Only 2 questions I couldn't find the answer to... - Vibrant General

I came from an HD2, and what HTC wrote over in WinMo 6.5 I thought was great, especially the gallery app, which cleared up an image when you zoomed in. I've noticed that this phone does not do that. When I zoom in on a picture I took it just turns all fuzzy, like it's been compressed or something. I know the pics are high res cause they look great on my computer, but I just can't understand why they don't clear up when you zoom in. Anyone else experience this? The only other issue I've noticed is that every once in a while I'll open an app up, lets say the web browser, and it pops up and then just force closes. Several others I know with a Vibrant/Captivate are having this problem as well, and I was just curious if anyone knew the cause. I'm totally new to Android so please pardon me if these are dumb questions.

for the second half of your post you should get your phone replaced.
there have been a couple people on here that had that issue with "sticking" buttons so apps would randomly close or settings would popup.

As for your first issue, it sounds to me as though you are zooming into the thumbnail version of the picture. Perhaps the full high-res version is actually found in another pile/folder under the gallery. I don't think the thumbnails are generally viewable separately, though I do see a lot of other media gathered up from various apps which can be kinda annoying.

No I promise I'm not zooming on the thumbnails, I'm clicking the folder with all of my pictures in it, and it'll let me zoom in on them, but they never clear up. It's not the camera cause the resolution is right, just the zooming isn't working properly. it's weird, and frustrating.

I definitely don't have the camera problem. I tested it with photos I took as well as wallpapers in my gallery. I assume you are using the gallery app, right?
If you're getting FCs on stock apps you may want to just do a factory data reset (settings/privacy). It happens occasionally to all android phones and the only sure fix I've seen is a reset. Make sure you're not using task killers or home replacement apps (pandahome, openhome, etc) as they can cause a lot of FCs in my experience.

You might have your camera resolution on lowest settings. Try a higher setting and let us know. The default resolution is 640x480.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Checked the resolution of the camera and the pictures themselved and they're both 5MP, so I really don't know what the problem is now. It is rather frustrating though, when I zoom I want to see the details of the image not a fuzzy picture. Another thing I've just had happen to me is trying to copy over a 4.5GB MKV file at 720p I got the message "The file 'Up' is too large for the destination file system" I don't get that cause I have 6GB free on the phone and 6GB free on the 16GB micro SD. My phone hates me :'(

the 4.5gb MKV isn't a Samsung issue. It's a filesystem issue, relating to the default filesystem used on the sd card memory. FAT32 has a file size limit of 4gb.
It might seem a bit frustrating that you will have to re-encode that huge MKV, but considering that you can count on the fingers of one hand the smartphones that would even be able to smoothly play the video in that container in the first place, it's a small price to pay.

I know the phone could play it, it chews through my 720p copies of Top Gear without so much as a hiccup, and they're nearly the same bit-rate. I think you're right about counting the phones that could do that though because my HD2 didn't have a chance. I didn't know fat32 had a file size limit though, that's very useful information and thank you very much for that. Any ideas on the gallery app problem?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I had/have a HD2, and now a Vibrant that I am using.
I know what you are talking about with the pictures looking pixelated on the Vibrant when you zoom in, but look fine on the HD2. I too, would like a solution to this. Maybe another app does this.

I know exactly what you're talking about and it really is quite annoying. As if losing the flash wasn't bad enough, now even my old photos look bad on it. I've figured out firstly that the stock android gallery app has a 16 bit limit but that's not the issue I'd imagine. What I believe to be the culprit is that, as far as I can tell, what the image viewer does is it actually automatically downsizes all your photos which would explain the pictures' butchered quality. Of course it's just a theory but it seems to check out. Unfortunately I have yet to find a decent replacement app or a solution thus far. And not to dash your hopes but I hear the problem also exists in froyo. Kinda disheartening for such an awesome multimedia phone.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App with swype

+1.. I also know what you mean, I had the HD2 and zooming in on the pictures on this phone sucks!. I am sure there is an image viewer somewhere that would work well

Yes! Glad to hear I'm not the only one with this issue. I was beginning to think I was alone! I am by no means a developer, but I think it's probably the scaling algorithim, though it would be interesting to check it out on another phone running 2.1. Next time I activate a Captivate at work I'll check that as well, it'd be really weird if that one worked correctly!!

I've figured something out. When you look at photos in the actual camera app, and zoom in that viewer, the pictures look fine, it's only in the actual gallery app where the zoom doesn't work properly...

