Tmo SDA - Reduce camera lag? Increase video size? Auto quiet when charging? More...

[Guest notaliberal]

First post here, hopefully somebody can shed some light. I've searched to no real avail for answers to these questions.

First, and most importantly, has anybody found a way to speed up the camera when taking 1280x1024 pics? The lag seems to be on the order of 1+ seconds, which is intolerable when you have a 2 year old. I found registry entries for the camera key delay, and set them all to like 100 or something (one of them was set to something huge like 100000 or something), but haven't seen any improvement to shutter speed. I may have even tried setting the delays to 0, but I don't remember anymore. NOthing seemed to help though...

Second, I see folks with the MDA have a 320x240 option for taking videos, however us SDA users only get 176x144 or smaller. I understand there are reg entries for video size, so I tried creating a mp4Large entry (which I did NOT have already, like the MDA users), but or course it didn't give me any new options in the video setup menu. So, anybody know if this is even possible? I have to assume it is. WOuld it be safe to import the mp4large entry from somebody's MDA, or would that even help? any insight here appreciated.

Third, has anybody found a way to make the phone automatically go into silent or meeting profiles when you plug it in? I hate it when some goofball calls the wrond number at 3 in the morning and my phone is blaring, and I can never seem to get into the habit of manually putting it on silent when I go to bed.

WHich reminds me, for those who haven't yet discovered this, you can toggle from normal to silent modes by holding down the # key. Most of you probably konw that already, but i jsut stumbled across it this weekend, so I thought I'd sahre with those who don't know.

I suppose I'll also ask folks what theiry typical battery life is too while I'm posting. Mine seems a bit short. With bluetooth on (but usually idle), WiFi off, and normal phone (1 hour max) and browsing (light browsing, wap pages mostly) usage my battery goes from 100% to <50% by the end of the day. THis seems a bit weak to me. Basically, there's no way I'd ever ea able to skip charging my phone overnight, for even one night. Not good when camping, etc. Is this pretty much on par with eveybody else's?

Greatly appreciate any comment, opinions, and help with any of these.

Thanks!

Jeff

[Guest thenext1]

Well, i'm very interested in the "320x240" video capture option. I have an imate SP5m.

Firstly you have to tell me if you were using the integrated HTC camera app ("Camera for smartphone", previously called IA CAMERA, mine is ver 2.58), a 3rd party app or the integrated WM5 capture.

I've already done some registry hacks to try to show up the capture size in IA CAMERA, but I made no progress ... every key I changed seemed to have no effect.

Then I've downloaded plenty of SDKs from the internet and modified various examples how to make a camera-capture app in WM5. Using WM5 API you can capture video even at 352x288 at 25 fps and encode it in WMV, but it has major drawbacks.

Firstly, the camera driver is buggy and returns noisy images, with some vertical lines full of static, almost unusable.

Secondly, the encoding is not on the fly, and I think the intermediate storage is RAM memory so you are limited to a few seconds capture until the phone starts lagging up.

Thirdly, encoding is very slow. It takes some minutes to encode a 10-second video.

I gave up because that wasn't obviously the way to go.

Anyway I'm sure our device can do 320x240 on the fly. The Qtek S200, that's the same identical processor and speed, can do it, so ours should do it as well.

I suspect this limitation has been "hard-coded" directly into the smartphone version of the program, because in my registry there already were some keys about 240x320 video modes.

Edited July 17, 2006 by thenext1

[Guest notaliberal]

First off, I'm sending this from my phone, so i'll keep it short.

you already had entries in your registry? I did not. would love to try importing them if you don't mind posting what it/they are. Again, I'm sure it won't get it done, but it'll have to be done sooner or later.

Hope somebody else can chime in and give up some help. I'm a little discouraged after seeing how much work you've put in without success. yikes.

Thanks for replying...

[Guest kam_]

try cool camera.. it'll let you record at higher resolutions

[Guest thenext1]

try cool camera.. it'll let you record at higher resolutions

did you try it on the tornado?

on the website they say to try the 1.13, which is a beta version

anyway capturing at higher resolution goes too slow until you lower the compression quality or turn off the sound

on their website there were some benchmark showing a rather optimistic 14 fps for the tornado @ 320x240.

