Database Users

Video recording quality?

Hey everyone i'm just wondering,
How's the video recording quality on your x1. Also how's the image quality when taking pictures?
I'm going to be using this at a concert to take pictures and maybe videos if i can find a 4 gb memory card.
Does anyone know where i can get a 4 gb memory card in the U.S.?(preferably class 4 or 6). Also, how long would i be able to record videos using a 4 gb card?

I can say this:
Video is OK. On the mobile device you can just say that.. But it's relatively fine.
Pictures are great. Strangely, especially in sport mode.
Witg 4gb you'd get over 10 hours of video.

Sport mode is good. However, I noticed that when it's in sport mode, the images are darker. The exposure is a lot lower. Any ideas how to improve on this?

You can increase the Brightness level with the optical joystick. Though this might be counter-productive to the sport mode low-blur short shutter.
As for the image and video quality of the X1: I was amazed how good it is.
My previous phone (Samsung U700) was supposed to have a decent 3,2 MP camera (looking at forum posts), but it sucks very, very badly compared to the X1.
X1's camera is much, much better then I expected it to be! And can actually replace a real camera for occasional snaps. Of course the quality is still much lower, but on the upside, I always have it with me and it does work very well. Though you better have a lot of light. Half-lit photos aren't nearly as good and dark... well... just forget it.

Yes, sports mode gives darker photos,
But I have XnView picture viewer/editor on my phone and I can perfectly edit photos,
make them ligher without any quality loss!

HTC HD2 Camera Quality

I have my Resolution setting on my HTC HD2 set to 5M (2592/1552) in camera, but when I take photos and check the properties of the photos I took, they are only 800 KB, how do I get them to be at 5 MB?

its 5 million pixels, not 5mb in size.

Thanks Ran, is there anyway to improve the quality?

Buy a real camera if you want quality.

Check the camera settings and set quality to 'superfine' by default it is set to 'Fine' also download and install BSBTweaks, there is an option, amongst other things, to increase the quality of photos to 8MP. Well worth doing.

The "8MP" tweak just enables on-the-fly interpolation. You can't make a 5MP camera take 8MP pictures.

Yeah i know, but the pics do come out better.

padlad said:
Yeah i know, but the pics do come out better.
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Click to collapse
No they not. They just smoother. And sometimes this option break quality of picture as you cant see some very small objects.

I am no expert when it comes to photography, i'll have to take your word for it.

Camera tips!

Hey everyone!
So i've used the Desire HD's camera for a bit, and I find it's got potential. I used to have a HD2...and remember there was a registry edit fix and also settings in the camera app that were published here on XDA to improve picture quality...well i've found out that pictures are a lot clearer and sharper when these settings are applied on the Desire HD:
Go into the Camera app...
Press the menu button on your desire hd...
Turn OFF auto-focus
in the Image adjustments sub-menu, turn sharpness all the way to 2...
Take pictures, and as a good example of comparison take a before and after picture.
In the after pic, tap on what you want in focus. The overall quality of the picture will be a lot clearer! There is also less noise and the object will be in focus, and pepper and grain effect is largely eliminated! Try it out and report back
Elemental_Fire
Update 1 (00:09-10/12/2010):
Thanks to the knowledge and sharing of fellow XDA members, I have determined that what seems to impact/affect images the most is the sharpness settings. Contrary to my settings, you can also go into Image adjustments in the camera app and turn off the sharpness setting fully. This is done by turning the sharpness circle dial all the way to -2. It seems that when set on default, the sharpness algorithm is ineffective at determining the level of sharpness that should be used. As a result, images are reproduced with unwanted image effects such as distinct grainyness, noise and also seemingly out-of-focus/blury pictures! So you can use either -2 for smooth pictures that are good quality, or +2 for sharper pictures that are good quality! At the end of the day, it depends on what you as the photographer prefer Haha i'm making this sound like the Desire HD is a professional camera...it's certainly more than suitable for quick snaps that won't comprise on good memorable photos in 8MP
Update 2 (00:51- 10/12/2010)
Uploaded sample pictures!

will give this a try in the morning!

Is that +2 I take it not -2? I'll check this out in morning
Sent from my Desire HD

Yep, plus 2

yup the pictures are much better!!
i just hated all tht noise and grainyness!
Thanks a lot!!!

I didnt really notice the difference, I think im just horrid at taking photos haha

they do look slightly better i think!

I haven't tried this yet myself but its nice that the hd remembers these settings after a power cycle - I expected all settings to revert to default.

That does not help any here.
I think the compression is just screwed up very badly, or we don't have anything like a 8MP sensor in our phones.
You can see that very easily if you photograph or film some intricate pattern like in snow, frost, test patterns (printed on paper) or such. It just smears and blurs the hell out of these photographs and no settings in the user interface will help against that.
Now, a sensor actually resolving 8 Megapixels, on the other hand, should be capable of resolving to about four 1920x1080 computer screens worth of distinct pixels. Unfortunately when I view the photographs on the screen, in actuality I still those see smears and other artifacts even when I zoom the image to about ~25% of the screen's. So... ~0.5 MP or less resolution in reality? Beh, fail.

