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720p recording or NOT?

E

Epleskrotten

Newbie
I have a chance to get an HTC Desire and a bit of cash for in a trade deal for my iPhone 4. The thing is my iPhone can record video in 1280x720 p resolution.

According to many websites the max camcorder resolution for the HTC Desire is 800x480, but in a webshop in my country it is stated that it can record in 720p reslution.

Which is it?

Can anyone clarify this for me?
 
I am searching high and low and I may have found out that it does after you update it from Android 2.1 to 2.2 also known as Froyo.

If someone could confirm or deny this, I'd appreciate it.
 
A word of warning: not all 720p recordings are the same. Desire does record video at 720p resolution, but at low fps. That can result in video quality loss. Check some samples on youtube first.
 
Usta said:
A word of warning: not all 720p recordings are the same. Desire does record video at 720p resolution, but at low fps. That can result in video quality loss. Check some samples on youtube first.
Click to expand...

hes correct however the visual quality is much improved on custom 2.2 roms
leedroid made it lagfree and it seems miui somehow improved the autofocus and whitebalance so the picture is much clearer
 
and the audio recording for the camera, i think thats the worst part. i can live with the video recording quality its not that bad
 
Epleskrotten said:
Can you elaborate a bit? If I switch from iPhone 4 to HTC Desire, what will disappoint me?
Click to expand...

The stills and video capture on the Desire are not as good as the iPhone4.

The stills can be made to look quite decent on the Desire but for "point and click" ease of use the iPhone 4 generally wins out.

The video capture on the Desire is a joke compared to the iPhone 4. Seriously. I had a Desire for about 4 months before I just had to get the Desire HD simply for the camera.

Even if you were coming from a 3 and half year old N95 you'd be appalled by the Desire's image capture - coming from the iPhone 4 as you are will seem like a huge downgrade.
 
Its true, desire is ok outside and gor just the odd picture its passable but it doesnt match the quality.

if you want iphone4 quality camera you will either have to get a newer android than a desire or get a dedicated cam
 
I gave up trying to record in 720p, it was just crap. Gone back to the VGA res now which works fairly well.
iPhone 4 video looks superb..
Stills usually look pretty good but then occasionally in lower light conditions it really struggles.

I use my Flip for videos now :P
 
If you are going from the iphone straight to the desire cuz it now records 720p you will be GRAVELY dissapointed.. first of all I'm LUCKY and i mean LUCKY if i get 20fps on some of my videos... the quality of the picture is actually not too bad and in some of my vids you can definitely notice how nice the more vibrant colors look, but my god the lack of a constant 30fps during recording truly kills this device's video recording capabilities. I've looked for a solution for this problem via custom roms and whatnot but no dice.. not in a single custom rom did I manage to get a solid chug-free 30fps during recording and this is after TRAWLING through the XDA forums, I already have a feeling the camera hardware is being pushed to its limit.

In fact, you'd probably be much better off with a galaxy S or even waiting out for the galaxy S 2 which will be capable of 1080p recording.. (my bros Galaxy S shoots constant 30fps and IMO looks better than Iphone 4 recordings) but as far as the desire and 720p recording goes.. its a disaster for example, i recently made a vid of my 2000 Camaro SS (just a walk around vid for a potential customer who wanted to buy it), so I'm walking around the car making a video and i decide to pop the hood so the customer can see the engine bay.. I open the hood.. so far so good everythings recording normally... I blip the throttle a little bit so the customer can hear the engine and thats when everything goes to shit... during playback at this part, the video cuts out approx 5-6 seconds and it just displays the same frame with the audio of the engine sounding like utter garbage.

I dunno.. maybe theres a possibility to salvage this thru future software upgrades but given how long it takes to roll those out I wouldn't hold my breath..

