Help Video zoomed in?

[zombiehammer]

Hi there, I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7", and the video camera seems to be really zoomed in whenever I open it. I'm used to (with other phones and such) it giving the field of view that you would expect, but this just seems... zoomed. I've tried zooming out to no avail. Is this just a 'thing' with Samsung cameras, or is there a way I can change it?

 

[zoonie]

Try resetting the camera in camera settings also try going into the main settings find applications then go to all and scroll to camera and press clear data and clear cache that willreset the camera to factory setting let me know how you get on please

 

[GTab4]

I have a Galaxy Tab 4 and I have the same issue.

Here's what I have observed:


This is only happening when using the back camera.

When in normal camera mode, I can take note of the "x 1.0" zoom setting which is the default. Everything looks normal.

When switching to video mode, everything has been zoomed in by 2 times but when trying to zoom out it says it is in "x 1.0" zoom.

If I switch back to the camera and zoom that in to "x 2.0" then the picture looks the same as it did in the video's "x 1.0" zoom setting.


Customer support doesn't seem to comprehend this so I assume it's an inherent flaw they have chosen to ignore for this line of tablets. Wish I had discovered this flaw sooner. I wish I could get a refund...

 

[AnciusD]

Hi there, I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7", and the video camera seems to be really zoomed in whenever I open it. I'm used to (with other phones and such) it giving the field of view that you would expect, but this just seems... zoomed. I've tried zooming out to no avail. Is this just a 'thing' with Samsung cameras, or is there a way I can change it?

Wow, I never noticed that before. I pulled out my old Tab 2 7" and, sure enough, it's as you say. The video zoom seems to be around 3x to me.

I have a Galaxy Tab 4 and I have the same issue.

Here's what I have observed:

This is only happening when using the back camera.
When in normal camera mode, I can take note of the "x 1.0" zoom setting which is the default. Everything looks normal.
When switching to video mode, everything has been zoomed in by 2 times but when trying to zoom out it says it is in "x 1.0" zoom.
If I switch back to the camera and zoom that in to "x 2.0" then the picture looks the same as it did in the video's "x 1.0" zoom setting.

Customer support doesn't seem to comprehend this so I assume it's an inherent flaw they have chosen to ignore for this line of tablets. Wish I had discovered this flaw sooner. I wish I could get a refund...

I will have to check the Tab 4 10" I gave my dad next time I go and visit.
I wonder if it's a flaw or intentional , for some reason. Not that big a deal to me but I rarely use the video cam, or even the still camera on my tablets.

Maybe try a different camera app from the Play Store?

 

[AnciusD]

I think I found the answer, and a solution. Odds are your resolution setting is set to the highest, 1280x720 (on my Tab 2). Try changing it to a lower resolution and you should see a difference. I did. I found this solution on a Samsung phone forum.

 

[GTab4]

Thanks for replying. My fears have been confirmed.

Yeah, the problem only happens when it's set to 1280x720. I forgot to mention that in the original post. Choosing a lower resolution is not a valid solution. This has to be some kind of inherent malfunction of these tablets.

I didn't have enough time to try out every single thing on this Tab before the return window expired at the store... because this was a present mailed to me from halfway around the world. If I had known about this issue, I would have immediately returned it to the store here in town. This is absolutely unacceptable. I'm going to give Samsung heck over this. I won't give up. I need a replacement that properly works or a refund... I hope they will understand this problem better after I show them comparison videos.

What I have also noticed is that the 640x480 and 320x240 resolutions are a lot darker than 1280x720. Increasing the brightness all the way does little to help with that. And these are the only 3 resolutions available. There should be many more.

3rd party apps give me an option to choose alternate resolutions. I have tried about 25 different free apps and only one of them lets me pick the highest resolution - and it automatically zooms in.

The smoothness of the recordings greatly suffers using all the other apps. All recordings end up with too much motion blur unless I have the option to pick 'sports mode' but then the picture is very, very dark. The default camera app records perfectly smooth videos. I'm about to go nuts over this. It's like I'm trying to make do with late 90's digital camera technology all over again.

 

[AnciusD]

Thanks for replying. My fears have been confirmed.

Yeah, the problem only happens when it's set to 1280x720. I forgot to mention that in the original post. Choosing a lower resolution is not a valid solution. This has to be some kind of inherent malfunction of these tablets.

It may not be isolated to these tablets. As I said above, I first found mention of it in a android phone forum.
Lengthy discussion here from 2010 that might be material, too:
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/does-the-iphone-4-camcorder-zoom-in-more-then-the-camera.952774/

I will have to check my Tab Pro 8.4 and see whether it occurs there also.

 

[GTab4]

Thanks for that link! It was quite helpful though the actual culprit is still somewhat undetermined.

Ahhh, so many of these types of devices are cutting corners then! I read through all of that and from what I gather: What they (they being the companies who write the software intentionally and/or the hardware manufacturers who build these camera sensors) are basically doing is taking a lower resolution video, for example something like 640x480, and cropping away all 4 sides to give it the AR of 16:9 and then 'falsely' encoding it at 720p, all just to ensure it has the processing power/speed on the fly so it will not lag? That's not a true 720p recording, then.

I can manually take any lower resolution video I want then crop and re-encode it to be 1280x720 to fake it similar to how these are doing. That's underhanded. I know this Tab is only using a 3MP camera and it's silly to expect it to make a decent 720p video, but still, it's a false advertisement which could be grounds for a class action lawsuit, right? It flat out says 720p, not 'simulated' or 'cropped and then upscaled to 720p.'

I'll try asking around elsewhere on some camera/video oriented forums about this and maybe even try to find a tech-savvy law firm that will understand the reasoning behind what is being done.