thanks for letting me know about AppleCare and beta os versions, will need to look into that. seems counter productive on their part.
when I heard about the spatial conversion feature I didnt think much about it, I was testing the new hand gestures when I noticed it in photos and gave it a try. I was very impressed. cant compare it to other programs, but it was easy to use (click the new rotated square icon on the upper left) and boom.. a new spatial pic that looks great. especially portraits (though maybe a bit too much in your face, because I tend to get close for portraits).
It was fast.. maybe a couple of seconds or thereabouts? they had some fancy graphics in between that seemed to indicate a focus on what it thought they main point of interest was..they were entertaining but the thought crossed my mind that perhaps they take up time? once a conversion was made, toggling between converted and unconverted and back to converted was instant.. so whatever its computing it gets saved (but not destructive).
Didn't think to try it on a video... and I am at work now, will try later.
for me, landscape pictures worked better (especially when you went immersive mode), and the sharpness of the pic really had an impact.. it seemed to magnify flaws like grain from low light. and it cropped in a bit, so you lost some of the surrounding (not much) detail. For me this was a slight problem because I tend to be very selective in how I frame pics to what I want, especially come in close during portraits, and losing some of that to my eye made some of my pictures 'too close.' but thats really a matter of taste.
