Develop Bugs

[Q] Is the poor video framerate gonna get corrected in future?

Hi everyone.
HTC Desire is being found in my country better than other android phones, but I have a serious problem with its bad video recording framerate (15). I tried to download a video sample, and it was really bad as I thought (no offense to the fans ).
My phone's video recording ability is important for me, so please don't give answers like: this is a phone, go get a camcorder, ...
Some people say that it will have HD 720P support in future firmware updates, but I wanna know is there a plan to improve the framerate as well?
Thanks.

As the phone records direct to the SD card I would suggest trying a faster class of card and see if that affects things at all.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

mahi58 said:
Hi everyone.
HTC Desire is being found in my country better than other android phones, but I have a serious problem with its bad video recording framerate (15). I tried to download a video sample, and it was really bad as I thought (no offense to the fans ).
My phone's video recording ability is important for me, so please don't give answers like: this is a phone, go get a camcorder, ...
Some people say that it will have HD 720P support in future firmware updates, but I wanna know is there a plan to improve the framerate as well?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the desire already has 720p recording, but keep in mind its limited by its hardware, 1 ghz isnt alot to encode HD and i know the iphone has better HD recording but i think that has somthing to do with its improved gpu, recording at lower resolution is flawless so why not do that?

Galaxy S and iPhone 4 are the first phones that are likely to have the processing power to record 720p with decent framerates. Desire just isn't as powerful, no matter how it's optimized it won't be perfect, ever.
However, even those two phones (probably) don't benefit much in terms of real video quality by just upping the recorded resolution. Trying to fit even a BAD 720p-capable sensor in a phone form factor isn't going to be a reality for a couple years or so, I'd estimate. Right now you get lots of extra pixels but the picture doesn't actually look any better since the sensor is too small to properly capture such high resolution.
It's something like the "megapixel war" that went on (and continues to some extent) between the major camera vendors. There's not more space to use a better sensor, they just make the sensor try to interpret the light better. Now it's phone vendors claiming they can do 720p when in reality the sensors they're using are probably capable of "real" 480i resolution at best.
But you can see the result... take two shots on the phone of your choice, one at 3mp or so and one at the maximum, then try blowing up the 3mp one to the 10mp one's dimensions and compare them side by side. The resized one looks a bit blurry? Now apply a good professional sharpening filter such as Neat Image. Voila, they're all but identical, just one has lots more garbage data in the form of grain where there was none in real life. The sensor is so tiny there's literally just not enough photons hitting it to do anything but interpolate most of the data, even in daytime outdoors.
I know you said you don't want me to say "just buy a camcorder", but honestly that's the only solution if you want an actual image quality difference. An honest camcorder can give you a million times the feature set and record decent audio too.
Maybe check out the Canon HF100... I think that's what it's called. I have the previous year's model and it's outstanding value. Record true 1080p @ 30fps, and it's so clear you can capture individual frames from it and it looks better than any cameraphone. Takes competent stills too, and I think the most recent model has 20x optical zoom. It's like... 25% larger than an empty toilet paper roll and a little more squarish.

So do you recommend setting to 480?

Thank you guys.
I bought a Google-HTC nexus one today D). I had to buy a used cell phone because of the android phone shortage in my country, and I had to buy it today, so I wasn't able to read any of your posts; but some interesting comments have been posted:
AndroHero
You mean there is a video recording mode for desire, which records in lower resolution, but gives better framerates?
If so, desire would have been a flawless choice for me! Why isn't this mentioned anywhere?
nawoa
Very interesting ideas, thank you.
I have noticed the difference between true 720P videos and the "claimed" ones which are being recorded by cell phones, and, frankly, the difference is obvious.
But still, if you watch the video samples from desire and some competitors (from GSMArena or somewhere), you will confirm that there's a huge difference, which is not being caused by the low resolution, but by the poor framerate in desire.
Desire's video sample is disappointing...
But if it's possible to record in lower resolution and better framerate, then desire would have been a better choice than a second hand nexus one.

Hardware not capable? 1Ghz not fast enough?
Nexus one 720p @27fps!!!
Edit:Video

nawoa said:
Galaxy S and iPhone 4 are the first phones that are likely to have the processing power to record 720p with decent framerates.
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Click to collapse
IPhone uses its GPU, that's why it performs so well. Guess it's a driver issue. If the desire were to utilize the GPU, the results would be far better.

