Database Info

Camera v2.7b21026 questions...

I DL'd the Camera v2.7 installer from one of the threads here. I love how this app handles indoor pictures, even if the display still doesn't look as if it's doing anything.
I would like to change the Camera shortcut in the Programs directory and Start Menu to point to this new application instead (It is also stored in \Windows). Aside from installing Resco File Explorer, is there any other way to do this?
Also: Just in case, where are the registry settings for this camera app? Does it use the same ones the old camera app uses?

Try Total Commander maybe it can do it for you. Or copy the shortcuts to your PC & change them there, don't forget to copy them back
Not sure whether the same reg.keys/values are used.
M

Thanks.
Total Commander works. I'll keep it around. ^_^
Copying the shortcut to WinDOS doesn't work (XP Professional); the path is greyed out when the link is on the phone, and if you take it out to your desktop, Windows won't recognize it as a valid link.
PS: The new camera performs better if there's a source of light _in front of_ it. Without one it's as bad as the old. Taking a pic of my PC monitor works wonders, but attempting to take a pic of the corridor with the monitor behind me produces grainy results (evening time 6pm).
Can't complain, tho. At least the pic of my monitor isn't grainy anymore. Next camera version should be perfect, I hope. <_<

I got the same 2.7 version with my 1.13WWE rom & it's performing nice in good light conditions. Other conditions are not to discuss :-(. I'm trying to get the 3.0 version working, but the fellow with this version isn't capable of dumoing the cab, not to speak of finding all related reg.keys. Too bad.
Btw I moved the camera & album apps to my internal storage & changed links, reg etc. Works OK & saves a lot of RAM.
M
[Edit]
Forgot to mention that updating the values (brightness, contrast etc) in HKLM\HTC\Camera\AppDefSettings\General
Will change the default camera settings, so you don't have to change them after switching from 'night' to 'daylight' etc.

A GUI issue? (Driver - other?)

Hello All,
I accidentally came across the following behaviour on my HTC Cruise, and I found it quite interesting. Personally, I am quite happy with my HTC Cruise, despite the famous display driver missing...
Of course, I am upset like most people, since HTC seemed to be so keen in advertising the device's multimedia abilities. HTC have lost a couple of credibility points for me...
Anyway, on with the question now...
When I select Programs from the start menu and move my finger up and down on the scroll bar, the display seems to demonstrate quite a lag; icons are slow to redraw and the display seems to "flicker". I understand this is quite subjective, it depends on the number of programs one might have installed, etc.
However..... When I select Programs from the HTC Today plug in, (2nd icon on top row of third tab), the same action (moving up and down the scrollbar), is so much faster!
It's not a big deal, but the difference on my HTC is quite striking. How about yours? I am a software developer and find this quite interesting as it seems to be the same function, but performace seems to be different. Can it be a setting somewhere, can it be that HTC developers did not pay the attention they should? (and admitted the fact that extra performance can be achieved by stating they will provide a "patch" for it).
Do you get the same behaviour?
Thanks for reading

You are correct.
Even when removing the "big menu" option as advised on TC tweaking, program list accessed from home plugin tab scrolls much much faster than program list accessed from "Start" menu.
This is quite interesting

................

yes same for me! - very strange, why would this be?

Yep, same here. Verrrryy interrresting.

When I actually got this device and scrolled the icons in programs, I was immediately puzzled as it did not seem to be very promising. The settings window has a much smoother scroll (yes, I know, it has less icons as well)...
I am sure there must be a difference somehow from an implementation point of view, or at least a different setting somewhere. Maybe a different startup setting, or something.
I have read about the tweaks and the different settings you can change, for example Cache font size, etc.
However, the mere fact that the same functionality has such a dramatic difference depending on how you invoke it, to me is a case of not so efficient programming.
If HTC comes out with a new display "patch" which actually manages to make a difference, then it would be almost certain that their "first" version was not so efficient, a mere indication they could have done better straight from the beginning.

They are implemented differently too. If you open Programs from the Start Menu and close it then go to Settings -> Memory -> Running Programs you won't see anything. Now if you launch Programs from the HTC plugin and then close it and then go look at running programs you will see it running. (This is assuming you don't have the HTC Task Manager configured to close applications when hitting X). Must be implemented differently in the back end.

