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HD video recording coming in cameraphones this year?

By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 1:25 PM

Yep, I reckon quite possibly, if this current trends are anything to go by…….

So we are now at the stage where we have:

•    8-10MP still image camera modules and devices coming on to the market
•    Camcording functions that will do VGA resolution, and/or up to 120fps

The move to 1280×720 (which would give 720p HD theoretically) therefore cannot be that far away, and it’s not beyond the bound of reality to think we could even get up in to 1080 line territory (the so-called Full HD).

Of course, to enable this, you have to have some fairly potent graphics chips on-board the device – to the point where they are even dedicated chips for processing the “massive” HD frames (HD resolution is 4-5x larger than an SD frame).

But I think that the likes of Samsung and LG, and perhaps Nokia too, who are racing to deliver the “mostest” and “bestest” device for imaging & video, may well have hardware up their sleeves this year that could mean the first HD recording mobile device.

Now, HD by specification does NOT mean HD by quality. As the Still imaging arena has shown, most still cameras still produce a substantially better image than a mobile device, and those devices claiming high MP counts definitely cannot say their picture will be best because of it – I still the k800i 3.2MP images were leagues above the 5MP camera contenders that followed it, in terms of quality.

But what’s the betting that before the end of the year we’ll see something claiming to be HD-capable for video recording? HTC has already named one of their devices the “HD”, but that was referring more to the screen resolution – what we all want to see now is something that records good enough video that we can plug it directly in to an HD TV and watch it at a decent level of quality…

About The Author

Ben Robinson

Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.