iPhone and Galaxy S share the same CPU/GPU chip, and as you say, yes it probably leverages the GPU to help encode the data more efficiently. Even if not, it's a more efficient chip which doesn't just mean it's smaller and uses less battery, but it's actually more powerful despite running at the same clock speed.
For example, I had an experience when I was upgrading my computer last year, going from a 65nm CPU to a 45nm CPU with identical architecture, cache, etc. Running at the same clock speed I get ~20% or more of a performance boost just due to the better efficiency.
I can't say how well that carries over to this situation since I'm sure there are more improvements in the transition from "snapdragon" to "hummingbird" than just the newer manufacturing process and more powerful GPU, but you can be sure the CPU gains a significant speed advantage from the lower node even before whatever other enhancements have been made.
"Hardware not capable? 1Ghz not fast enough?
Nexus one 720p @27fps!!!"
I'm not even going to look. 27 FPS isn't any kind of standard and if indeed that framerate is being achieved it's because there is extremely good lighting. Please introduce me to the world you live in where everyone and everything is always in ideal studio lighting... Aside from that I know without clicking the link that it will be terrible-looking.
"But if it's possible to record in lower resolution and better framerate, then desire would have been a better choice than a second hand nexus one."
I don't mean to belittle you but doesn't it go without saying that there is a lower-resolution video mode available when 720p is only just being unlocked in the most recent firmware? Whatever the case, N1 and Desire have identical hardware, if anything you might have a screen you like better than if you bought a Desire today.
Anyway, yes in my opinion you'd normally want to record at a lower resolution. I haven't done a thorough quality comparison but I'd guess you're not going to get much benefit from going above 320x240 for video. The truth is harsh, isn't it? Probably no harm in using the highest image size but it's not going to deliver miracles, especially considering the shutter lag and lack of any kind of image stabilization system.
But on the upside, your videos will have a smaller filesize, the framerate will stay consistent (at least if there is adequate lighting), and as I said earlier there is absolutely no real-world quality difference except that you'll get less battery usage and video noise when recording and playing back lower-resolution video.
Keep in mind, I bought a Desire and I love it. I even think the camera and video is fine. Just keep your expectations reasonable and realize that you need an actual camera to take good pictures/video. It's for Youtube, Facebook, and that kind of thing, not wedding photos.
Canon HF100 (IIRC) is a solid prosumer choice, or if you want something more compact but still versatile you might look at the Sony DSC-TX5, which is very durable and even waterproof to boot. It was just replaced with a newer (but not significantly different) version, so you can get it pretty cheap too. It offers quite good still and video quality (REAL 720p) considering it's like 15mm thick and even has some voodoo real 5x optical zoom system despite not having a moving lens on the front.

This thread's piqued my curiosity a bit, I'm going to try to do a semi-scientific study to determine what the best settings are for the camera.
I can't say exactly how you'll have to configure your new N1 since I'm using the Sense camera app, but you can probably still have an improvement by trying to modify settings in a similar way.
This is very preliminary and I don't have daylight to work with, I'll get into it more tomorrow, but so far:
Contrast is best at its default setting, 0. I'd prefer a -0.5 but no such option exists.
Saturation should be reduced to -1, this will help lessen the strength of noise and also gives somewhat more realistic color.
Sharpness should be reduced to -1, this again will help reduce noise and eliminates the majority of the sharpening artifacts. Going down to -2 helps a bit more but the loss of detail probably isn't worth it.
Brightness should be left at 0, it operates in mysterious ways and doesn't seem to be very helpful regardless of how it's set.
The ideal video capture resolution is 640x480. 320x240 doesn't appear to bring a framerate improvement so there's not really much sense unless you're limited by storage. All capture sizes besides 320x240 and 640x480 operate by simply cropping the image and offer no positive effects that I can see. 720p may add a superficial amount of detail but at the cost of an unsteady framerate and much greater encoding/decoding load (1280x720 vs 640x480, or 921,600 pixels per frame vs 307,200).
Similarly, taking widescreen stills simply crops the top and bottom and results in no quality difference to the part of the full frame that's actually recorded. You're probably best off recording in the sensor's native 4:3 aspect ratio and then cropping them to your taste on your home computer.
The ideal video capture codec is MPEG4 - H.264 offers a nice reduction in filesize but uses too low of a bitrate, resulting in worse quality during fast movement. It is also more work to encode and decode, hurting your battery life.
Obviously don't use zoom for any reason since it's just cropping and resizing with speed as the only consideration. You'll get much better results doing the same thing on your home computer.
Due to the low sensor quality, there's not a whole lot of difference between 5 and 3 megapixel shots, but there's no harm in going with 5mp. The biggest difference is the filesize. Taking a picture of the same subject, my 5mp shots ranged from 2.96mb to 2.38mb, while the 3mp ones were 1.22mb to 0.76mb.
I'd like to revise my earlier statement that the processor isn't capable of encoding 720p30 in realtime. It's now my opinion that the problem is just the camera firmware trying to make sense of the idea that you're asking it to pull usable pixel data for a 1280x720 frame, 30 times a second, from such a tiny sensor. To compensate for the lack of light information, it's forced to reduce the framerate or else the image will turn into a mess of noise. It's probably being a bit too conservative, but not by a lot. The fault lies with the sensor, not the CPU... I think.
Finally, *something* I did seemed to significantly reduce the framerate, or rather, the quality of recording high-motion video. This might be something peculiar to the rom I'm running, or it could be completely in my head, but I think I changed something when I was messing with the various settings and it had a noticeable negative effect.
It's late here now so I'll pick up in the morning but my current wild guesses are:
-Capturing full-frame is more difficult than capturing cropped widescreen, or vice-versa?
-Face detection processing adds too much latency to the recording?
-Flicker reduction should be taken off auto for best performance?
-Custom filtering settings (brightness/sharpness, etc) slow recording down?
-How the camera was focused reduced/increased the encoding difficulty?
-Sharpness settings increased/decreased the amount of frame data needing to be encoded?
-...Or I screwed something up in SetCPU? No... I don't... think so... but it's pretty late. Hmm...
I'll pick up tomorrow. Someone's probably already figured out the perfect settings but I'm pro at being redundant.