I definetly do not have the issue with zooming in on pictures (camera or gallery) and I have yet to have a FC on any app. You mentioned the browser, any other apps FC'ing on you?
Have you done anything (other than root if you have)?
Are you using a TK?
Can you give more details?

I know what you mean by zooming the pics. Try image viewer, its awesome and zooms in great
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Well it's only the browser that's done it, and it's only happened once to me, so I'm really not worried about that one. A power cycle took care of it right then and there. As for the zooming, like I said in the camera app itself it works fine, but in the gallery app it's not too good. I'm not rooted (yet), and I have no task killer because I've heard more bad things than good things about those. Idk how else to describe the problem, it just seems like when I zoom in it's like the file is a very low resolution and gets very pixelated and when I check the properties I know it's a 5MP picture, so idk what's going on.

Something I never noticed so I just tested and you're right!
It's the way the built in gallery app works. It creates a thumbnail of all images and that's what it displays. You can even see the thumbnail images if you explore the phone memory. The only way around it is to download and use a different image viewer.

I suggest large image viewer! It is a bit spartan in terms of features and ui but it has the best image viewing of all the apps I tried! Btw the default image viewer basically makes a lower res bitmap of all your pictures and it's impossible (I think) to actually view the original images from within the gallery app. Why it would do this? I have no clue, seems like poor programming to me. Perhaps it's the cost we pay for the nifty though relatively pointless 3d effects.
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using the XDA app. You may thank Swype for any and all grammar errors.

Related

Dialer App Mod Idea

I don't know if this has been suggested before but I wanted to throw it out there. I think the picture in the dialer app while on a call is very small and not clear. Does anyone know if its possible to make the picture displayed bigger and maybe better definition? I'm sure there could be a software limitation but hope not.
Yeah, I hate how the Iphone has the whole screen filled with the caller's face and my phone doesn't. However I've always thought of this as an android problem.
Read somewhere that android only saves your contact photos as thumbnail pics. So when someone calls, android just blows up that thumbnail into a slightly bigger square, resulting in a very pixelated picture on the screen.
Sucks. I hope Google does something about this. I've no idea if a 3rd party app can solve this.

fed up of standard camera?... try camera360 pro

I like many on here was very disappointed with the quality of the camera, but thanks to the excellent guide posted on here it improved it 10 fold, but i decided to give a camera app a try anyway and looking through "htc likes" apps on My phone stumbled onto an app called "camera360".. I thought i'd give it a try as it gives you a free trial version (limited to just the basics).. and after a while (getting used to the many many options) decided to buy it, this is the first app ive bought for my dhd.. only costs $3.99 (around £2.69).. it had a handy paypal link so no messing about with my credit card etc.. if you pay with paypal it instantly becomes the pro version (it did for me anyway). They also send you an email with the file and instructions to make it the full (pro) version in case you have to do it manually or reinstall it (after a factory reset etc).It also says it gives you free updates when they're released. It has anti shake, effects, HDR, and loads more options i haven't got a clue what they all do yet! lol. The only "problems" ive had with it is although i can take 8mp pics it doesnt like me trying to take 8mp widescreen ones, and the zoom is slightly less than the htc standard camera, these may be able to be fixed by someone with more knowledge on the camera side of things. I havent got round to posting any samples but hopefully with starting this thread other people using the app will be able to post images on here (as i am a total newbie)..There are sites that gives a brief review of it (including sample pictures of the various effects available) I am unable to post the link to the review sites (as its only my third or so post). just type "camera360" in your search engine and read up on it .Like i said it works great on my phone, give it a try.. if ya dont like it just uninstall it (you have nothing to lose after all)
I have also installed the free version of cam360 and its got a ton more options than the standard camera, I will ave to try and take some comparisons - although someone with some more advanced knowledge of cameras would be better. The annoyances with 360 is the dodgey English throughout and a quite complicated interface, still use the stock one for now, just because its faster to start up, and with the guide on xda its not too bad.
I might upgrade if I can tell there is a solid advantage over stock app.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
I've tried this a few days ago but I don't like the way this app returns non-accurate colors.
Cheers from my DHD.
Camera360 is really good.
Can you guys enlighten me how bad the camera is. I thought it is clear enough.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
I just tried several versions including the latest 1.3 version of Camera 360 Pro and there is NO ghost setting/effect, how or where do you get it from as it is not in the list...
Hi..the ghosting effect needs to be downloaded (free)..its an add on, i think its on the apps store.. it puts images of ghosts on the pic (they look like the girl from "the ring" series).. you really have to look to see her though, its quite good how they put it in the pic..it randomly places the image on the photo.
mrflatout said:
Hi..the ghosting effect needs to be downloaded (free)..its an add on, i think its on the apps store.. it puts images of ghosts on the pic (they look like the girl from "the ring" series).. you really have to look to see her though, its quite good how they put it in the pic..it randomly places the image on the photo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for that mrflatout!
I have Camera360 on my DX, and the app doesn't seem to focus in either of the focal modes I choose. Anyone else have this problem? Is there another way to focus?
In manual focus mode, I'll press the button halfway for focus, like in the regular stock camera, and a message appears informing me that the shot is now in focus and to take the picture. Only, it didn't focus. When I load the stock camera, and hold halfway, I notice how it takes about a second or two to focus, and the shot is much clearer than the Camera360 app.
It's really frustrating since I paid money for this, and I like all the features, but it doesn't focus!
I must be doing something wrong.
----
Okay, I fixed my issue. All I needed to do was uninstall and reinstall the app. Once I did that, the camera focuses like it should.
I tried it but it keeps force closing, i think i will remove and download again. Just to try it.