I agree there is a difference. Scrolling of icons f.e. under programs is much quicker, not sure are executebale files running quicker too?

That really weird! scrolling is really smooth, I have noticed the icon on my top right I have a .net configurator icon, when opening programs via the plug in the name under the icon is missing but opening programs normally the name under the icon is there realated some how?

It seems indeed a different program. I have WkTask installed and when I get the Programs appearing via the HTC, I can see that this actually starts a window (as hambola says).
When I select Programs via the Start menu, no window title appears.
Another difference is that when I start Programs via HTC home, I can see the scrollbar getting "smaller" as the icons seem to be added in that window "on the fly"; then the icons always appear "top-aligned". When I close that window and reopen it via HTC, it is the same.
On the other hand, when selecting Programs via the Start menu the icons are already there, plus the scrollbar remembers its last position after the window has closed.
There are small differences really, it is just interesting how these affect the quality of scrolling...

is this in anyway linked to the driver issues?

Not sure, sometimes I'm not even sure what things are linked to driver issues and what things aren't. For example I used to have an 8525 which is apparently not affected by this driver issue. But rotating the display on that device was no faster than what I get with my TC. In fact maybe it was even slower, I don't have it with me to compare. So I don't know if drivers will even fix something like that. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
What about the dialer skin coming up on the TC. That's really slow. I see the different sections being painted on the screen. The Comm Manager will only load up fast if it's not in the "Running Programs". So first time I run it, it loads up in one shot, if i close it and try opening it again I will see it paint the different blocks. If I actually stop it in Running Programs and then try it again, then it loads in one shot. Driver issues? Who the hell knows. I doubt it though.
If driver issues fix video playback and they also fix the camera lag, i'll be content. if overall smoothness is fixed and extensive graphics (like games) is fixed, then i'll be happy.

I agree with hambola. I am not sure it's a driver issue. To me it simply shows that it could have been done better.
An even more annoying issue is the dialler skin as habola also suggests. The camera thing is also important.
To me the video playback is not much of an issue; I always encode in QVGA mode without any problem or quality loss. Quality loss is relative, I think it looks fine on the phone, obviously it's not a good idea to play that QVGA video on my PC. An additional advantage when encoding QVGA is saving space. My files in QVGA are usually less than 400MB, whereas my full screen versions are usually less than 1GB. To be honest, I do not see the use of it. Last time I was waiting in an airport, I had around 10 movies in my phone, all perfectly watchable (with perfectly watchable subtitles), a couple of GBs of music and I had additional free space in my storage card. Noway, I could fit 10 movies on it, if the quality was DVD-like. So basically, I do not mind... I think Coreplayer copes ok.
The little things such as lag in scrolling, the dialler skin coming up in pieces in a device that is a PHONE, the camera; these things annoy me.
-And how do you make phone calls, if there is no keyboard?
-Well, you press this button and the dialpad comes up...
-Ah! I see it takes some time to draw that dialpad...
-yes.......
See my point?

quickly thinking about this, it sounds like the HTC plugin is launching it in it's own shell, therefore it isn't monitoring everything else that is going on if it were launched from the main program list, ie. when launched from program list, the priority of running tasks is set to all, whilst from HTC, the program becomes the main focus. Maybe to do with threading, HTC was compiled with hyper threading, and the normal today screen wasn't. This is a very loose and fast analogy by me so feel free to shoot it down!!

also, you have to consider what memory is being freed up by which launcher, for what app etc. etc. etc. Memory plays a big part in performance, if there isn't enough of it, then the CPU has to start working shifting sh#t around, lots of cycles wasted etc. Gotta remember this is a M$ OS, they aint the brightest sparks sometimes

This same thing happens on my Athena after I launch the programs folder a second time (using standard start menu). This is most likely caused by the bitmap icons being loaded in the device's cache. Wouldn't get my hopes up.