The 480p is flawless?
Come on ... It is OK-ish, but not flawless. Especially indoor, even with good lighting still mediocre.
Multimedia is one of the weakest in Android, hopefully Gingerbread will correct this.
AndroHero said:
the desire already has 720p recording, but keep in mind its limited by its hardware, 1 ghz isnt alot to encode HD and i know the iphone has better HD recording but i think that has somthing to do with its improved gpu, recording at lower resolution is flawless so why not do that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

You could try switching to 800 ISO in settings camera mode, then switch back to camcorder mode. I noticed a considerable fps boost even in low light conditions.

I don't mean to belittle you but doesn't it go without saying that there is a lower-resolution video mode available when 720p is only just being unlocked in the most recent firmware? Whatever the case, N1 and Desire have identical hardware, if anything you might have a screen you like better than if you bought a Desire today.
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Click to collapse
Before buying nexus one, I checked out desire's specifications in its GSMArena's page, and it said:
Video: Yes, WVGA (800x480 pixels) @ 15fps
So I thought its the only video recording mode that the phone has (I'm not experienced with modern phones). I wasn't expecting a cell phone to have different video capture modes like a digicam/camcorder.
Then, I downloaded a video sample that was being recorded in daylight, but was really disappointing, and the framerate was exactly 15.
And, in my experince, if you buy products, specially high tech products like modern phones relying on the informations that (you think) "go without saying" you're going to be serioulsly punished by your mistakes.
You can only rely on facts...
By the way, thanks for the experiments.

There is some work done in the developement section to optimize HTC camera 720p framerate. A guy obtained 29fps in good lighting (not perfect) but he's still working on it. Funny part is that he blew his desire while testing it.
Check this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynB0M9NeVCE
Regarding the current state, a good sd card can help with the occasional stuttering, or if you can live with AOSP roms, you probably will get a couple fps more. Otherwise you are confined to good lighting to have something on the good side of 20fps.
some examples from my phone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6KuPCn6_2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugjI5ygsXzQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssFnQsdz0DE

That change the ISO on the still camera seems a good tip

Marcus2388 said:
You could try switching to 800 ISO in settings camera mode, then switch back to camcorder mode. I noticed a considerable fps boost even in low light conditions.
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Click to collapse
Wow, that's really good tip!

when you increase your ISO your picture quality gets poor.
it helps to make videos faster and smooth but with no quality.
Ive just ordered my new Micro Sd card class 10 card... let it come and i'll let you know if something good happens...

malikahsan said:
when you increase your ISO your picture quality gets poor.
it helps to make videos faster and smooth but with no quality.
Ive just ordered my new Micro Sd card class 10 card... let it come and i'll let you know if something good happens...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll disagree about poor quality - it just gets a little worse, even in indoor lightning, but you get an acceptable video, compared to the "very creepy slide show" in auto-ISO mode.

Besides the average framerate, which is probably more due to the lens and partially to the software, isn't the stuttering problem caused by an aggressive datarate when writing to the sd ? If you compare cyanogen 720p recording to HTC, quality isn't really different, but the data-rate codec probably is, and that's why even with a class 2 you avoid stuttering in cyanogen (OD and Defrost too).

Sorry if I up this thread, I found a micro sd card A-Data class 6 with good price, this micro SD can fix the problem recording video a 720p?
Thanks to all

Can you record HDR video?

I've seen in some reviews and spec sheets on the G4 that it has HDR video capability. But after digging around in the camera's limited options I just don't see it. Is there some way to do this with an alternate camera app?

There is no such thing as HDR for videos yet. The experiment that comes close to this would have been a researcher who used two Canon 5D Mark 2. He shot videos with different exposure on each camera and attempted to combine the videos. It didn't work well.

maybe they can implement a function to alternate exposure between frames, so exposure goes -3, 0, +3, 0, -3, ...

Actually my old 2013 HTC One M7 has HDR video. It takes two different exposure frames, then tries to combine them and stabilize for motion between them. This causes the overall field of view to be cropped a bit. I think some other phones in the past couple years have this feature too.

Wow, interesting. I had assumed HDR video was not possible. I hadn't considered constantly bracketing the exposure using individual frames.
It seems like this would at least partially reduce your effective framerate? Say you have 2 moving items in the shot, one bright, one dark, along with a neutral-brightness background. The background might be correct in 0EV frame 1, dark subject correct in +3EV frame 2, bright subject correct in -3EV frame 3, and so on. But the subjects are moving, the bright subject is somewhat ignored in frame 2, and the dark one ignored in frame 3. So the moving bright/dark items might appear slightly jerky, as they are not properly captured in all 30 or 60 frames captured during that second.
But it's interesting, regardless, that this can be done. With more processing power available in the future, and maybe a higher-framerate camera, plus some fancy image-processing, maybe HDR video will become more practical.