I can obtain 14 fps at 320x240, but at the cost of lowering the cmpression quality to 55% and turning off sounds!!

[Guest notaliberal]

Hmm. Thanks for t he tip, I may try that out.

I'm hoping for a way to use the stock camera program though. Seems like it should be possible.

[Guest kam_]

did you try it on the tornado?

on the website they say to try the 1.13, which is a beta version

anyway capturing at higher resolution goes too slow until you lower the compression quality or turn off the sound

on their website there were some benchmark showing a rather optimistic 14 fps for the tornado @ 320x240.

I can obtain 14 fps at 320x240, but at the cost of lowering the cmpression quality to 55% and turning off sounds!!

try making the 'preview' smaller or black and white. I played with it a long while ago now - although it does work _ok_ at higher resolutions after fiddling, there's no increase in quality at the same resolutions the built in camera app does, as some claim. Also the interface is horrible.

[Guest thenext1]

try making the 'preview' smaller or black and white. I played with it a long while ago now - although it does work _ok_ at higher resolutions after fiddling, there's no increase in quality at the same resolutions the built in camera app does, as some claim. Also the interface is horrible.

I made the preview small and grayscale for the videos, lowered the quality to 65% which is acceptable, and it runs ok at 320x240.

It's a great app. I plan on buying it to remove the 5 sec video limit.

I also think the interface is better, it's like the HTC camera's interface on the pocket pc versions, text directly printed on the preview image, without useless menu bars and grey stripes. I haven't yed understood what Preview and "Snapshort" (notice the 'R' their typo) exposure means , i see little to no difference changing them. It loads in an snap unlike the HTC camera which is slower.

Going to the imaging section.

At taking pictures is better, because if you move the hand you won't have blurred pictures even at night, if there is a minimal source of light. With HTC camera, youi should have had a firm hand like a dead even when shooting in daylight.

To the videos, if you set it to 4:3 or 16:9 ratio (at hight capture sizes) I think it does a sharpening procedure because the output video is very clear and crisp, unlike the other sizes or ratios or when using other programs. I would say one cannot see it's from a cellphone camera.

3:4 ratio is better for portrait displays like phones', but I think it zooms more the frames, so the camera artifacts can be seen.

Finally, even when at 176x144, it captures at more than double the FPS of HTC camera.

It would be perfect if the capture speed were less constrained by the preview and whether audio was captured or not. ANd if it could capture to MP4 and 3GP....

Anyway I think there are good reasons to buy it, especially when the Euro is stronger than the dollar :)

[Guest notaliberal]

Okay, I sucked it up and bought coolcamera. $18 US.

Must admit, it works really well. I did have to set the video preview to small grey to get it to record smoothly, so it's tough to see what you're recording, but it's acceptable considering how GREAT the videos look. Even at 320x240, they are more crisp and clear than the 176x144 that the stock camera program creates! Much more!!

So, thanks for suggesting that program. Happy to pay when a company puts out something that works!

I must admit though, I wasn't terribly thrilled with the way Atek handles getting you the unlocked version of the program. i had to wait over half a day, after paying for it online, to get the cab file that unlocks it. That's pretty weak, they should give you the file immediately after payment.

That being said, glad I purchased it.

Now, does anybody have anything to say about THE OTHER TOPICS IN THIS POST??

Thanks,

[Guest conan_troutman]

not tot go off topic but for your profile switch you have loads of choices autoflight wich is fab city time alarms 2.0 (currently only available as Beta)

or if you want it to only do it when you plug it in to charge or synch try john cody alerts rilliant piece of software and great customer service too

[Guest notaliberal]

not tot go off topic but for your profile switch you have loads of choices autoflight wich is fab city time alarms 2.0 (currently only available as Beta)

or if you want it to only do it when you plug it in to charge or synch try john cody alerts rilliant piece of software and great customer service too

Not off-topic at all! I was hoping others would/will chime in regarding my other questions.