Camera takes pics sideways issue

if i hold the camera vertical and take pics, then email or post them, the top of the pic is now on the left side and it is a horizontal picture. (sure hope i am explaining this properly). if i take a picture horizontally, it will remain as it should.
this is default on most phones i think. wifes iPhone 4 does the same thing.
is there a way to make the camera app know that i am taking a pic a certain way and it saves them accordingly?
if i take a picture horizontally, it will look correct and i will not have to rotate the picture. this is just confusing to me that the phone doesnt know that i am taking a picture vertically and saves if horizontally.
any explanation?
Just curious, have you tried changing the pic resolution? Its set to widescreen by default. With camera open, open the menu, pick settings and top choice is resolution.
when changed i am sure it will work but then the quality is downgraded, correct?
i am in the middle of an SBF and 6.5 install right now or i would check. but i defiantly will once it is up.
i take a lot of pics of my 7 month old and want the best quality possible, ya know?
The first choice below widescreen is 5mp so probably not downgraded much.
changing the resolution doesn't change the horizontal issue...I would like to find a fix for this also.
Thx.
Ron
rpolansky said:
changing the resolution doesn't change the horizontal issue...I would like to find a fix for this also.
Thx.
Ron
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same here. this drives me nuts. especially when I am sending a MMS
Not really a solution but you can easily turn them to the left, or right, in the Gallery-app and email them from there!
co.ag.2005 said:
same here. this drives me nuts. especially when I am sending a MMS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or posting to Facebook
and i can also confirm that the change of settings do nothing. only makes it a more square picture and not widescreen. . .
jange said:
Not really a solution but you can easily turn them to the left, or right, in the Gallery-app and email them from there!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
needs to be automatic but good idea.
jange said:
Not really a solution but you can easily turn them to the left, or right, in the Gallery-app and email them from there!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good to know. I assume gallery "saves" the new orientation? now that I think about it, the pictures always look correct in the gallery app but are sideways when posting to facebook or sending an MMS
Vignette?
I saw somewhere that using Vignette fixed the prob on other android models. Not free..
I tried the demo version and it does seem to work for me so I a probably going to buy the app.
is there any other reason to switch to this application, vs the stock? i dont mind switching but would like to know more information you know?
not that you have it, just saying... i wonder what other perks there are..
I just tried out the demo version of Vignette. I does fix the locked in landscape issue, however, it seemed quite slow. I took a picture, then it had to make a preview (took several seconds) and then I had to click an option to "Save & Close" the preview. And then I was back to a position to be able to take another picture.
I'm not sure if the paid version is faster or not. I guess I could spend the ~$4.00 and return/refund within 15 minutes if I don't like it. Does anyone else know of any other 3rd party camera apps? I did a quick search in Android Market and didn't find anything promising. (I'll have to do more digging.)
EDIT: There is an autosave setting that I checked on that took some time and work out of what I mentioned earlier. This app is promising, but isn't very polished... especially for ~$4.00 USD.
dont pay.. i uhm. i have it. i will let you know. but i think that it is slow. i am sure you can change the auto preview though and just snap and go and review later.
I need to play with a little more, also. I only tried it for a few minutes. I didn't notice it being that slow but it may be because I didn't spend enough time. I may have to try the full version and return it if I don't like it. There is another camera app on android that is highly rated-Camera Zoom FX. I don't know if it fixes the problem and there wasn't a demo....
ok...
there is an auto save option. but when checked, it still shows the picture for 2 seconds. so i am thinking vs the stock camera app, it takes 4 seconds more to take another picture.
obviously this app has other options like effects or what not. but when taking a picture, i dont want to go through all of them and choose and then take the picture. i would rather just edit them later on photoshop or something similar.
so i am going to stick with the stock camera app and just deal with taking them horizontally until this is resolved, or not.
I have noticed the same thing, it seems pretty clear that the orientation EXIF flag is saved correctly with the picture since the gallery displays the picture correctly, and the EXIF auto-rotate feature on software like digikam seems to operate correctly.
This is how most digital cameras operate and should make it irrelevant how the images are actually stored.
Unfortunately a lot of the other android software doesn't seem to be aware of this flag. And there doesn't seem to be a setting to make the camera save the picture in it's correct orientation directly.
Oh and as far as the resolution settings goes, the widescreen setting is actually a lower resolution than the 5MP setting.
vignette has a " auto detect orientation" feature too
tha5150 said:
ok...
there is an auto save option. but when checked, it still shows the picture for 2 seconds. so i am thinking vs the stock camera app, it takes 4 seconds more to take another picture.
obviously this app has other options like effects or what not. but when taking a picture, i dont want to go through all of them and choose and then take the picture. i would rather just edit them later on photoshop or something similar.
so i am going to stick with the stock camera app and just deal with taking them horizontally until this is resolved, or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was playing with it at lunch. Click on the options (normal) and change to "fast shot". I was able to take a number of pics quickly. Doing this auto saves the pics....