Meh, it is an 8mp sensor...I just assume HTC don't implement and make use of the best available lens, sensor size and compression rate....but the camera isn't bad at all..i'll upload some pictures i've taken recently, they're quite defined! Certainly more clearer, sharper and yet containing less noise than my old HD2 gosh colours on that were washed out

sharpness plus 2 will increase the digital treatment which seems to remove more noise and add more sharpness, maybe a little better than the default semi sharpness which a mess
however the camera is indeed 8MP it is ridiculous to state otherwise!! turn off sharpness all the way to -2 and all this digital artifacts will be gone as well as fake sharpness, you will be able to get full 8MP camera quality without HTC mending with them, you can improve photos further by using the auto fix or high contrast from within the gallery
of course noise will be introduced depending on the available light and of course with sharpness -2 it will be a little soft since it receiving zero digital treatment, take it to any photo editing application and you can boost the sharpness properly
really i don't get all the random posts camera quality, i'm getting amazing results even managed to amaze my iphone 4 colleagues, the only part where HTC really failed is the default noise reduction/sharpness algorithm (Sharpness 0) its a real mess thankfully it can be turned off
i should make a detailed thread about the camera and be done with it

after using it a few times, im still sticking to my D700

I`m quite happy with the point and click results but for serious pics i use my ancient Canon EOS 500.

ofcourse it will never beat a DSLR! only the satio and the nokia n8 come close but those sucks in their own ways
its not a perfect camera, but damn better than everyone make it sound, and pretty amazing for a phone, everyone complaining including some reviewers didn't even bother to experiment with the basic settings
the best words i found for this camera are in the Engadget review particluary this line ( Noise-masking blur is distributed very well, in our opinion, works especially well if can content yourself with downsizing the images from the max 8 megapixel size), gsmarena kept complaining about the sharpness and never mentioned it can be turned off
oh and it wipes the floor with the iphone 4 camera
the only two issues in this phone are the lack of ips in the screen and the size for those who can't handle it and no the battery is fine

hamdir said:
ofcourse it will never beat a DSLR! only the satio and the nokia n8 come close but those sucks in their own ways
its not a perfect camera, but damn better than everyone make it sound, and pretty amazing for a phone, everyone complaining including some reviewers didn't even bother to experiment with the basic settings
the best words i found for this camera are in the Engadget review particluary this line ( Noise-masking blur is distributed very well, in our opinion, works especially well if can content yourself with downsizing the images from the max 8 megapixel size), gsmarena kept complaining about the sharpness and never mentioned it can be turned off
oh and it wipes the floor with the iphone 4 camera
the only two issues in this phone are the lack of ips in the screen and the size for those who can't handle it and no the battery is fine
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Click to collapse
agreed 100% with your post. Although the lack of ips is no issue imo.

thank you, ips is only an issue when use the phone flat on your desk or sharing with others, its a slight issue when old desire slcd/amoled, iphone 3Gs and ipads have much better view angles
but yea its no biggie, its my first HTC device where i found no need to flash custom stuff

Makes very little difference for me. I have to wonder about anyone that says this is a great camera - what are you comparing it against and have you ever used a Nokia for instance with Carl Zeiss optics?

xspyda said:
Makes very little difference for me. I have to wonder about anyone that says this is a great camera - what are you comparing it against and have you ever used a Nokia for instance with Carl Zeiss optics?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes nokia n900 and the DHD is better
i will post my results soon in full resolution

Here is a pic i took of my cat earlier today. Open in new tab to see the full resolution.

hamdir said:
i should make a detailed thread about the camera and be done with it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please do!
I for one am interested to finetune my camera app!

Video conversion

Just picked up this phone the other day and I'm trying to find out what the best settings would be to convert video files like movies and shows that would take advantage of the FHD screen. I tried to convert a movie and compared it to the same file that I had converted for my old phone which was the HTC Evo Lte but it seemed darker on the S5 for some reason.

casual167 said:
I'm trying to find out what the best settings would be to convert video files like movies and shows that would take advantage of the FHD screen.
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You are short on details, so we can only guess at your preferences, whether you are a demanding videophile or just want a decent rip, with minimal effort. Whether you convert on a PC or on the S5 and numerous other questions..
Since it's not at all clear what you goals are, I'll just describe what works well for me, with very good, high quality results.
Using Handbrake:
Use the Android preset, which is quite good. This defaults picture size to 720p. I have done a lot of side by side testing and while I would default to 1080p for Blueray rips intended for viewing on a projector, TV or notebook, there is no visible advantage on a 5.1" screen. As well, ripping to high standards at 1080p often exceeds 4 GB, which is problematic on the Android filesystem. Whereas 720p results in a viable 1.5 - 2.5 GB file.
Confirm that large files size is disabled. i.e. choose 32-bit chunks.
On the Video tab, choose frame rate = same as source
Preserve ad hoc subtitles, the ones that the original English movie occasionally puts on screen when someone speaks a few lines of foreign dialog. On the Subtitles tab, choose Forced only.
.

