Database Users

VGA recording just a fake???

Hi guys
I think Xperia doesnt really capture videos in VGA @30fps
I had a nokia n95 8gb and the videos were waaaay better.
but not only that
i recorded in vga mode a 40s video and that was 2.4MB that means around 60KB/s and that means 2KB per every frame.?????!!!!! if there are 30 frames per second.(and not forget that there is also the audio so the frame size is lower than 2KB)
The funny thing is that the video size IS 640x480. so in my opinion
the videos are caught in a low resolution for example 320x240 every frame gets interpolated to 640x480 and then saved as video.... could this be true ??? what do u think.

I don't know the details but most mpeg encoders deal with I and P frames. Something to do with they take a full frame picture, and then for the next x amount of frames encode only the delta between succesive images, then another full frame I.e. if the image does not change much, then not much data will be used as there has been not much change... etc

even if the X1 takes video at 640x480 and 30fps that doesnt say anything about the quality of the chipset, which quite crappy if you ask me. Video recording quality is horrible for such an expensive device.

man, it's seem you know nothing about video encoding and you complaint x1's capacity is fake. the msg above is correct and that's why action movie normally bigger in size due to massive different between frames. there are other tricks (color pattern), algorithm and compression to reduce the size even futher

The problem is the cmos camera - not the pixels at which it is stored.
Like most mobile phones, the cmos for capturing the image is too small and not sensitive enough, therefore the quality is usually crap! and it doesn't matter what resolution you store the image/video as, cause the source was crap to start off with.

informatico said:
Hi guys
The funny thing is that the video size IS 640x480. so in my opinion
the videos are caught in a low resolution for example 320x240 every frame gets interpolated to 640x480 and then saved as video.... could this be true ??? what do u think.
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I thought so at first too, since the quality was so bad in VGA-mode. But if you record a video of a motionless view and hold the camera very still you will see there is a difference between QVGA and VGA. So I think the bad quality in VGA-mode is the result of very hard compression.
I really hope they fix that.

yeah ... you're right

I just noticed something that i find a bit weird, even though it supports my previous statement.
I recorded two videos with the X1. They are almost exactly the same length (it differs less than a second), and the scenes are also identical. One is VGA and the other is QVGA.
Since the size of VGA is four times bigger than QVGA I would expect the VGA recording to have a bigger file size. Maybe not four times bigger, but at least clearly larger.
But actually the QVA recording was slightly bigger. Only 40 kB though, so they are basically the same size.
No wonder we experience the VGA recording to be of low quality.

720p vs 1080p video recording

Do you typically record 720p or 1080p video? I use 720p because the files are smaller and I own a 720p tv. I wondered if 720p might offer better quality in low light conditions because it can average over more pixels in the sensor?
Also if the phone cpu is working too hard at 1080p does it reduce quality by upping compression and increasing lossyness?
Or is 1080p substantially better choice with the only downside being bigger files?
Generally I've found video IQ to be some what independent of resolution (on other devices) because compression generally goes up with resolution negating a lot of the benefits.
Thoughts?

Im using 720p cos it seems to me more clear and more smooth playing...plus less zoom.....
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

So 720p plays back smoother? Just on the phone screen or over hdmi?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

jdurston said:
Do you typically record 720p or 1080p video? I use 720p because the files are smaller and I own a 720p tv. I wondered if 720p might offer better quality in low light conditions because it can average over more pixels in the sensor?
Also if the phone cpu is working too hard at 1080p does it reduce quality by upping compression and increasing lossyness?
Or is 1080p substantially better choice with the only downside being bigger files?
Generally I've found video IQ to be some what independent of resolution (on other devices) because compression generally goes up with resolution negating a lot of the benefits.
Thoughts?
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You are right, due to the binning would select the less noisier pixels and thus, the 720p video quality [except for resolution ofc ] would be much better.

I prefer 720p mode, only because of the field of view, it's just too narrow angle in 1080 mode.
Suppose it could come in handy if wanting to shoot something more distant but for indoor work it's not wide enough.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

For me only 720p, because in 1080p I get a thin, purple line over the image that's also recorded into the vid, making my 1080 mode effectively broken.

I always thought 1080 as higher quality than 720p. Maybe for mobile this is different? Any source or test for this?

I'll try and shoot some comparison footage tomorrow.
Not sure if YouTube's compression will make the difference impossible to tell though.