how could samsung screw up the camera THIS badly..

besides unnecessary parental control put in place on the camera, like battery limitations, forcing your music to stop when its loaded, and inability to function when mediascanner is running, theyve also, and made a unmutable shutter sound and auto focus sound, and removed the option to adjust saturation, sharpness, and brightness.. and in the video camera, removed the the ability to pause the video, now you have to straight out stop it and take another one.
why did they do this you might ask? because they added extremely watered down picture editor, and video clip editor. and they somehow think that adding these after picture/video editors was such a good idea, that they should just remove them from the camera entirely.. wtf samsung?
now what i wanna know is what WE can do to fix this? is it possible to take these settings from the galaxy s1's camera app, and add them in to the s2's? the camera apps are extremely similar
EDIT: a solution?
i really think these things can be fixed, maybe not adding the saturation, sharpness, and brightness back, that seems like alot of hard work, and i guess it isnt TOO hard to edit the picture afterwards.. but i think removing the 'parental controls' put in place, is simply a matter of deleting that area of the app's code. i wonder if adding the ability to pause the video would be hard, it seems like a simple enough thing to do.. but i dont fully understand how one would go about doing this..
for SGS1 owners, do you guys remember Fr4gg0r? he created a hacked camera app that removed the battery limitation, music from stopping when camera loads, and even added the ability to use the hardware lockkey as a camera shutter button!, and he added a thumbnail of recently taken picture in the bottom right hard corner (which we now see built in to the sgs2). really amazing work! however i spoke with him, and he doesnt plan to get the sgs2, but i wonder if we looked at his changelog from the origional apk to the modded, if then we could just make the same mods to the s2..
can anyone a little more knowledgeable than me give me their thoughts?
SGS [APP] Hacked Camera.apk <- link to his thread for original hacked camera app
Modding the camera app is very difficult since it's closed source. Might be able to take the AOSP camera app and hook the driver up, but that's hard too... amount of work depends on how good the camera driver meshes with the AOSP camera app.. I think?
I've never tried to do anything with the camera so hopefully someone with more knowledge of it can pitch in!
As to your complaint about the settings... do you really sit there before taking a picture on a phone camera and fiddle with contrast/brightness settings? I wish I had your dedication to taking good pictures!
I'm guessing suspending other applications when the camera's running is to preserve resources. I don't think I've ever been listening to music when I've used my phone as a camera. I don't agree with taking away flexibility but I think the percentage of people impacted isn't going to be high.
I can understand your concern but I don't think these restrictions justify saying they screwed up the camera badly.. maybe if they used a crappy sensor, but judging from the photos and video's I've seen posted quality looks very acceptable!
the reason i expect u cant use camera whilst media scanner is running is due to the fact samsungs internal memory, where pics are stored by default, is mounted like an SD card... also ive only ever had media scanner running once re-mounting from mass storage or when turning phone on... although ive never actually tested this senario as my phone is always on and storage mounted...
neither of those issues are a problem for me though... at least ive never encountered them during usage...
Dickie
i know removing the battery limit requires deleting some lines of code, same goes for it killing music, and forcing a shutter sound and focus sound, but would it be incredibly hard work to add the ability to pause a video, as i find this really necessary when taking videos
soraxd said:
i know removing the battery limit requires deleting some lines of code, same goes for it killing music, and forcing a shutter sound and focus sound, but would it be incredibly hard work to add the ability to pause a video, as i find this really necessary when taking videos
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree about pausing a video recording. I've often used that feature on my SGS, and find it very puzzling, and annoying, that they would eliminate it. Quite odd.
i really think these things can be fixed, maybe not adding the saturation, sharpness, and brightness back, that seems like alot of hard work, and i guess it isnt TOO hard to edit the picture afterwards.. but i think removing the 'parental controls' put in place, is simply a matter of deleting that area of the app's code. i wonder if adding the ability to pause the video would be hard, it seems like a simple enough thing to do.. but i dont fully understand how one would go about doing this..
for SGS1 owners, do you guys remember Fr4gg0r? he created a hacked camera app that removed the battery limitation, music from stopping when camera loads, and even added the ability to use the hardware lockkey as a camera shutter button!, and he added a thumbnail of recently taken picture in the bottom right hard corner (which we now see built in to the sgs2). really amazing work! however i spoke with him, and he doesnt plan to get the sgs2, but i wonder if we looked at his changelog from the origional apk to the modded, if then we could just make the same mods to the s2..
can anyone a little more knowledgeable than me give me their thoughts?
SGS [APP] Hacked Camera.apk <- link to his thread for original hacked camera app
screw camera up??? except for the battery and music "issue" in my opinion this is one of the best cameras on a mobile, i tried many different modes and the pictures are quite good ))
unfortunately we cannot always have everything in just one gadged )))
well we may not be able to have everything, but i wont stop until i get some results.. ive been talking to a clever developer lately, whos on board to help me modify this app
I've started modding the camera app for battery level etc. Will take a look more today
These mods shouldn't be hard to implement and there is no closed source when it comes to android. We have apktool and smali / baksmali, we don't need source code from Samsung for this.