Mms picutre small

ok so i sent myself a pic which was org. 200k but when i recieved it, it was like 3k
and the size of the picture was super small
is there any way of fixing this so i can get the ORG. size?

it depends both on your network and on your OS. generally, certain resolutions are reduced.
there is a limit, therefore you can't receive EVERY image with its original size.

try the wspheader.cab from this post

[APP] Motion detector with recording abilities

Hello everyone,
I am new to this forum. I decided to register here after I completed my android project.
I created a program that can detect movements and save pictures of the moving objects. Phone has to remain static in order to work properly. The program also features separate address book. Address book keeps phone numbers for SMS notification. In order to activate that you have to create a new contact then long press the item in the list. The program creates folder on memory card where it saves the pictures. The speed is very high on Galaxy S. You can throw something fast and phone still snaps the flying object if it passes by the camera.
The program has many settings that can dramatically alter the performance. Settings have to be adjusted in accordance with the lighting conditions.
I tested app only on 2.2 Vibrant. I am really curious to see how it works on other 2.2 devices.
ARMv7 processor is a must!!
Please give me some feedback!
App is called Motion Recorder

this sounds like a great app. gonna try it now on my incredible.

My app MobileWebCam also does this (simpler detection algorithm I suppose) and can automatically save, upload the pictures or send email:
Development Thread is here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=950933
Are you interested in sharing your motion detection code? Possibly we could combine functionality of both apps?

dirtsky, If you have any questions or if you find any bugs please write in this thread.
The program is little hard to use so feel free to ask.
_miha_, Mine detects motion by analyzing color. What about yours?
How do you send e-mail without the annoying pop up?

theandre said:
_miha_, Mine detects motion by analyzing color. What about yours?
How do you send e-mail without the annoying pop up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My motion detection is three steps: Image is converted to grey, then I max every pixel with the ones around to remove the flickering pixels (especially needed for night/low contrast situations) and calc the difference between the last and this new pixels. Some magic value (which should better be configurable later decides about the motion. Problem is this is very slow (should use the ndk but only began working with it recently) so I have to scale down the image before which is bad for small/distant moving objects.
Email: Is not sent with Android/Intent. I use JavaMail. I had some difficulties with the libs but got it working somehow (and even more difficulties with proguard which I needed because file size is getting too large without using it).

_miha_, did you test my app? How does it stack up against yours in terms of performance?

I cant seem to find where the images are being saved on my SDcard. Epic 4G Froyo ec05 midNight Rom
I looked for the folder "Motion Recorder" and i dont see it. and theres nothing in the Gallery

zman519, since your device is basically Galaxy S type it will save in internal memory(aka 14 GB "SD card").
Please let me know if you find the folder there.

I have total 105 installs out which 35 are active. Is it considered as bad result?

UPDATE: 59 active installs out of 109 which makes it >50%. Is it good?

theandre said:
zman519, since your device is basically Galaxy S type it will save in internal memory(aka 14 GB "SD card").
Please let me know if you find the folder there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Epic does not have an internal sdcard. That must be the problem. I looked around with root explorer and did not see the folder.
Sent from the Drivers Seat of my Suby txting and Driving doing 100MPH+ in a school zone! Ha.

zman519, thank you for feedback, I will fix that and let you know once the update is ready. It should not take more than half an hour.

Question to developers:
My program saves pictures to the following path:
String path = "/sdcard/Motion Recorder/TakenOn" +...
Why does it not automatically save to external sd card in the case when there is no internal sd?
UPDATE. I figured out myself. Working on update that allows user to choose between internal and external memory.

Hello dev,
I tried it on my DHD - it crashes and don't save settings.

I just updated to v0.42 which adds support for the external storage. Just go to settings and tap the checkbox. Unfortunately I have not tested the new feature on the actual hardware because I do not have one at the moment. So please, those of you who can test it please let me know if it does not work.
drast-x, Thank you for the feedback. Please give me some more details. When does it crash? After you hit the start? When you hit the start do you get the preview from the camera? Unfortunately settings do not save after the exit except contacts...
Did it happen on:Jun 11, 2011 9:32:07 PM ? I ask you this because Developer console shows me one crash that occurred at that time:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Fail to connect to camera service
at android.hardware.Camera.native_setup(Native Method)
at android.hardware.Camera.<init>(Camera.java:294)
at android.hardware.Camera.open(Camera.java:271)

Does saving pictures work on any of the phones except Epic 4g?
Thank you

I updated to v0.45
Now settings will save. Motion Recorder 0.45

Many thanks to the user of my app who sent this feedback:
"force close when start button clicked in nexus".
It turns out Nexus One (or S?) does not support either VGA or QVGA preview frames. So I had to fix this issue by requesting the supported resolutions. Very surprised by this issue. I expected that Android OS would figure this out on its own...
Thus new version 0.45.5 is supposed to fix the issue. I do not have Nexus One so I am not 100% about the fix. Those of you who are reading this and have Nexus One, please try new version!
Thank you!

