This is (or will be come June) my first experience with an android set. Now I've read that the codec support in Sensation is quite poor but I'm wondering if that support could be extended to include e.g. .mkv playback now that Sensation will (hopefully) be unlocked.
first: welcome to the android world
second: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1097503
Thanks! So the codec support depends on the media player like in PC OSs.
I'm also wondering if there's any possible "fix" for the quality of the photos taken with Sensation's camera. The photos I've seen aren't too bad but someone mentioned too high level of compression of the file which creates artifacts. Are there apps for the camera that will lower the compression level? The ones I've looked at on Android Market don't mention anything about compression. Or maybe it's a hardware limitation.
Welcome to android as well.
To be honest I am pretty new myself. The sensation when purchased, will be my first android smartphone. Had an Archos tablet for a few weeks before lending it to my sister 6 months ago lol...
Regarding the camera, I am not certain if we are talking about the same thing but they do seem similar. In the engadget review, they mentioned 'artifacts' where isolated areas of a picture were randomly soften or blurred. This is most likely due to software/settings that are processing the raw image before saving as pictures/files. With the recent HTC bootloader unlocking announcement, we should be able to see custom ROMs or even just single solution, fixes, tweaks, updates or whatever you want to call them to address issues like this. Or of course HTC can also fix the issue themselves.
Here is a link to the review if you need it
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/27/htc-sensation-review/
if you are looking for the camera portion scroll down until you see the picture of the daisy? (sorry know very little about flowers)
apex84 said:
Thanks! So the codec support depends on the media player like in PC OSs.
I'm also wondering if there's any possible "fix" for the quality of the photos taken with Sensation's camera. The photos I've seen aren't too bad but someone mentioned too high level of compression of the file which creates artifacts. Are there apps for the camera that will lower the compression level? The ones I've looked at on Android Market don't mention anything about compression. Or maybe it's a hardware limitation.
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Hello.
First of all, my compliments to everone that makes great things like custom roms, mods, and so.
I'd like to know if is there a way to mod/improve/change the camera app, so the shutter speed can be set.
Thanks.
Hello again. It seems this thread gained some interest, but no one could give an answer. What I asked was if is there any way to hack, develop, activate improved settings for htc chacha camera.
Videos are saved in 3gp format. Is there any way to make camera app to save them as mp4?
Pictures get blurry if the subject moves quickly, or you are not steady when shooting. Is there any way to set the shutter speed?
I don't know if the camera app can be disassembled or something, and hacked into make that things.
Maybe the camera app can be ported from another model that uses the same camera model, and can do that.
I asked HTC about this, and they answered "latest 2.3.5 version has many improvements", but none about the camera...
The camera is way better than Wildfire, which my wife owns, but I think it can be even better if the camera app is up to it.
Thanks for reading.
The big question revolving around this issue is if the cameras themselves are the same between the phones. It's not only the camera.apk that's connecting them, it's the hardware as well. Yes, there could be a possibility that the cameras are the same, between ChaCha and Wildfire (for example), but at the same time the proc or image sensor might be of a newer generation. Unfortunately I have no hardware specs on this, if anyone knows it would be nice to know.
Question: Do you know of any phone that has advanced settings inside the Camera.apk that allows you to set shutter speed? Would be interesting to compare them a bit.
In the camera.parameters public class there is a setting called scene_mode_sports that seems to be the only way to set a faster shutter speed.
I can't see it in my HTC Chacha/Status, and even lgcamera hasn't that option in the menu.
There is a profile.xml file that sets the limitations of the camera, but it seems people hack it to allow the camera to record movies in higher resolutions, because many times the limitations are imposed by the manufacturer and not the hardware.
Also, hacking the firmware and/or the drivers of a camera would allow to gain the full features of it.
This reminds me of people that upgraded the Nokia N900 to allow it to record movies in 720p, just by replacing binary files in the phone.
Is there an app that tells you what exactly hardware your phone has, and such drivers or modules it uses?
Thanks all.
Hello all.
I'm reviving this with some news. The camera module the ChaCha uses is a Samsung s5k4e1gx (http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...t/cmos-imaging/detail?productId=5622&iaId=220), the same found in several other HTC models: HTC Desire Z, HTC Mini and others.
It seems that in the Desire Z this camera is able to record 720p video.
I think this is determined by the firmware loaded for the camera, and the app itself.
I'd like to know if it's possible to port change the original ChaCha camera related modules and firmware from the Desire Z ones, so the camera can get taht 720p video shooting.
Also, I'm searching for a way to disable the auto light metering so a manual can be set. There are many 'better camera' apps in the market but they all seem to improve the original camera app itself, instead of getting the most of the actual camera sensor.
Thanks all.