I know I'm a bit late to the party, since I too was researching how to shoot hdr video on the g4, sadly there isn't. But the S6 and S7 both can shoot hdr video, take a look
HDR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dfLFVz6WCU
No HDR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWKSCKDDhNI
RedOCtobyr said:
Wow, interesting. I had assumed HDR video was not possible. I hadn't considered constantly bracketing the exposure using individual frames.
It seems like this would at least partially reduce your effective framerate? Say you have 2 moving items in the shot, one bright, one dark, along with a neutral-brightness background. The background might be correct in 0EV frame 1, dark subject correct in +3EV frame 2, bright subject correct in -3EV frame 3, and so on. But the subjects are moving, the bright subject is somewhat ignored in frame 2, and the dark one ignored in frame 3. So the moving bright/dark items might appear slightly jerky, as they are not properly captured in all 30 or 60 frames captured during that second.
But it's interesting, regardless, that this can be done. With more processing power available in the future, and maybe a higher-framerate camera, plus some fancy image-processing, maybe HDR video will become more practical.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

kyleruggles said:
I know I'm a bit late to the party, since I too was researching how to shoot hdr video on the g4, sadly there isn't. But the S6 and S7 both can shoot hdr video, take a look
HDR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dfLFVz6WCU
No HDR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWKSCKDDhNI
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Click to collapse
HDR version horror bad.
Oversharpening and over saturated. blury....
4K much better.But OIS not to effective.
Anyway great quality thanks mate!

The HDR to me looks pretty decent given the advantages of boosting the shadows, yeah it's oversharpened and over saturated but other than that, it makes a huge difference. Just wish LG implemented HDR video as well.
kabirjedi said:
HDR version horror bad.
Oversharpening and over saturated. blury....
4K much better.But OIS not to effective.
Anyway great quality thanks mate!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Nexus 5X poor video stabilization. Something we have to live with? Can it be fixed?

Hello,
Im looking to upgrade my Nexus 5 and ive been going through lots and lots of reviews, videos, pictures of many of the new phones out right now. Z5, S6, Nexus 5X.
I really like the Nexus 5X despite some of it shortcomings but one thing i REALLY have a hard time accepting is how shaky the picture is when recording video compared to iphone 6s, Sony Z5 and others.
Here is a video showing it against the Moto X pure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_zth08zFLw
The Nexus 5x i horrible Is that something we will just have to accept because it lacks OIS or is it possible to fix software wise in a camera update or using a 3rd party camera app. I must say that in its current form its unusable.
Regards
Jacob

indeed it is shaky...
haven't tried it but this one has video stabilization - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera

Maybe someone with a nexus 5x could try opencamera to record a video and post the result?

Yeah I was hoping 1080p would at least get decent software stability. It has enough pixels for it. ?
Sent from my Sprint Galaxy S5.

Does anyone know? Anyone tried opencamera?

Just my $.02. It was my understanding from the Launch event that it doesn't have image stabilization. Something about how it didn't need it with the upgraded light gathering capability of the camera.

The Moto X pure doesn't have OIS either, it's done in software

I'll just splurge for a gimbal. LOL
Sent from my Sprint Galaxy S5.

gomylle said:
Does anyone know? Anyone tried opencamera?
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Click to collapse
Just tried it and it seems decent. Good thing is that OpenCamera properly implements the sensor orientation detection, so the preview and resulting files are correct. It has experimental support for Camera 2 API, which needs to be enabled in order to expose the EIS setting.
At high resolution (4k), there's significant lag that's recorded in the videos with the EIS enabled. Google did say the 808 couldn't handle it; maybe they weren't just blowing smoke?
At 1080p, it seems to help reduce the shakiness by a fair amount; it's no OIS replacement for sure, but I'd say better than not having anything.

Funny how google said larger pixels negated the need for OIS. Did anyone really believe them? Did HTC not try the super mega sized pixels before?

Evo_Shift said:
Funny how google said larger pixels negated the need for OIS. Did anyone really believe them? Did HTC not try the super mega sized pixels before?
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Click to collapse
From pics I saw it does fine without OIS. But videos would have benefited. And yes they coined it as "ultra-pixels".
Sent from my Sprint Galaxy S5.

Look at this. Amazing:
http://www.frequency.com/video/nexus-5x-stabilized-4k-footage-using/244831773?cid=5-9852

Hi
Evo_Shift said:
Funny how google said larger pixels negated the need for OIS. Did anyone really believe them? Did HTC not try the super mega sized pixels before?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OIS is only really of benefit for photos at shutter speeds less than 1/60th second, unless you have a zoom lens, where it is helpful at higher shutter speeds, as the more you are zoomed, the more amplified any body shake is. For smartphones with their wide angle view, camera shake is not too much of a problem for most typical situations, and any daytime scene OIS is completely pointless as the shutter speed is plenty high enough to freeze out any camera shake. The larger pixels help as the ISO can be higher without too much noise meaning a faster shutter speed can be used.
For video the situation is different as images are taken over time, so it's the movement in camera position between each picture that needs to smoothed, although the fashion these days on most documentaries and TV shows is to deliberately shake the camera around until it's a nauseating mess with whip zooms into the mix Still it's a good indicator I find for knowing the program is trash and not worth watching :victory:
OIS in smart phones helps a little with video, but the tiny lens optics and limited movement means they don't do nearly as well as a dedicated camcorder with OIS, which gives some amazing results. The link to the stablised 5X video is using a $300 device, so if anyone is that serious about their smart phone video, then for that money we might as well take a much bigger step in image quality and convenience and features and get a dedicated camcorder.
The elephant in the room with the Nexus 6P is EIS, this is the poor mans image stabilizer, yes it does help stabilize the video to a certain degree, but to do this it has to crop the image. It appears to be doing this the cheap way in software (hence needing the powerful chip), taking a 1080P video, then zooming into so it can have a window of view to pan around in, this means the resulting video has less resolution, see the clips here https://youtu.be/HV4rcFuUlUc?t=246 and compare the detail between the two, there is a drop in resolution on the 6P. Better EIS systems capture a larger image at the sensor, then would track and pan a 1920x1080 window across it so no resolution drop, but that requires more low level work with the camera hardware and dedicated chips to do a good job.
Record a 1080P video with the 5X, upload to YouTube and get it to apply stabilization and it will do the same thing, may even turn out better than the 6P EIS as it doesn't need to be done in real time so a bit more care can be taken.
Will the 6P stabilize 4K video? I somehow doubt it has the power to do that, so for 4K it's an even playing field between the two.
Regards
Phil

