Help Is there anyway to increase the camcorders performance?

[TriumphLance]

Just wondering if there is any way to get higher frames per second in the camcorder particularly lower light situations? Or is this just a hardware limitation of the camera? Thanks

 

[marc12868]

Just wondering if there is any way to get higher frames per second in the camcorder particularly lower light situations? Or is this just a hardware limitation of the camera? Thanks

I'm pretty sure that's a hardware limitation with cheap camera sensors... There may be ways to boost it 1 or 2 fps but nothing amazing... Also you can try turning on flash if you don't have it on and see if that helps...

 

[Whyzor]

I'm not sure it's a hardware limitation, the HTC Thunderbolt (same SoC) has better video & some the latest MIUI kernel has some 720p encoding enhancements. I was planning on looking into it. I think it's just the manufacturer being lazy and not enabling hardware encoding or something like that. it doesn't even have 640x480 x30 fps, which is doable on lesser hardware.

 

[marc12868]

I'm not sure it's a hardware limitation, the HTC Thunderbolt (same SoC) has better video & some the latest MIUI kernel has some 720p encoding enhancements. I was planning on looking into it. I think it's just the manufacturer being lazy and not enabling hardware encoding or something like that. it doesn't even have 640x480 x30 fps, which is doable on lesser hardware.

Hmmm... Interesting I didn't know that... Would that also get rid of motion lag too? If this isn't a hardware limitation on this phone of course...

 

[shmackshmack]

i REALLY doubt its hardware. other phones with the same SoC do much, MUCH better.

i just think its the devs focusing on other things than making sure the camera works, clearly its broken in the stock rom and just barely made working in the custom roms.

it can be fixed, but whos skilled enough to even want to put in that time and effort? i would but i have no idea where to begin.

Its like how the touchscreen doesnt work right but does when isaac and the other devs put time into making it work correctly.

oh, the camcorder is worst in stock rom, not much better in CM7, and miui is still noticably blurry with motion.

 

[marc12868]

i REALLY doubt its hardware. other phones with the same SoC do much, MUCH better.

i just think its the devs focusing on other things than making sure the camera works, clearly its broken in the stock rom and just barely made working in the custom roms.

it can be fixed, but whos skilled enough to even want to put in that time and effort? i would but i have no idea where to begin.

Its like how the touchscreen doesnt work right but does when isaac and the other devs put time into making it work correctly.

oh, the camcorder is worst in stock rom, not much better in CM7, and miui is still noticably blurry with motion.

Now that I think about it people were saying it was a whole lot better in Andro-ID although I didn't do a lot of testing with motion blur and such, but if its better in that maybe someone could take parts of that and add it to a rom... Maybe Cm7-tg-reloaded? Whyzor? *hint* *hint*

 

[shmackshmack]

Now that I think about it people were saying it was a whole lot better in Andro-ID although I didn't do a lot of testing with motion blur and such, but if its better in that maybe someone could take parts of that and add it to a rom... Maybe Cm7-tg-reloaded? Whyzor? *hint* *hint*

yeah. if you look up reviews of phones like the Droid Incredible 2 which has the same SoC, the reviewers upload 720p footage taken with the phone, and its much much better than anything our phone can do. I doubt its the actual image sensor itself making the difference, I mean that and the software are the only differences between the two phones as far as video capturing is concerned

 

[TriumphLance]

Yeah hopefully it cab be fixed because I honestly prefer the camcorder on my Optimus v its far less laggy.. what good is 720p if its a sideshow?

 

[marc12868]

Yeah hopefully it cab be fixed because I honestly prefer the camcorder on my Optimus v its far less laggy.. what good is 720p if its a sideshow?

No kidding :/ Hmmm well I don't have any development skill otherwise I would try doing it myself...

 

[shmackshmack]

another thing I noticed about the 720p Triumph footage is that when you play it on a PC or decent monitor, and you can see it in its native 1280x720 resolution, it does NOT look like 720p footage. it looks like upscaled 854x480 footage. its not that the picture is soft, its that it genuinely looks like it took 480p video and upscaled it to fit a 1280x720 size video container. like watching Wii on a HDTV, just looks kind of bad.

 

[Jmelz]

another thing I noticed about the 720p Triumph footage is that when you play it on a PC or decent monitor, and you can see it in its native 1280x720 resolution, it does NOT look like 720p footage. it looks like upscaled 854x480 footage. its not that the picture is soft, its that it genuinely looks like it took 480p video and upscaled it to fit a 1280x720 size video container. like watching Wii on a HDTV, just looks kind of bad.

With each passing day that there is no interest in the triumph, and development slowly comes to an end, I fear that I bought the wrong phone.

This thing has a lot of potential, but motorola doesn't care, devs don't have the tools they need (source), and there just aren't enough devs that are using virgin mobile.

It's a shame really. I like the phone for the screen and a few other features, but it's like a big mistake. One that everyone kinda wants to move past. At least, that's how it seems.

 

[TriumphLance]

With each passing day that there is no interest in the triumph, and development slowly comes to an end, I fear that I bought the wrong phone.