Pictures taken in portrait end up sideways

I have a Nexus S 4G (Sprint), and I'm running CM7. Whenever I take a photo in portrait mode, it appears correctly in the gallery, but ends up sideways whenever I e-mail it out. But, if I take a photo in landscape and send it, it looks fine.
I have heard solutions of cropping the photo in order to get it to "stick" to portrait, but I'm wondering if anybody is aware of any other solution for this... short of either cropping or only shooting in landscape.
Thanks!
That happened to me yesterday.
I would be interested in knowing a solution as well...cropping my photos becomes a pain when I'm trying to send out several of them so my parents can see their grandkids..
I have the same issue. Its a pita. It happens on stock rom also.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App
The Nexus S uses the Orientation field in the photo's EXIF information to determine whether it's portrait or landscape. The gallery app recognizes this information and displays it appropriately, but a lot of third-party applications and services do not. This wasn't an issue in the past because the camera give the photo portrait dimensions immediately upon saving.
So, depending on where you send your portrait photos to, your mileage may vary. This method is trending upward among OS and manufacturers, so it's up to software developers to look for this data when parsing images.
peterochford said:
The Nexus S uses the Orientation field in the photo's EXIF information to determine whether it's portrait or landscape. The gallery app recognizes this information and displays it appropriately, but a lot of third-party applications and services do not. This wasn't an issue in the past because the camera give the photo portrait dimensions immediately upon saving.
So, depending on where you send your portrait photos to, your mileage may vary. This method is trending upward among OS and manufacturers, so it's up to software developers to look for this data when parsing images.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Evo never had this issue using Handcent or Gmail. Somewhere the software in the NS is dropping the ball./
Yeah...I hear what you're saying about the technical aspects, but even when I send a mms the picture shows fine in the gallery, but comes out upside down in the message (or whatever orientation it was when taken)...I feel that the phone's own app for messaging should be able to read that info right?
I wonder if using a third-party camera app like Vignette would be a workaround.
Maybe I'll give that a shot...
imekul said:
I wonder if using a third-party camera app like Vignette would be a workaround.
Maybe I'll give that a shot...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does seem to work okay in Vignette...
Wish there was an easy solution to this!
I honestly think this is a Samsung issue. I've only seen this issue on their phones... my girlfriend's dumbphone, friend's Focus, and my SNS all do the same thing. It's annoying as hell.
I've had this happen with every phone I have owned...and I've had a bunch! Seems the closer I am to the object it does this.

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