Si14 said:
I always thought 1080 as higher quality than 720p. Maybe for mobile this is different? Any source or test for this?
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This is a totally different matter. Yes, 1080 pixels are "higher" than 720, obviously . But there are other factors also on our device.
I just record in 720p. Never really compared the two, but I don't need 1080p usually, so I' don't need those huge files either.

Good discussion on here, guess I'll have to switch to 720p now on.

I tried recording an apple in the 2 modes and to my surprise the 720p mode is indeed much clearer and wider then 1080p.
Go for 720p

I prefer 720 p... for my the quality is enought and the size of the videos is so better.
Regards

[Q]

I was wondering if there was some sort of video upscaling present when videos of a lower resolution like 720p and 1080p videos are played. I mean, there's not much point in a QHD screen if even 1080p videos are pixelated, right?

What do you mean? They have to be upscaled, how else would you want to watch them? In a small window? 720p should upscale without any quality loss (1 pixel becomes 4 pixels), 1080p should look great too but with a slight, probably not noticable at such small screen size quality loss.

1080p videos look great on my Tab S 8.4 i don't see any reason why they wouldn't on the Note 4.

Sorry. Yeah, I mean lossless upscaling.

inadequate said:
Sorry. Yeah, I mean lossless upscaling.
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Lossless...?
Relative to the 1080p, sure, it's lossless as you don't lose any resolution from 1080p. Relative to 1440p? Well, in that case of course you lose resolution if the source video isn't 1440p.
Sorry, I'm not too sure what you mean by lossless.

Looks like I've been doing a shoddy job of explaining myself. Sorry about that.
I know that this may sound completely retarded, but what I meant to ask was this : Does the Note 4 have the same type of upscaling that is present in 4K televisions?

Why is video recording 1080p at 60fps pixelated?

I saw it mentioned in a review, but I don't see a reason this should happen. I know this phone model vs the Mi 9 or the 9T Pro doesn't support 4K @60fps due to CPU capabilities, and for costs' sake the coupled image sensor is also a similar version which nominally identical to the Mi 9's sensor other than not supporting 4K @60fps (lower bandwidth on the image sensor's processor?). The 1080p resolution is also nominally a bit truncated due to this, with 240fps slow motion only being supported at 720fps (and 1080p going up to only 120fps), but I don't understand what's up with the pixelated quality?
With 1080p @30fps, there is no such pixelation, and zooming in even x5 keeps a pretty decent quality with no such rough pixelation. I'm not sure if the phone knows how to adjust the number of pixels used out of the entire sensor while digitally zooming instead of stretching the rendered image, but even if it's only digital crop-and-stretch, at 30fps it at the very least uses a decent filter that smoothes square pixelation.
I can see when using 60fps that the image view is slightly zoomed in, meaning it probably uses a bit less pixels out of the entire available sensor, but it's a very small difference which doesn't match the severity of the actual effect, and again — it doesn't even try to smooth the pixelation. At 120fps the pixelation is even worse.
I suppose having a higher possible bottleneck might secure more consistent performance at lower settings (so perhaps in some aspects you could expect a phone rated to capture at up to 1080p @240fps to perform better at 60fps than a phone only rated to capture at up to 1080fps @120fps), but what's going on in this case doesn't seem reasonable.
So what's your take on this? Should this issue be fixable through software update?

post a sample of video you are talking about please

Nexus5-32GB said:
post a sample of video you are talking about please
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There's no need for a full video, even. Here are a few screenshots from recorded videos in different settings:
At 30fps, no zoom:
https://i.ibb.co/XjmqxHr/FHD30fps.png
At 30fps with X5 zoom:
https://i.ibb.co/yd6pMBs/FHD30fps-Zoom-X5.png
At 60fps, no zoom. Here you can already see some blocky pixelation along fine lines if you pay attention:
https://i.ibb.co/pL6PTkc/FHD60fps.png
At 60fps with X3 zoom. As you can see it doesn't even try to filter the upscaling, so you just end up with blocks of cubic pixels:
https://i.ibb.co/cLNcxzK/FHD60fps-Zoom-X3.png

I can definitely see the pixelation you are talking about, but is it in video itself or the pixelation is because of the video player you are using? Thats why I told you to post the original video.
Also what rom are you using?

same for my device,it has that pixelation on 1080p 60fps recording.
playing it on pc vlc or mpc-hc have it too.
was waiting for someone to create a thread about it. tnx
k20 10.3.8.0 in

Nexus5-32GB said:
I can definitely see the pixelation you are talking about, but is it in video itself or the pixelation is because of the video player you are using? Thats why I told you to post the original video.
Also what rom are you using?
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It is in the video itself. It shows in the camera's "viewfinder" while recording, and then the same way when playing the recorded file. As I said, 120fps is even worse, while it isn't saved at 120fps but at 30fps slow motion in case you thought it's the videoplayer mishandling 60fps playback.
I'm using the official MIUI it came with.