Thanks for your response. Yeah sorry, I should've been more specific in what I was trying to do. Since all my videos are currently formatted for 1280x720 on my Evo, I wanted to see if there is a conversion for the 1920x1080 that would look better on this phone. I'll give what you said a try and check it out. When comparing the two side by side, the S5 seemed to be a little darker so I wasn't sure if it was because of the lower resolution of 720. Just wanted to get it to look as crisp on the S5 as the Evo

I wouldn't recommend that kind of conversion. First, what you are thinking of doing is called upconverting.. and it never works well when you start with a lower resolution source. If you started with a highbit rate blueray.. that is one thing. And event then it's arguable if there is any visible advantage to 1080 on a 5.1" screen.
But I'll bet good money that upconverting from your lower resolution rip will noticeably degrade your picture. Yes, it will have more pixels in the end but since they are interpolated pixels from a lower resolution source, you can expect all kinds of undesirable video artifacts to accompany that.
Crisp could refer to several things. I suspect that your S5 is simply revealing inherent quality limitations of your current movie rips that may not have been obvious on your previous phone. The way to get that kind of crispness back on the S5 is to make better quality e.g. higher bit rate, mutipass (HQ) encoding and so forth. Simply upconverting will do the opposite of what you are aiming for because the extra pixels will tend to be blury + add random artifacts from an upconverted source.
Second, the dark picture you refer to is no doubt a minor gamma difference between manufacturers. You could in theory lighten all your movies to make them subjectively brighter on the S5. But again, it will degrade the picture a bit at the same time since the frames need to be modified and transcoded. Trust me that you will soon adjust to a gamma difference between devices after a short amount of time unless the difference is huge.
Most videophiles don't play movies at full brightness anyway as picture quality is better at an intermediate screen brightness. So unless you are viewing in a brightly lit room, you could just increase the S5 screne brightness a little bit to more than compensate for the lower gamma.
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3740
Ok that makes sense. I'm kind of a noob when it comes to this stuff so I appreciate you taking the time to explain it. I kept looking side by side and couldn't figure out why there was such a difference. Colors seemed to pop more on the Evo which I thought was weird but I sort of understand why now. Skin tones and everything just looked like it had less contrast. I spend a lot of time traveling for work so watching things is like 80% of what I do on the phone and getting the right format is important. I was looking at getting the LG G3 so would that mean that it could look worse because of the bigger size and resolution or would it be the about the same?

casual167 said:
I was looking at getting the LG G3 so would that mean that it could look worse because of the bigger size and resolution or would it be the about the same?
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Click to collapse
The S5 screen is better than the G3 IMO. But you can decide for yourself.
If you want crisp images or images on the S5.. just encode your movies from high resolution sources e.g. bluerays --> 720, with high quality settings e.g. high bit rate. Converting existing movie rips from 720 --> 1080 though won't give great results.
The apparent lack of crispness or contrast is just the effect of having a more capable screen on the S5. A better screen will be both impressive when you have a high quality movie. And disappointing when playing something lower quality because it is also more revealing of flaws that would be less obvious on a lower resolution screen.
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Take pictures in a smaller size?

I have a dumb question I don't think the stock camera has this option but is it possible to save pictures taken from the stock camera app in a smaller size?
I mean it's great and all that I have this 16mp shooter but if you're just snapping a quick reference pic to share with friends sometimes 5mp or less will do.
Cameras used to come with some selection of small medium and large or quality settings which is effectively a size reduction I don't see this option anymore.
It's not a huge deal but it does mean that I get into the habit of dropping the size before I send things with another image editor.

vortex-5 said:
I have a dumb question I don't think the stock camera has this option but is it possible to save pictures taken from the stock camera app in a smaller size?
I mean it's great and all that I have this 16mp shooter but if you're just snapping a quick reference pic to share with friends sometimes 5mp or less will do.
Cameras used to come with some selection of small medium and large or quality settings which is effectively a size reduction I don't see this option anymore.
It's not a huge deal but it does mean that I get into the habit of dropping the size before I send things with another image editor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found Google camera apk had this option..
Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

Well, the stock cam won't let you choose resolution as far as I know, but if you really wish to save a couple of MBs you can take photos in a different aspect ratio (16:9 or 1:1 which are cropped versions of the main 4:3 ratio).
Although, I must admit the solution posted above (Google cam) will definitely serve you better. Cheers!