PhilipL said:
Hi
Record a 1080P video with the 5X, upload to YouTube and get it to apply stabilization and it will do the same thing, may even turn out better than the 6P EIS as it doesn't need to be done in real time so a bit more care can be taken.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, aren't those phones using the much higher resolution of the sensor (at least about 4k) to stabilize the video by changing the captured frame on the sensor corresponding to the phones movement? At least i thought that's the reasoning why this works only up to 1080p (which would be preserved, in that case).

I think this could be quite useful for the next Nexus http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/09/imint-wants-to-bring-real-time-video-stabilization-to-android/

Initial Camera Observations

Had my first day out with the V30 yesterday and just imported the photos and videos from it to my laptop for a closer look to make some initial evaluations. With some very interesting things to note and a lot to dig into further. There's definitely some realities that need to be addressed to better manage expectations.
1) I have no f'n clue what the HDR setting is doing other than making crappy photos. Which is about the same as it was on the V20. It's completely the opposite of what it was on the Nexus 6. On the Nexus 6, if you wanted the best photos out of the Google Camera you could get, you turned on HDR and forgot about it. With LG's Camera app, it's the exact opposite. Turn it off and forget it was ever there.
I still need to figure out the mess that the Google Camera app port has become and DL a copy and see how it does with this sensor.
2) If you shoot manual, there's a noise reduction on/off switch now. Unless you have some decent NR software though or know what you want to do with grainy photos (and I think it will have its uses, I just have to find the right subject), leave it on in very low light conditions. Not only does it tame grainy noise, it also tames a bit of purple fringe that will show up in high gain (high ISO) photos once the electronics start heating up around it.
3) As to that last part of #2: We have to be realistic here. This is a tiny cellphone camera packed in with A LOT of other electronics. If you're shooting several shots in a row or long exposures, either in dark conditions at high ISO, you will see amp glow or purple fringing. It's just a reality. Even DSLRs see it.
4) Digital zoom is digital zoom. If you aren't using just the standard view of each sensor, then you are going to see the limitations of a small sensor. I don't care what cellphone you're using. None of my larger/dedicated cameras have it for many good reasons. You shouldn't expect miracles from a smaller camera.
5) The wide angle sensor actually takes pretty good shots now in most conditions! The wide angle camera on the V20 was full of so many compromises that I avoided it at all costs. If I wanted a wider view than the standard lens, I would use the pano setting on the standard lens. Which is still a great option if everything in the frame is going to sit still but it takes time and patience. It still has distortion though, just not as much as before. You can't focus the wide angle in manual mode but you can in auto. Weird. It doesn't like to focus pointing directly overhead. That was hit or miss. Same rules about the NR and HDR apply here.
6) Video AF in low low light does miss sometimes. Again, just remember this phone doesn't have all the high end AF sensors that some DSLRs have to make sure focus is nailed every single time. Somewhere there's an article about the useful range of all the AF systems on the V20, I assume it still applies to the V30. I'll dig it up if I can to help manage expectations. If I remember right, laser AF is short range, maybe 7 feet.
7) During my import of files from my phone to my laptop, some of my videos lost their audio tracks. Not sure what that's about. I don't remember which ones were auto and which ones were manual but I suspect that's the problem. All videos have sound on my phone though.
8) I suck at video. Kinda hoping to kick myself in the rear with this phone and learn more about it. There's a lot more to manage and I probably won't be happy until I figure out the whole color grading thing and get the look I want. So the log file option ought to be a nice addition.
9) I remember telling someone that I swear I saw a video somewhere of a pre-unit that had the directional mics settings in manual video. Well, I can tell you that I must have imagined that because the unit I have does not have that setting. Just sliders and windcut.
10) And I don't know where LG is hiding it but I don't see 240 fps in any settings anywhere. The fastest video setting I see is 120fps. (Remember, only at 720p) I'm guessing 240 fps is reserved for the slo-mo mode and not available in manual or auto video modes.
11) Selfie camera. Yeah, I've seen the complaints. Are you sure your ugly mugs aren't breaking the camera? I posted this in the first impressions thread and I'll post it here. First thing I suggest doing is turning down the "skin toning" and skin lighting settings. Whoever renamed skin smoothing to skin toning should be shot as that's not what I thought that setting was at all. My first thought is that it adjusted the white balance of the skin to give you a rosier glow. Nope. Skin toning will butter face the heck out of you even on basics settings. Set it to zero. After that, the image held up well to some post processing and consistently gave me selfies I actually like. They actually remind me of something that might come from..... film.
I'm going to do some more shooting today and I'll try to figure out how to post examples without making you all click through to some other site. I also need to figure out how to get the videos over sound and all so I can give them honest assessments.