Abyzt said:
same for my device,it has that pixelation on 1080p 60fps recording.
playing it on pc vlc or mpc-hc have it too.
was waiting for someone to create a thread about it. tnx
k20 10.3.8.0 in
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As I mentioned, I already saw something said about this in a review, but I don't see a reason why it should perform this bad with anything above 1080p 30fps. Because the digital zoom on 30fps remains fairly detailed even at around X3, I wonder if the sensor knows how to limit the area of pixels from the sensor used before rendering the frame, thus creating a better digital zoom than just cropping and stretching up from the normal amount of pixels being used. The image is slightly zoomed already in 60fps, as I mentioned, but seeing how it just takes the already somewhat pixelated quality and stretches it up exactly as-is in 60fps, it definitely doesn't use any sensor area limitation trickery in that case.

TLxda-d said:
It is in the video itself. It shows in the camera's "viewfinder" while recording, and then the same way when playing the recorded file. As I said, 120fps is even worse, while it isn't saved at 120fps but at 30fps slow motion in case you thought it's the videoplayer mishandling 60fps playback.
I'm using the official MIUI it came with.
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I have tested my own Mi9T and can say the 60fps video suffer from pixelation for sure.

has the same problem on the gcam ports too on 60fps
so i think xiaomi has to do something on the camera firmware
or imx 582 cant handle it mmm idk

Abyzt said:
has the same problem on the gcam ports too on 60fps
so i think xiaomi has to do something on the camera firmware
or imx 582 cant handle it mmm idk
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This would be quite strange if it's hardware limited to this extent. Both the Snapdragon 730 and the IMX 582 are rated for 4K at 30fps, which in number of pixels per second is equal to 1080p at 120fps (which the phone also features as an option). But if this upper limit is so far from perfectly-handled that even at half the data (1080p at 60fps) it provides Crappy crappy results... Strange. Are there any other phones currently using this sensor, so we can check if there had been similar complaints?

found this it has imx 582 mi a3 with pixelation
watch?v=8YC_Zk1-cSg

Abyzt said:
found this it has imx 582 mi a3 with pixelation
watch?v=8YC_Zk1-cSg
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That's quite strange and annoying. The SD 730 is better than the SD 665, so if it happens on both we know it's more likely related to the image sensor itself. But it seems unlikely a sensor released with specifications allowing it to capture up to 120fps at 1080p would perform this badly at 60fps. It looks as if if just takes a 720p 60fps feed and upscales it (without any scaling filters) to 1080p. Maybe it's indeed an issue with how Xiaomi implemented this sensor in software? Both phones we have as examples are from the same manufacturer, so a third party phone could be a better indicator.

Abyzt said:
has the same problem on the gcam ports too on 60fps
so i think xiaomi has to do something on the camera firmware
or imx 582 cant handle it mmm idk
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Would you be so kind and tell me more in how you managed to make 1080p/60fps work on Gcam?
USing my Gcam port, the app instantly crashes when trying to use the 60fps mod....everything else works just fine.
USing Ornyx05 - 0709 port.

Pejpi said:
Would you be so kind and tell me more in how you managed to make 1080p/60fps work on Gcam?
USing my Gcam port, the app instantly crashes when trying to use the 60fps mod....everything else works just fine.
USing Ornyx05 - 0709 port.
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use the ports by xtrme

Abyzt said:
use the ports by xtrme
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Thanks, that worked a treat
Found out which settings you most satisfied with ?

On mine is not pixelated..

dandopa said:
On mine is not pixelated..
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Could you shoot an example of 1080p at 60fps, perhaps use x2 zoom as it shows the issue much more clearly on my phone, and then upload the example? Or just a screenshot of a frame.

So, months have passed and I wonder....do we have a conclusion/reason why the 1080p 60fps videos are still pixelated/jagged when zooming in even a little bid?
For the love of me i cant find anything on that matter anywhere on the web.
Is there a workaround? is it just the camera sensor? software? something else?