This thing has a lot of potential, but motorola doesn't care, devs don't have the tools they need (source), and there just aren't enough devs that are using virgin mobile.

It's a shame really. I like the phone for the screen and a few other features, but it's like a big mistake. One that everyone kinda wants to move past. At least, that's how it seems.

the camcorder is my only complaint now that I have cm7 with the phone. I think virgin mobiles 3g speeds are my biggest complaint because I know Sprint customers are getting closer to 3 Mbps rather than less than 1 Mbps... I guess its fair though considering the price difference.

 

[AtticTRON]

Some one over at XDA has mod for the Ideos X6 that improves camera and video recording quality. Maybe some one get it to work on our phones?
[MOD] Sony Bravia Engine HQ IMAGE/MOVIE Quality Improvements - xda-developers

 

[Whyzor]

Some one over at XDA has mod for the Ideos X6 that improves camera and video recording quality. Maybe some one get it to work on our phones?
[MOD] Sony Bravia Engine HQ IMAGE/MOVIE Quality Improvements - xda-developers

It looks like it would only enhance video playback. Plus just putting a few files in a dir and turning on a config file wouldn't work on other devices. There has to be kernel or other library source compiled that recognize those values. Thanks for the info though, other source code links would be more useful.

 

[TriumphLance]

Well you guys have probably noticed but the camera actually records pretty smooth in sunlight outdoors but as soon as you go inside or away from a window the frames drop significantly

 

[Whyzor]

Well you guys have probably noticed but the camera actually records pretty smooth in sunlight outdoors but as soon as you go inside or away from a window the frames drop significantly

Thanks for that observation. I thought (mistakenly) that it was stuck at 10fps, which would point to a software problem. But I just tested it and you're right, it's smoother in brighter conditions. This means it's likely a hardware sensor limitation. All camera sensors need a minimum time to absorb all the photons in given brightness, and when it's dark, it it is at that minimum, so 1/10 second is the minimum it needs to get correct exposure. The other phones with smoother video likely have better sensors.

There's still the problem of encoding crappy 1280x720p upscaled videos at very inefficient bitrates. That and better audio encoding may be a more realistic fix for the MT.

 

[TriumphLance]

Yeah bummer because majority of recording I do is in less than perfect lighting. I guess its not that big I guess because the camera is pretty clear but there is the green blob problem.

 

[ziggy46]

i did try that sony bravia thing on froyocream sandwich (added to v1.3 which should be up soon!) and i noticed a slight improvement. it is noticeable, but its still nothing like the video lol

 

[AtticTRON]

i did try that sony bravia thing on froyocream sandwich (added to v1.3 which should be up soon!) and i noticed a slight improvement. it is noticeable, but its still nothing like the video lol

Cant wait to try it out!

 

[ziggy46]

Cant wait to try it out!

Its up

 

[shmackshmack]

the camcorder is my only complaint now that I have cm7 with the phone. I think virgin mobiles 3g speeds are my biggest complaint because I know Sprint customers are getting closer to 3 Mbps rather than less than 1 Mbps... I guess its fair though considering the price difference.

I consistantly get between 1 and 2.5 megabits over 3G in about 70% of LA

only in my house where i have one bar and other places with low signal do I see less than a megabit. here im only getting 0.25, but thats why I have wifi at home.

the network seems wildly variable in different cities. I guess anything over 0.3 megabits is good enough to browse the web on, heck its still faster than dial up ever was. I was on dial up since way back so anything I get thats faster still amazes me. Seems like everythings great and nobodies happy

 

[shmackshmack]

Yeah bummer because majority of recording I do is in less than perfect lighting. I guess its not that big I guess because the camera is pretty clear but there is the green blob problem.

I only started seeing the green blob recently and its under very specific lighting conditions, harsh office lighting mostly. I dont see any green blob anywhere else, indoors or out. or in video.

 

[Jmelz]

i did try that sony bravia thing on froyocream sandwich (added to v1.3 which should be up soon!) and i noticed a slight improvement. it is noticeable, but its still nothing like the video lol

Care to post a before and after video? I posted this in another thread, but after it came out (the bravia patch), there was discussion on xda saying it doesnt do anything (unless on a bravia phone). Part of this is because the code was like 2k or something.

 

[TriumphLance]

I consistantly get between 1 and 2.5 megabits over 3G in about 70% of LA

only in my house where i have one bar and other places with low signal do I see less than a megabit. here im only getting 0.25, but thats why I have wifi at home.

the network seems wildly variable in different cities. I guess anything over 0.3 megabits is good enough to browse the web on, heck its still faster than dial up ever was. I was on dial up since way back so anything I get thats faster still amazes me. Seems like everythings great and nobodies happy

Wow ur lucky I have 3-4 bars and never get over 1mb

 

[marc12868]

Wow ur lucky I have 3-4 bars and never get over 1mb

Wow I never even get above half a meg with a good signal :/ So people who complain and get decent speeds at least... It seems that vm does some serious throttling in Spokane or something...