I'm trying out john cody's alerts. Love the fact that it also gives the nightly reboot option!

Although, it is VERY SAD that we all have to reboot our phones everyday! And the battery life SUCKS!!!!!!!!

[Guest conan_troutman]

shame the three programms listed all have very different features but do similar things I have all 3 installed.

I love autoflight for its reboot option and profile changes which it does by reading the subject text of calendar appointments meaning I can loud when I go to watch the footy and silent when I go to the cinema I just add a couple of special digits to the subject and it changes the profile at the start and returns to what profile I designate when its done.

I can also make it goto flight mode so if i am flying at 10 I put a appointment in that says flight #f# and the phone goes to flight mode.

then I use city time alarms by far the best alarm program this switches profiles too aswell as switching on off discoverable bluetooth...but it the alarm features I like best and the fact it unlocks the phone when one sounds.

then there is JC alerts the thing I like about this is if there is something I have to on my PC i set an alert to go off when I next synch the phone and hey presto no matter what time i get to the PC I am always reminded and the send SMS a specific time is bloody brill too.

so thats threee alrms programs not including the in built one one my phone all for very differnt but useful features that i wish just one could do.

[Guest mikeeey]

try cool camera.. it'll let you record at higher resolutions

where can i get coolcamera from?

[Guest conan_troutman]

http://www.ateksoft.com/phpBB/index.php

somw where near here

[Guest kubolaw]

Going to the imaging section.

At taking pictures is better, because if you move the hand you won't have blurred pictures even at night, if there is a minimal source of light. With HTC camera, youi should have had a firm hand like a dead even when shooting in daylight.

Does the program decrease the shutter delay of the camera? I loaded the demo version, but the ridiculous 1sec delay between pressing the button and actual capturing of the image still seems to be present. Is this just a hardware limitation of the phone?

[Guest notaliberal]

Does the program decrease the shutter delay of the camera? I loaded the demo version, but the ridiculous 1sec delay between pressing the button and actual capturing of the image still seems to be present. Is this just a hardware limitation of the phone?

Well, it's certainly not gone altogether, but it does seem slightly better. Only slightly, mind you...

But, the shutter speed is definitely better! I could barely get a clear picture to save my life with the stock app, but MOST of them turn out very nice (crisper too, I think) using cool cam. Plus, you don't have to click nearly as many times to NOT save a pic you just took, the delete option, as well as save, are both right there on the screen after capture. No more Menu -> File -> Delete. Very nice.

[Guest conan_troutman]

actually you will find the actual shutter speed and the sound of the shutter are way of synch so you would be better to stop the sound altogether

[Guest mikeeey]

is it just the camera on my sda or do all sda's adn sp5's cameras suck in the dark and at night?

[Guest conan_troutman]

switch to night mode its marginally better the auto setting is crap you best selecting the right one manually from settings however it then takes awayt the spontenaity of the photo which is what they where designed for really

[Guest mikeeey]

switch to night mode its marginally better the auto setting is crap you best selecting the right one manually from settings however it then takes awayt the spontenaity of the photo which is what they where designed for really

yea iv played with night mode and the settings already but sometimes il hav to hav night mode on when im inside my house in a not very light room. but with my old motorola v360 it would automaticly brighten the pictures up in the dark and it wouldnt look half bad at all.

so im just checkin its not just my sda, their all like that?

[Guest notaliberal]

Mines like that too. Sucks, cuz when you put it in night mode the preview is all sluggish.

If the darn battery life didn't suck so bad, I'd say I wish they at least had one of those lame LED flashes...

[Guest conan_troutman]

is there not a minu usb flash for the Imate SP5 and if not why not??

[Guest killerost]

Well, i'm very interested in the "320x240" video capture option. I have an imate SP5m.

[..]

Anyway I'm sure our device can do 320x240 on the fly. The Qtek S200, that's the same identical processor and speed, can do it, so ours should do it as well.

I suspect this limitation has been "hard-coded" directly into the smartphone version of the program, because in my registry there already were some keys about 240x320 video modes.

The S200 has a 2.0 megapixel cam.. that may improve picture quality somewhat? :)