Ah, I just remembered something else to look out for.
12) If you shoot in manual and have the RAW option turned on, it isn't like on a real camera where you get the RAW file and a processed version of the RAW file. It shoots two photos. This does two things. One, it means you will see lag as it is shooting two photos for each press. This gets worse with longer shutter speeds. Two, this means unless you're shooting a still life that the RAW and JPG will not match. If you're shooting action like I was last night, you will get two completely different photos.

Interesting. Thanks for you observations.
I'm a pixel owner and I love the camera. It's ace. I really want to like the v30, but so far the real world observations and initial reviews haven't sung the praises of the camera. Are you happy with the camera or is it not worth the hype?

The camera is better than the V20 and I liked that a lot. Here's the issue in a nut shell. This phone is for those that aren't happy to just let the device to everything for you like an Apple product would. If that's what you want, that's what Pixels are about. Pixel is Google's iPhone. If you want control over the creative process, that's why the V's exist. The V series is more akin to using a DSLR and Pixels are more like a point and shoot. The Pixel series they're kinda hoping you're ok with whatever the phone spits out. The V series you tweak the initial settings and decide what the phone is even going to shoot so you can tweak it more to your liking later. The V30 gives us even more control than the V20 does.

CHH2 said:
The camera is better than the V20 and I liked that a lot. Here's the issue in a nut shell. This phone is for those that aren't happy to just let the device to everything for you like an Apple product would. If that's what you want, that's what Pixels are about. Pixel is Google's iPhone. If you want control over the creative process, that's why the V's exist. The V series is more akin to using a DSLR and Pixels are more like a point and shoot. The Pixel series they're kinda hoping you're ok with whatever the phone spits out. The V series you tweak the initial settings and decide what the phone is even going to shoot so you can tweak it more to your liking later. The V30 gives us even more control than the V20 does.
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Interesting. Thanks for the summary

I would like to but V30, all because camera. But I don't know is this camera one of the best in 2017 or it is just average camera. I see many bad comments on internet. And is front face camera really bad?

isko01 said:
I would like to but V30, all because camera. But I don't know is this camera one of the best in 2017 or it is just average camera. I see many bad comments on internet. And is front face camera really bad?
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I probably still have a few more days of testing but just based off of what I've seen in my standardized shooting at the museum, LG has pulled off a miracle with this tiny little sensor.
Like I said above, you have to have realistic expectations and know what the limits are of your gear. That's what a really good photographer does though. They know how the gear works and how to use what it does but also know when it's time to use something else or accept not getting a shot.
This is a tiny sensor. The largest sensor on this whole phone is only 1/3.09". It's smaller than the main one on the V20 but it looks better. That in itself is amazing but I'm not expecting a sensor that's 1/3 the size of the sensor of my smallest camera to match it. Yet that's what some people seem to expect . Which is asinine.
Really the only "failing" I had yesterday was trying to shoot overhead in extremely dark conditions with the wide angle camera and shooting performers wearing all black on an outdoor stage in the dark with just stage lighting (which was changing colors constantly) while moving around quickly. Neither of those surprised me at all. The second condition really is the realm of DSLRs still. The first one, I'm ok with too. That said, what I did get from the second condition, I'm still surprised with.
I've only had one day with it but I think I'm going to get some surprising images out of this camera. Now to teach myself more about video editing.
And again, about the front camera. Once you set those stupid settings to the bottom, you can get more skin detail out of a photo than most people would like to see. Every crease and furrow in my brow line and forehead ,pock mark in my nose, and hairs on my head and beard. From shooting models, I can tell you a lot of people wouldn't want to see that level of detail on their face. So I have no idea what people are complaining about. It's an f'n vanity camera that most people wouldn't want to use to its full potential.

Uploaded a couple of shots. All shots are my normal workflow with a cellphone camera. Shot with the V30 and the jpegs processed in Snapseed. First one is shot with the main camera overhead in a room not known for being well lit at the museum I used to work at. In fact the only real lighting is from some LEDs in the pearl at center. The LEDs are designed to be very soft so they don't degrade the paint and woodwork. The other two shots are selfies taken with indirect sunlight being the only light source indoors. The one with back background is indirect sun through clear glass. The one with the light background is indirect sunlight through very milky glass.
Main camera: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36870848874/
Dark background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37322765870/
Light background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/23728950428/
Seriously, I'm not sure I'd really want more detail than that. I'm actually quite please with how all of these images turned out so far. I'll try to work up some more shots from the main and wides.

Can you post some pics in a room at night with just a lamp on or something in auto mode?