If you really want a solid vid capture device get one of those Flip things that OFI mentioned in his post, my cousin has one and he never has to worry about the length of his vids or them being choppy and low fps

But of course there's more uses for a phone other than as primary vid capture device.. I just wanted you to be aware of this before you made the plunge (cuz i wasn't and signed a 3 year contract :S)

NIIINJA Edit: Heres the recording of my car that I was talking about (make sure u switch it to HD and if u get too bored just fast forward to 2:20 to see what Im talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqrD2604TXM&hd=1

Edit 2: Here's a sample vid I made using my bros Galaxy S just to see how much better than mine it was.. the difference as u can tell is pretty much night and day.. (MAKE SURE UR VOLUME IS DOWN FIRST BEFORE U PLAY THIS ONE!!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnjufFQf9hs&hd=1
 
Thanks everyone for your input.

I decided to keep my iPhone 4 for now. I read a lot of reviews and as far as I can see the only phone around that gets approval of the camera is the iPhone4 or the Nokia N8. Symbian is just not an option, so I'll bring my iPhone 4 on my vacation in Tokyo, just to be sure I get decent quality recordings.

A friend of mine has the Galaxy S and although the camera is pretty decent, he is really disappointed with the battery time. Maybe that will be addressed in a software update, if Samsung does software updates, but for now my best option seems to be to keep my iPhone 4.

Maybe some day HTC will have a decent camera in their phones. Maybe....

I do have an HD camera, but I just want something that disappears into my pocket instead....
 
all smart phones have poor battery life, its likely to be how your mate is using the galaxy or some widget hes installed
 
True enough, but he brings a charger to work. I don't. And I watch movies and TV episodes all day long. And also use the web a lot every day. So I am very pleased with the battery life of my iPhone.
 
Epleskrotten said:
True enough, but he brings a charger to work. I don't. And I watch movies and TV episodes all day long. And also use the web a lot every day. So I am very pleased with the battery life of my iPhone.
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yeah its not bad, i do the same with my desire at times
iphone4 is a nice phone tbh if it fits your needs then keep it
 
nokia do the best hardware by a mile. htc hardware is actually quite poor even if they have the best roms.

but you will want to ditch apple as soon as you can really. keep your eyes open for the incredible S or a successor to the desire HD or a future galaxy s 3 and that will be anybody's dream phone.
 
EmperorKabir said:
nokia do the best hardware by a mile. htc hardware is actually quite poor even if they have the best roms.

but you will want to ditch apple as soon as you can really. keep your eyes open for the incredible S or a successor to the desire HD or a future galaxy s 3 and that will be anybody's dream phone.
Click to expand...
Nokia is good at design and hardware build quality, but they have been using rubbish components in their latest (Symbian) phones: ARM11 CPUs, 256MB RAM... We will see how they recover by building WP7 phones.

If the HD video recording was important for me, I would buy a good Digicam or Camcorder. The phones are not there yet to replace Cameras.
 
EmperorKabir said:
but you will want to ditch apple as soon as you can really
Click to expand...

Why? OP says it does what he needs it to do.

This allergy to all things Apple seems a bit shallow-minded.

I don't think most people here have any idea how much better the iPhone4 is at video capture. If they did they'd stop comparing it to the Desire. It's just embarrassing.
 
widehead said:
Why? OP says it does what he needs it to do.

This allergy to all things Apple seems a bit shallow-minded.

I don't think most people here have any idea how much better the iPhone4 is at video capture. If they did they'd stop comparing it to the Desire. It's just embarrassing.
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its true
they cannot be compared at all

there are things the desire is good at and its not images and video (or audio recording for that matter)

if iphone4 does what you want it to do then stay with it
 
Usta said:
A word of warning: not all 720p recordings are the same. Desire does record video at 720p resolution, but at low fps.
Click to expand...

Having had some fantastic HD results and then some poor HD results, I did some experimenting.

Turns out the Desire massively reduces the frame rate in low light conditions, sometimes as low as 7 or 8 FPS. Using the same settings but, for example, outside in daylight I have had results pushing 28-29 FPS. Quite a difference. I believe the frame rate is dropped to avoid flicker in low light conditions.

Essentially, with good lighting I have had some excellent results recording HD video, and all my iPhone buddies were quite envious when the saw the results on a PC.
 
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