I've been experimenting with taking video using some third party apps on my phone lately, and have run across a problem. It appears the third party camera apps (A Better Camera, Google Camera) only record audio for videos in mono. And it's not only mono, but barely audible.
I did some experimenting this evening and think I found the culprit. When recording video with the stock HTC camera app, it records stereo audio, but it's out of phase. (This gives the audio a hollow, fake sound.) When you sum up stereo audio (convert it to mono) you'll lose about 95% of the content because the two channels cancel each other out. The third party cam apps must be taking that out of phase audio and converting it to mono, thus the lack of coherent audio.
Does anyone know if this can be fixed? I have a feeling it's either hardware or firmware related, but it's worth asking about.
I've been noticing that different apps product different audio results for over a year now, but it wasn't until I was tasked with recording some 4th of July fireworks this month that the differences really became noticeable. The ones I did with the Google Camera app are almost inaudible. The ones with the stock HTC app are loud and boomy but sound artificial. If I flip the stereo switch on my audio board to mono while playing back those videos on my PC, the audio drops almost completely out.
Has anyone else ever noticed this?
I did some experimenting this evening and think I found the culprit. When recording video with the stock HTC camera app, it records stereo audio, but it's out of phase. (This gives the audio a hollow, fake sound.) When you sum up stereo audio (convert it to mono) you'll lose about 95% of the content because the two channels cancel each other out. The third party cam apps must be taking that out of phase audio and converting it to mono, thus the lack of coherent audio.
Does anyone know if this can be fixed? I have a feeling it's either hardware or firmware related, but it's worth asking about.
I've been noticing that different apps product different audio results for over a year now, but it wasn't until I was tasked with recording some 4th of July fireworks this month that the differences really became noticeable. The ones I did with the Google Camera app are almost inaudible. The ones with the stock HTC app are loud and boomy but sound artificial. If I flip the stereo switch on my audio board to mono while playing back those videos on my PC, the audio drops almost completely out.
Has anyone else ever noticed this?