Still alive?
It seems to be specific to IMX582 sensors.
My POCO X3 Pro has exact same problem.
I have created an HLSL shader program to mitigate this, and it works well on MPC-HC.
I hope someone would port it to Gcam to do it in real time.
For comparison, added the stock image and one halfed then doubled.

Just for information.
This pixelation occurs also on Huawei Mate 9.
So, my thought is that may be caused by skipped scan lines to achieve 60 fps and poor interpolation for malformed Bayer array (see the attachment picture).
Considering that, I updated my HLSL shader to re-decode the array.
It should not be a perfect solution because there is theoretical restriction by non-uniformity of its subpixels.
I still looking for some way to apply the shader directly to raw pixels before encoding to H.264/H.265 in camera apps.

Anyone know a way to stop the camera from upscaling the video recording resolution?

This has been bugging the hell out of me since I got this phone. All the reviews made such a huge deal out of the phones camera quality and capabilities. But upon using it myself.. I am not all that impressed. When I record a video in say 1280x720, the resulting video always looks like it was recorded in say 800x450 or something along those lines. No matter what bitrate I choose, it looks like a lower resolution. You can't zoom the video hardly without it degrading. Go ahead, try zooming on some text in 720P. Now compare it to 720P on some other phone. Now, when I record in say 1920x1080, the resulting video looks like it was recorded in 720p, not 1080.
I have 720p videos I recorded from my Galaxy S4 that look FAR FAR better than so called 720p on the V20. It seems like the camera on the V20 is UPSCALING the video recording output to the next highest resolution than what is ACTUALLY being recorded. 720p appears as 480p, 1080p appears as 720p etc. As someone who is picky about quality, this has been a major blow since I got this phone. I am surprised no one has ever posted about this.

THE-COPS said:
This has been bugging the hell out of me since I got this phone. All the reviews made such a huge deal out of the phones camera quality and capabilities. But upon using it myself.. I am not all that impressed. When I record a video in say 1280x720, the resulting video always looks like it was recorded in say 800x450 or something along those lines. No matter what bitrate I choose, it looks like a lower resolution. You can't zoom the video hardly without it degrading. Go ahead, try zooming on some text in 720P. Now compare it to 720P on some other phone. Now, when I record in say 1920x1080, the resulting video looks like it was recorded in 720p, not 1080.
I have 720p videos I recorded from my Galaxy S4 that look FAR FAR better than so called 720p on the V20. It seems like the camera on the V20 is UPSCALING the video recording output to the next highest resolution than what is ACTUALLY being recorded. 720p appears as 480p, 1080p appears as 720p etc. As someone who is picky about quality, this has been a major blow since I got this phone. I am surprised no one has ever posted about this.
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Iv noticed it, but I brushed it off as I felt nothing could be done to fix by me or other devs that I am/was aware of. Now that I think if it more from your words, maybe could be fixed by overclocking the 4k to 6k, or 8k, to get a 4k resolution. Need root to try this though.

Well, at least I'm not the only one who noticed. Is it the same way on Oreo? I mean, did the update "fix" anything related to video recording resolution or is it still upscaled? (I'm still on 7.0 Nougat for battery reasons, but if 8.0 has a video improvement.. well, game changer). This seems like false advertising meant to try and push 4k capability when it really couldn't. If the camera really isn't capturing 4K, then does that mean it would be too much a burden on the hardware to actually be pulling 30 4k FPS ...VS 30 1080P FPS upscaled to 4K?

Are you talking about the quality on Google photos, or the out of camera quality?
have you tried exporting it to your computer via USB? Cos, for some reason the quality and resolution are lower on G Photos.

THE-COPS said:
Well, at least I'm not the only one who noticed. Is it the same way on Oreo? I mean, did the update "fix" anything related to video recording resolution or is it still upscaled? (I'm still on 7.0 Nougat for battery reasons, but if 8.0 has a video improvement.. well, game changer). This seems like false advertising meant to try and push 4k capability when it really couldn't. If the camera really isn't capturing 4K, then does that mean it would be too much a burden on the hardware to actually be pulling 30 4k FPS ...VS 30 1080P FPS upscaled to 4K?
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I don't think a burden but more of how's it's coded. 4K on tripod is hard to tell vs 1080p. Note 3 was same way. Oreo cam may be better but I can't really tell. Idk why 16mp is not fully utilized for 4K 16:9 either. Coding that I personally don't know how to do. Slow mo don't even have sound via stock cam.