This post is better to be in xt720 Dev board. But it is a pity that I don't have the privilege to post in that board now. So anybody who kindly help forward to the dev board would be great appreicated.
For quite a long time, we sufferred to HD record issue in CM7. And I spent some days inveistigaing this issue and fortunatelly got some interesting findings to share.
1. 720p HD recording fail becasue of wrong width and height parameter pass to function createOverlay in libsurfaceflinger.so.
02-13 17:38:12.030: D/TIOverlay(1876): overlay_createOverlay:IN w=768 h=432 format=99
02-13 17:38:12.030: I/Overlay(1876): v4l2_overlay_init:: w=480 h=854
02-13 17:38:12.030: I/Overlay(1876): v4l2_overlay_init:: w=768 h=432
02-13 17:38:12.030: I/Overlay(1876): v4l2_overlay_init:: w=768 h=432
Here we see, the paramter passed to createOverly is (768,432). And in comparison with 2.2 stocked Rom, the right parameter should be (1280,720) for HD recording.
2. The wrong width/height parameter is set in libcameraservice.so. Perhaps CM7 forbids HD recording...
02-13 17:38:12.030: D/CameraService(1540): Changing overlay dimensions to 768X432 for 720p recording.
And double check by open libcameraservice.so, we found the matched words in the above at the address of 0x000ae00h. The very possible guess is CM7's libcameraservice.so check width/height parameter, whenever it detect the parameters are for HD record, it reset the paramter to (768,432)!!
Proposed solution:
If someone could kindly help modify the code to comment the piece of code and build a new libcameraservice.so, we may have chance to bring HD recording back.
I forwarded into developpement thread but I don't know if it is the only problem because librairies from 2.1 to 2.2 and 2.3.
Great thanks!
libcameraservice.so is the current blocking issue I have identified. Certainly, there are possible some issues come out after we solved this one.
BTW, I've enabled 720p hardware video decoding in CM7. The phone could now play 720p video smoothly. This should be a good basie to fix HD recording issue.
Interesting. I don't have much to say about this at the moment, but for now I can point you into the source (Line 767):
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...ces/camera/libcameraservice/CameraService.cpp
These commits seem relevant (from the "blame" view):
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...mmit/a930c3c872cf6eaa57bfdddc923132cf0d48564b
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...mmit/cf997d0147228ece729ceb95745d20905664426d
Edit: So, it looks like to set the overlay size to whatever we want, we just change line 74 of CameraService.cpp to put the desired resolution. The other part of the puzzle is to adjust media_profiles.xml to add the HD profile. I had done that in the past by copying settings from decompiled MotoCamera, but the screen would go black and get weird or cause a reboot when the camcorder was switched to HD. I think your finding about the overlay resolution might explain why.
FYI: *Temporarily*, I don't have access to an XT720 (due to a laundry incident that took out both my second XT720 and my wife's Nexus S--so she's using my primary XT720 and I'm luddite mode until we sort out what to do about her phone--surprisingly they both may have survived--they power on, the XT720 boots all the way but no touch (when the screen is on you can see some streaking under the screen so I think possibly some residual moisture is interfering with capacitance so I'm going to let it dry some more--I tore a different XT720 into tiny pieces recently and there's a whole stack of paper-like pieces under the screen and I think they're still somewhat wet) and the NS turns on but get's stuck at the Google logo even when trying to enter recovery so I think it needs to be reloaded, I've only made it as far as fastboot mode on that one due to only having a power-only usb cable handy at the time).
what you mean by 720p playback?
i have tested with youtube videos (searched for 1080p hd
what other test can be made?
btw, hope you will be able soon to post in the devel section
Hi peshovec, I also read your reply in dev board.
As you got the same finding and have already fixed the code, could you please share the new built libcameraservice.so? I don't have CM7 source code at hand, and it will take me several days to sync. Last month, I spent near two weeks to sync CM9 code ...
And one important thing, we might need to keep libcameraswervice.so compatible with old 2.2 driver libcamera.so. libcameraservice.so from other 2.3 Rom contains a new function "_HAL_Camerainfo" ( sorry, did not remember clearly) that does not implemented in old libcamera.so. The trick I saw in the code is to "#define BOARD_USE_FROYO_LIBCAMERA".
I am quite interested to follow-up on this HD record issue with all of you help!
And for 720p playback, I mean to hardware decode some 720p video.
Xt720's CPU is able to support h264 baseline profile, but could not support H264 high profile. So I am afraid for 1080p video and H264 high profile 720p on youtube, our phone still could not play with hardware decode.
The trick to fix 720p hardware decode is to use old xt720 2.1's codec: lib\hw\*, and libOMX.TI.*. The existed libOMX.TI.720P.Decode.so in CM7 support other phones (e.g. Defy) well, but not support xt720.
