displayed "page" is a viable way to improve access speed. In other words, if the page was substantially shorter, there would be substantially fewer photos to load to view that page. It's frustrating to wait for last weeks photos to load in order to see todays photos at the bottom of the same page. I can't think of a downside to a much shorter page, but then I'm not an IT expert.

What say you?

The data traffic overhead invoked just by the fact you are using Windows10 and Chrome is going to have some part in this, but your point about the images is well made. My phone takes pictures 3264 x 1836 pixels, making a typical single image 1.7MBytes. That is unreasonable! Also, I don't know how to change it. The size if the phone lens aperture does not provide enough wavelength spatial resolution on a tiny sensor justify such a picture size and data heap. That is shown by how the picture detail is lost before the pixelation is seen in a persistent electronic zoom. It is a waste of internet bandwidth!

For pictures I post to HM, I use an image manipulation tool to scale the images to 1280 x 960. A JPG with lots of detail typically comes out around 535Kbytes. I get it that folk have got used to taking the pictures with a phone, and in one or two gestures, mail them, post them, whatever without the flap of processing them.

Rather than reduce the functionality (page size) of images to members, there is the solution of the HM site using an automated batch process to scale the images seen with the text in the postings. Maybe they do that already. We should always have the option to download the full size image. This would be particularly important if the image is a drawing, a PNG, a JPG, or a PDF document. We need to be able to zoom up on them using our own image display apps. I usually use the thumbnails in with the posting text. If your connection gives you trouble, even when the posting has thumbnail images, then it is, regrettably, too slow.

When I have (say) 30 images, and I want to keep the good image quality, but reduce the image area, I use GIMP application, which can do the batch job in seconds, providing output files directed to any folder I please, and with a chosen or indexed prefix, or suffix, and filename. I imagine there are other image software apps that can also do this.

If the solution you propose just makes the site OK for you, and super snappy fast for those with faster connections, and no apparent downsides, then sure, we can all go for it. I fully expect there would be "downsides".

 

[vtcnc]

What say you?

This is a tough one. We had a photo compression add-on about two years ago and this caused some other issues that I will spare this thread from hearing. It helped with server space - NOT sure if it truly helped with load times. It's funny, I was reviewing file sizes a few days ago and analyzing average photo sizes to see if there are any problems. This message has prompted me to revisit the add-on again.

Regarding your suggestion to reduce page size. It is possible to do this. If I recall correctly, the limits on what is displayed is based on the number of replies per page. I'll take a look and report back. The other thing to consider is how it affects user experience beyond load times, I would like to hear what others think of this problem and how this suggestion stacks up against what others are experiencing.

Thanks! This is a good one!

 

[vtcnc]

The data traffic overhead invoked just by the fact you are using Windows10 and Chrome is going to have some part in this, but your point about the images is well made. My phone takes pictures 3264 x 1836 pixels, making a typical single image 1.7MBytes. That is unreasonable!

My few minutes auditing this a few days ago revealed that almost all photos uploaded are on average 1.7MB

File compression add-on redux is looking like it is necessary.

 

[graham-xrf]

My few minutes auditing this a few days ago revealed that almost all photos uploaded are on average 1.7MB

File compression add-on redux is looking like it is necessary.

If you do this, I ask to keep in mind there is a difference between JPG type "compression" fraction, and proper image scaling using one of the proven interpolation methods. The file size goes up as the square of the linear dimension. Half the size delivers the data load quartered. The payoff is huge.
Smeared JPGs with edge artifacts and speckle are ugly, and lose detail.

The images I post to HM at size 1280 x 960 have been reduced using "Cubic" interpolation, which is the default.
There is also available "Linear" and "SinC (Lanczos3)", which I have not yet tried.

You may find if browser images were 535K instead of 1.7MB, the whole site would get speedier through the HM servers anyway.

In all of this, one needs to keep the high resolution originals that members can download and save-as unhurt. The reduced version can display in the browser.

 

[682bear]

I just looked at the file size of the pictures that I have been posting... they are at @2.5 MB! I had no idea...

I can't seem to find any way to change the camera settings to take the pictures at a lower resolution, but I did figure out how to resize the images.

I'll try to remember to do that in the future...

-Bear

 

[extropic]

Thank you for the attention and prompt replies.

The option of photo "compression" was not what I intended in the OP. If it could be made to work, it would certainly help the data consumption and load time issues, but it's way above my knowledge. I use a photo editor to crop and resize the few photos I've posted. I assume many members can't be bothered.

Reducing the number of replies per page sounds like a great improvement to me. Waiting to see if there are contrary comments from others.

 

[ddillman]

there are alot of pictures that I don't look at because of the amount of time it takes to open. I am also on DSL.

 

[sycle1]

Is there a way you could provide a picture free option that users in general could opt not to get the pictures just the text?
Or change to a better server.
This is a slow forum.
Other forums I frequent are much speedier.
Just saying.

 

[DavidR8]

I’m afraid that I’m a big contributor of big photos.
Like @graham-xrf my phone takes huge pics.
I can scale them down and reduce their size when posting.


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