We take quality very seriously at TourBuzz; we do our best to use techniques that preserve image quality while maintaining reasonable file sizes.

Over the years we've been working hard to improve the quality of the images in our player, but it can be very tricky due to limitations of Flash. For instance, Flash doesn't have built-in high-quality resizing algorithms (like those used by Photoshop), and lack of hardware acceleration means that resizing a single image in Flash can take 2+ seconds. Despite a lot of invested time, we were never really able to tweak our player to deliver the level of quality that we wanted to.

These issues were particularly noticeable on sharpened and high-contrast images, or images with lots of small details, like water with sun sparkles, leaves, or flowers.

Today we are extremely pleased to announce that we've made a major breakthrough in our image quality, and the change is now live. The improvements can be seen on every tour in the system; there is no need for you to do anything as we have always stored a very high-quality image in our system.

You will actually see improvements in two areas of quality:

1. Reduced bluriness of images, especially when the Video Slide Show (aka Ken Burns) effect is disabled or paused. We were able to preserve the sharpness of images significantly.

2. Reduced aliasing artifacts and improved image quality while the Video Slide Show effect is active. This one isn't possible to see in the preview below since it's only noticeable while the images are moving.

   
   Notice the improvements crispness throughout the image. It's easy to see in the trees, the beige dried grasses, and the puddle of water in the sun.
   
   BEFORE
   

   

   AFTER

   

I'd like to send a special thank you to Tim Smith, who started with us in August. I previously worked with Tim about 10 years ago at MediaBin, a company which specialized in digital image management for enterprise customers. Tim comes to TourBuzz with a deep knowledge of digital imagery and his skills, experiences, and efforts were instrumental in being able to deliver the improvements we're launching today.

Enjoy!