I tested my phone after the fix of 720p HW decode with one 720p video, and found my phone could play the video smoothly with either Moboplayer or Moto Videoplayer. And before the fix, the playback could only use SW decode, and even overclock to 1GHz, the pictures was still lag behind of voice.
Hi Mioze7Ae, I also did investigations on media_profiles.xml and build.prop.
Acutually, stocked 2.2 xt720 Rom is not necessarily to rely on those settings in either media_profiles.xml or build.prop. As you observed, all resolution parameter was set in Camera.apk. I tested xt720 2.2 Rom without media_profiles.xml and none of related settings in build.prop, 720p HD video still work fine. And for xt711 phone, it even don't have media_profiles.xml in the official Rom.
Ah, 5 post now. Still need 5 other post ...
hhcat said:
Hi peshovec, I also read your reply in dev board.
As you got the same finding and have already fixed the code, could you please share the new built libcameraservice.so? I don't have CM7 source code at hand, and it will take me several days to sync. Last month, I spent near two weeks to sync CM9 code ...
And one important thing, we might need to keep libcameraswervice.so compatible with old 2.2 driver libcamera.so. libcameraservice.so from other 2.3 Rom contains a new function "_HAL_Camerainfo" ( sorry, did not remember clearly) that does not implemented in old libcamera.so. The trick I saw in the code is to "#define BOARD_USE_FROYO_LIBCAMERA".
I am quite interested to follow-up on this HD record issue with all of you help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here is it (attachment)
also here is the mediaprofile.xml (which i use), with high and wide working
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...la_sholest/blob/pesh-modif/media_profiles.xml
can you try to search in youtube for 1080p hd videos and try to play some of them? i am curious if they will play on your setup (`couse in my test build i am able to play them...)
Thanks for the attachment! I will have try and give update later.
I tried to play some H264 high profile video: voice only and no pictures.
xt720's CPU fail to HW decode thoese video.
The workaround solution is to download the video, then we could choose SW decode in mediaplayer ( I used moboplayer). But the video play is very terrible, the picture play frame by frame, even though I have overclock to 1GHz.
Haha, the quick update is HD 720p recording preview work fine! Verly clearly and smoothly view from preview window!!
On the way home now, will do some more tests later.
Mark: 9 post now
Yeah, 720p HD recording is perfectly fixed!
Now we could enjoy HD recording in CM7!
BTW, I didn't tested your media_profile.xml. Now I used the one in 2.2 stocked ROM.
10 post now, heihei...
I will packed my Rom and share in Dev board tomorrow.
Great job, it's awesome and sweet.
I‘m looking forward to it!
omg, lol, so can someone confirm that hd video really work on any cm7 ? =)
well, afaik good that you have fixed preview.
Problem now in hd encoder...
Well.. we don't have it.
my fast testing doesn't seems good...
preview ok, but can't focus well (after try-ing to focus, the focus is set to the minimum distance), recording seems to start, preview display freeze. some file is generated trough.....
but that should be just my setup (is motoroi with the moto froyo able to record 1280x720p ? , if yes we can find way*)
p.s. *remark. in my opinion 1280x720 recording is just marketing, also it is not job for the phone to record at this resolution, working wide 848x480 is more than enough...
My phone is able to HD recorde in 2.1 and and 2.2 Rom, but lose this ablity when upgrade to CM7 2.3 Rom.
Not sure whether our phone have some HW difference.
I am uploading my Rom to DEV board.
Have a try.
I'm interested in making a custom camera app for s**** & giggles on my One S. I got the camera parameters app to check out the parameter string.
I noticed the video-hfr modes with a list of frame rates (60, 90,120) and resolutions. The slow-motion parameters is the same our default app uses presumably since the video res matches. Now is it possible to activate these modes in a custom app by matching the key/value pairs under the set property? Also how will hfr mode work if video preview is locked to 31 fps max? Any insight or guides to more documentation would be appreciated greatly !
There is a section called Q&a help and troubleshooting use it
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium
Spastic909, 1525 posts, 1500 of which containing "theres a section called Q&A ..."
I guess you can't do that because just like the Sony cam, the kernel should built-in the cam driver and hard-coded some settings into it. You simply can't just make a cam app and do really what you want.
In my understanding, some sensation phones actually could shout at 60fps but it's limited to 30fps by kernel on HTC One X/S now for some reasons, I've read that on sensation board. The existing slow motion mode is suck, though the resolution is about 720x480 but the actual quality is just like 360x240.
Hi all,
Is there any way to lower the compression in the OP7 pro camera to get a better picture ?? the old media_profiles.xml is not there but has been replaced with media_profiles_V1_0.dtd but I can not see a way of changing the compression in that. So i am guessing there must be another way ???
???
Ok I edited all the mixerpaths and nothing seems to work ???