Lebatman said:
Are you talking about the quality on Google photos, or the out of camera quality?
have you tried exporting it to your computer via USB? Cos, for some reason the quality and resolution are lower on G Photos.
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Camera output. That is, the resulting video file from the camera after pressing record button.
I know there is a loss of quality from compression. But it's not compression artifacts causing this. Bitrate doesn't make any difference. You can clearly see the video detail is not even close to what it says it is. I especially noticed this with text. I was recording a video while in a car. There was a car maybe 1-2 car lengths ahead. One can easily read the license plate. In the recorded 1280x720 video, I could NOT make out the plate at all. You'd thought I recorded in 960x540 or close. It's rather blurry. I think that's why LG added all that oversharpening.
I even set it to take photos at 1280x720. And even with high jpg compression zoomed/cropped, it doesn't look like the 1280x720 zoomed/cropped video of the same exact item being photo'd.
Been using Mark Harmons OpenCamera and trying all sorts of video bitrates. Then changing photo save resolution. I found that a photo resolution of between 960x540 and 800x480 (cropped) looks very similar to what a cropped 720P video appears. It seems as if there is some kind of preprocessing going on with the image that makes it appear extremely muddy (smudged blurry detail cropped). Nothing at all changed with the quality whether the bitrate was set at 5Mbps or 50Mbps. Quality remained unchanged.
Mysticblaze347. I don't think a burden but more of how's it's coded. 4K on tripod is hard to tell vs 1080p. Note 3 was same way. Oreo cam may be better but I can't really tell. Idk why 16mp is not fully utilized for 4K 16:9 either. Coding that I personally don't know how to do. Slow mo don't even have sound via stock cam.
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Sounds like Oreo update isn't worth the trouble. As far as how it's coded... I think it's the awful preprocessing muddying up the image detail as I mentioned above. Using massively high bitrates does no good at all.
4K on tripod VS 1080 on tripod is quite noticeable on the V20 due to the appearance of upscaling (or horrible preprocessing.. whichever it is).
I didn't know Slo-Mo was supposed to have sound. I mean, the option to enable sound would be interesting (say a time-stretched audio instead of slowed down pitch).

THE-COPS said:
Camera output. That is, the resulting video file from the camera after pressing record button.
I know there is a loss of quality from compression. But it's not compression artifacts causing this. Bitrate doesn't make any difference. You can clearly see the video detail is not even close to what it says it is. I especially noticed this with text. I was recording a video while in a car. There was a car maybe 1-2 car lengths ahead. One can easily read the license plate. In the recorded 1280x720 video, I could NOT make out the plate at all. You'd thought I recorded in 960x540 or close. It's rather blurry. I think that's why LG added all that oversharpening.
I even set it to take photos at 1280x720. And even with high jpg compression zoomed/cropped, it doesn't look like the 1280x720 zoomed/cropped video of the same exact item being photo'd.
Been using Mark Harmons OpenCamera and trying all sorts of video bitrates. Then changing photo save resolution. I found that a photo resolution of between 960x540 and 800x480 (cropped) looks very similar to what a cropped 720P video appears. It seems as if there is some kind of preprocessing going on with the image that makes it appear extremely muddy (smudged blurry detail cropped). Nothing at all changed with the quality whether the bitrate was set at 5Mbps or 50Mbps. Quality remained unchanged.
Sounds like Oreo update isn't worth the trouble. As far as how it's coded... I think it's the awful preprocessing muddying up the image detail as I mentioned above. Using massively high bitrates does no good at all.
4K on tripod VS 1080 on tripod is quite noticeable on the V20 due to the appearance of upscaling (or horrible preprocessing.. whichever it is).
I didn't know Slo-Mo was supposed to have sound. I mean, the option to enable sound would be interesting (say a time-stretched audio instead of slowed down pitch).
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Who wouldn't want sound with slow mo? That's like no sound with regular video lol.
LG also made it to where 4k can barely be done via third party. Gcam can't...Open Cam can. Nothing can be done without root tho. Even then... limitations upon availability and know how. Manual setting is your best bet. Auto is well...auto, so definitely postprocessing will be involved and yes it's not the best, unless fixed with some mod, even if that works. LG hardcoded lockdowns. Camera firmware can be possible tweaked...but I do not know how.