EVOme said:
Can you post some pics in a room at night with just a lamp on or something in auto mode?
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I'll have to see what I can set up. That's not really a normal shot I have set-up or sitting around. I might be able to do something at work tomorrow before everyone else gets in and the whole place is blasted with light. Unfortunately, I no longer work at the museum but I might be able to make something work.

isko01 said:
I would like to but V30, all because camera. But I don't know is this camera one of the best in 2017 or it is just average camera. I see many bad comments on internet.
And is front face camera really bad?
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I'm not hijacking this thread, but you asked a specific question. There's another thread where the camera is discussed, along with other features, and @keithleger took all his in "auto" mode, to compare the two V30 back cameras, and he also compared it to the Note 8 camera which he's decided to sell.
Camera
-Excellent camera but not on par with Pixel line or Samsung. Don't get me wrong, it is a great camera and in the sunlight it is fantastic but low light it does not do as well as Note 8. Video or Stills. But it is very adequate for my needs and I prefer having the wide-angle lens over the zoom lens any day.
-The one thing that really bothered me was shutter lag at times. Sometimes when I snapped a photo it was almost instant and others I had to wait a second or so. Long enough to think I might not of pressed the button. Not sure if others have had this issue but it is troublesome. It was not isolated to taking multiple photos fairly quickly either. Sometimes first shot.
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However, he's selling the Note 8 to keep the LG V30.
He posted an album of his first weekend pictures, as well as the comparison shots to the Note 8. The V30 outside shots look FANTASTIC, and even though the Note 8seemed to do better indoors the LG V30 won at least one of the indoor shots, in my opinion.
As for selfies, he gives the same advice as @CHH2.. Turn off the enhancemet crap on the selfie camera.
keithleger said:
For selfies, if you set the skin tone and lighting effects to 0 then it is ok.
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CHH2 said:
Selfie camera. . First thing I suggest doing is turning down the "skin toning" and skin lighting settings.
Skin toning will butter face the heck out of you even on basics settings. Set it to zero.
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See, they say the same thing. The only reason I'm mentioning the other thread -- and I do not mean to hijack @CHH2 camera thread -- is because @keithleger has direct comparisons to the Note 8 camera was well as the f/1.6 and wide angle cameras on the V30. Plus he only shot in auto, and didn't do any post processing (to my knowledge).
I appreciate all the work @CHH2 has put into this thread!

CHH2 said:
I'll have to see what I can set up. That's not really a normal shot I have set-up or sitting around. I might be able to do something at work tomorrow before everyone else gets in and the whole place is blasted with light. Unfortunately, I no longer work at the museum but I might be able to make something work.
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Thanks! You don't have to go out of your way. I will have my phone tomorrow.

EVOme said:
Thanks! You don't have to go out of your way. I will have my phone tomorrow.
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I shot this real quick this morning. It's completely SOOC. Yes, you might notice something rather odd and be asking yourself, "Why didn't he rotate the image?" Well, I didn't rotate it because on my phone the image is upright and correct. Somewhere between the phone and Flickr, it got rotated. I'll be deleting this one at the end of today as it's not really something I'd normally shoot even as a reminder or novelty.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36882784984/
And just because I got lucky this morning, a little close up:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37593620881/

Going to add one more photo. This one shot in probably one of the most challenging places to shoot, a jazz club. This is probably the cleanest shot I've taken in there with a cellphone. I'm impressed.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36883443574/

CHH2 said:
I shot this real quick this morning. It's completely SOOC. Yes, you might notice something rather odd and be asking yourself, "Why didn't he rotate the image?" Well, I didn't rotate it because on my phone the image is upright and correct. Somewhere between the phone and Flickr, it got rotated. I'll be deleting this one at the end of today as it's not really something I'd normally shoot even as a reminder or novelty.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36882784984/
And just because I got lucky this morning, a little close up:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37593620881/
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Wow man! I have restored faith in the camera. That office shot is very sharp. For the grasshopper, are you using one of the installed filters or is a post render?
Thank you for taking those.

EVOme said:
Wow man! I have restored faith in the camera. That office shot is very sharp. For the grasshopper, are you using one of the installed filters or is a post render?
Thank you for taking those.
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You're welcome. For photos, I never use the filters in the camera apps. I always use Snapseed. It has a lot more control and much more power once you learn how to apply the various filters in combination. The grasshopper only had typical post processing that most photographers would apply; a tad sharpening that is only really noticeable when zoomed in, B&W conversion, bump in contrast, and a bump in shadows to make them a tad darker. Oh, and a crop, maybe threw away a little more than half the overall pixels from the frame as I didn't want to scare it off.
And yeah, for being such a tiny sensor, I'm impressed with the low light shooting. I still want to try shooting in the basement of the jazz club. That's usually territory that I need at least my smaller dedicated camera if not my DSLR. I won't get to try that again until this next weekend.

Decided to try something a little different. This isn't final by any means but this shows what playing around for a couple of minutes in Snapseed with just a couple quick shots can get you: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37605204891/
Looking forward to showing this to my curator friend and watching him fall off of his barstool when I tell him it was all done on one cellphone in under five minutes. (He's pretty much a film guy as is the guy who is the inspiration for this photo. Bonus points if you can name the photographer I'm copying for this photo.)