Have you tried first reducing your image resolution to something ridiculously small like 32x32 and apply a DCT to keep only the low frequencies?
This might offer much better performance.
You can perform very good
_miha_ said:
My motion detection is three steps: Image is converted to grey, then I max every pixel with the ones around to remove the flickering pixels (especially needed for night/low contrast situations) and calc the difference between the last and this new pixels. Some magic value (which should better be configurable later decides about the motion. Problem is this is very slow (should use the ndk but only began working with it recently) so I have to scale down the image before which is bad for small/distant moving objects.
Email: Is not sent with Android/Intent. I use JavaMail. I had some difficulties with the libs but got it working somehow (and even more difficulties with proguard which I needed because file size is getting too large without using it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] Skydrive - Auto Upload - settings

Guys,
does anybody know if it is possible to change settings of Skydrive Auto Upload feature.
(It is a great feature, but can be better.)
I mean:
- image size change (currently, pictures are very small - about 100 kB)
- upload pictures only on WIFI (it uploads data on E or 3G as well, so it can cause a big battery drain if you take many pictures)
Thanks.

JaroslavHruska said:
Guys,
does anybody know if it is possible to change settings of Skydrive Auto Upload feature.
(It is a great feature, but can be better.)
I mean:
- image size change (currently, pictures are very small - about 100 kB)
- upload pictures only on WIFI (it uploads data on E or 3G as well, so it can cause a big battery drain if you take many pictures)
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i asked Microsoft about that, they say the resizing must be because of limiting the data connection of each user. they said to me think of 3mb each picture and you have 100 pictures, and if you look them in you picture hub, you internet connection would not be able to manage it to download all of them in the memory bla bla bla. so that if you slide your pictures it would LAG thats what i think! therefore their small but its a shame that we have no function to define the size. something like: orginal size, 800x480, or 1600x960 the 3 sizes would be enough for me. and for every regular user i think!

It is pity that it does not work.
It need not to be 3 MB, but 400-600 kB is enough.
Another thing is that you cannot run it ONLY on Wifi. :-(

Uploading from the SkyDrive app. allows you to upload pictures at full resolution according to WPCentral. Try that. Good luck.
Sent from my HTC Titan using Board Express

weepatc said:
Uploading from the SkyDrive app. allows you to upload pictures at full resolution according to WPCentral. Try that. Good luck.
Sent from my HTC Titan using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i've tried but, you should try to upload 100 pictures... that's insane believe me. sync to PC and then upload is not the solution why do we have then this integrated feature... its only half of an feature

Exactly! I am totally pissed off that Microsoft does NOT include multiple upload to Skydrive.

and with cameras that are 5megapixels and up, whats the point..
moreso, my HTC radar, doesn't have an SD card, so i HAVE to upload my pix...
sure, i take a pic, i want it to be a full screen shot, 5M if not more, but then i get the stupid small pix uploaded...what a rip off.
basically, we have a good camera on our phone(s), and no reason to have it b/c of upload.
and to continue, i am sooo dissapointed with the windows phone.
i took the windows challange, got a free phone b/c my G1 was slower, and now HATE the windows phone...the G1 is so much more versatile....

laptopdragon said:
and with cameras that are 5megapixels and up, whats the point..
moreso, my HTC radar, doesn't have an SD card, so i HAVE to upload my pix...
sure, i take a pic, i want it to be a full screen shot, 5M if not more, but then i get the stupid small pix uploaded...what a rip off.
basically, we have a good camera on our phone(s), and no reason to have it b/c of upload.
and to continue, i am sooo dissapointed with the windows phone.
i took the windows challange, got a free phone b/c my G1 was slower, and now HATE the windows phone...the G1 is so much more versatile....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By all means, go back to your G1. I would like them to fix this issue, but am not going to leave the platform because of it. They are bringing many things with WP8 and this may be one of them. I have no issue syncing my photos wirelessly to my computer when I get home for now. If you really don't like it, why use it?