Main camera: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36870848874/
Dark background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37322765870/
Light background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/23728950428/
.[/QUOTE]
What camera was used for those selfies? I'm not a fan of selfies but love the ones you've taken. I'd like to experiment with it and my fiance would too.thank you. Btw love you test album. Talent for sure

lg3FTW said:
Main camera: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36870848874/
Dark background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37322765870/
Light background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/23728950428/
.
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What camera was used for those selfies? I'm not a fan of selfies but love the ones you've taken. I'd like to experiment with it and my fiance would too.thank you. Btw love you test album. Talent for sure[/QUOTE]
I used the front selfie camera with all of those silly settings at the bottom of the frame turned off, set to zero, whatever their values are. Then I just did some quick processing in Snapseed. That's pretty much it. I don't get too complex. And thank you.

Finally figured out a work around so I can hear the audio on the videos I'm importing from the phone to my laptop and can't believe I didn't think of this before. Pulled the videos from their folder over into an empty Chrome browser window and Voila! they played complete with their soundtrack!
So the following is from shooting in a dark jazz club. (Notes, not footage yet. I'll try uploading something to youtube when I figure out what, when, and how.)
Probably the most important observation I see about video from the V30 (and this actually applied to the V20 too) is that loud music can end up jostling the OIS and introduce more shake than it removes.
Another observation is that recording video while in Auto mode, you better make sure you have plenty of somewhat decent light. Tonight while playing around, the screen would be plenty bright all the way up until I hit that little red record button. Then the screen squeezes down and went dark enough that the footage was unusable. Shooting in manual video mode, I was able to get some footage. It wasn't exactly ideal settings that I was shooting with though so the footage is so-so. (Best settings I could get were ISO 3200 and a shutter speed of 1/25. My understanding is that since I had my frame rate at 24fps, I should have had a shutter speed of 1/50 but that just wasn't happening inside that place.)
In manual video mode, it really doesn't like ISO 3200 for some reason. I'd play with a setting and come back and the ISO would be set to 3150 for some reason. I'd bump it back up to 3200, go do something else, come back to 3150. I would have to make sure that's the last thing I tweaked before hitting the record button.
The audio picks up pretty much all the sounds I'm hearing. I need to sit down with headphones and see if there's extra noise being introduced. I suspect dragging the videos into the Chrome browser is exactly the best quality test. It just lets me know the audio tracks are intact in the file which I was a little worried about at first.
I still have a lot more playing around with the video as most of it is new to me.

General P6P vs GP9 - Not a great showing trail running

P6P rooted with current updates as of the November. The P6P video is straight out of the camera. It was recorded with Active stabilization. I'll have to re-do the test with the default stabilization to see if this is an issue specifically with Active setting.
The GP footage has a slight sharpening done as it was recorded with low sharpening which is practically no sharpening on the firmware currently on the camera.
But bottom line the pixel for whatever reason the video is... less than expected.
The out and back were recorded separately and both recordings had the same issues.
I'm aware one of these is a phone and one of them is an action cam but if this is indeed an artifact of the Active mode on the Pixel and not possibly a hardware problem with this specific pixel then that mode is worthless. Further testing will tell.

then theres the guy who put his P6P on a drone in 1080p30 wide and standard stabilisation literally 2 days before retail launch
active stabilisation crops in and is abit more aggressive probaby for some actual real fast motion not some jogging etc
try standard stabilisation at 4k30 /1080p 30

Ultimoose said:
P6P rooted with current updates as of the November. The P6P video is straight out of the camera. It was recorded with Active stabilization. I'll have to re-do the test with the default stabilization to see if this is an issue specifically with Active setting.
The GP footage has a slight sharpening done as it was recorded with low sharpening which is practically no sharpening on the firmware currently on the camera.
But bottom line the pixel for whatever reason the video is... less than expected.
The out and back were recorded separately and both recordings had the same issues.
I'm aware one of these is a phone and one of them is an action cam but if this is indeed an artifact of the Active mode on the Pixel and not possibly a hardware problem with this specific pixel then that mode is worthless. Further testing will tell.
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I dont got that issue on mines, seems to be pritty smooth, I'd wait for further updates, new camera system and new OS version with only 1 update, give it time

Izy said:
then theres the guy who put his P6P on a drone in 1080p30 wide and standard stabilisation literally 2 days before retail launch
active stabilisation crops in and is abit more aggressive probaby for some actual real fast motion not some jogging etc
try standard stabilisation at 4k30 /1080p 30
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Yeah I plan to do that, try it under the default stabilization. Unfortunately the phone is a) too heavy for my drones to be safe and b) the DJI app doesn't run on Android 12 (probably) or the pixel 6 (definitely). Just crashes or goes to a black screen when you try. DJI says "buy a different phone".
Once I get out and do another test I'll post a comparison if it gets better.

Ultimoose said:
Yeah I plan to do that, try it under the default stabilization. Unfortunately the phone is a) too heavy for my drones to be safe and b) the DJI app doesn't run on Android 12 (probably) or the pixel 6 (definitely). Just crashes or goes to a black screen when you try. DJI says "buy a different phone".
Once I get out and do another test I'll post a comparison if it gets better.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/r66mhc

Izy said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/r66mhc
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@Izy Thanks! I hadn't seen that yet.