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Video recording on iPhone camera

S

sanford

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 5, 2003
1,265
0
Dallas, USA
Can someone who knows more about these things tell me, is the CCD camera in the iPhone capable of recording video, even just the typical short cell phone clips? I know Apple chose not to support this feature, but it was my assumption it is entirely possible, and one of the first 3rd party apps in the App Store would of course enable video recording. But, nope. So now I'm beginning to wonder if I'm wrong, that the iPhone still camera is just that, a STILL CAMERA, not capable of recording video even with an app that supports it. (That, or the core iPhone OS won't support an app to do it, even if the camera hardware technically will.)

Oh, bonus question: When you upload a photo from EDGE iPhone to MobileMe gallery, no GPS data is stored in the photo. Of course there's no GPS in the EDGE iPhone, only triangulation, but the Maps application does indeed use estimated lat/long/alt data from triangulation. Do any or all of the 3rd party photo sharing/uploading applications support estimated lat/long/alt data from triangulation on an EDGE iPhone, or do they all skip it, too, if no real GPS hardware is present?

Thanks for any opinions and answers.
 
It's more than likely it is capable of it, and it is software-based, but Apple want to be the first, and only, with this.
Hence my theory of video apps not being accepted into the App Store.

My theory is that Apple is planning video recording for a future software release.
Whether this be in the form of a point release (v2.3) or a major system update (v3.0) at Macworld next year.

It's easily capable of it, and Apple know it.

Like 3G, it may have been delayed due to 'battery performance' issues.

R-Fly
 
razorianfly said:
It's more than likely it is capable of it, and it is software-based, but Apple want to be the first, and only, with this.
Hence my theory of video apps not being accepted into the App Store.

My theory is that Apple is planning video recording for a future software release.
Whether this be in the form of a point release (v2.3) or a major system update (v3.0) at Macworld next year.

It's easily capable of it, and Apple know it.

Like 3G, it may have been delayed due to 'battery performance' issues.

R-Fly
Click to expand...

Could be that it takes too much disk space to write the video out to disk in it's raw format and with only 16gig max, it didn't make sense (ditto for a higher MP camera).

Could be that if they wanted to properly encode the video so that it takes up less space that would take too much CPU for the modest 400MHz processor to handle.

Lots of "could be"s. I don't think we'll see video recording until a real hardware revamp happens to the iPhone (new motherboard/cpu).
 
yeah its possible. you can match the refresh rate of the screen to the video record.

Its pure software. (partial hardware ... if you want good video)
 
i can almost guarantee that video capabilities will be one of the main selling points for iPhone 3. And it will probably only be availible on the new models. That would be my guess, make it a force upgrade unlike the 3G
 
So if they only offer it to 3rd gen phone I guess it would only show up in the App Store of 3rd gen owners? And if a game creator wanted to offer their game to all gen phones maybe it would come with a configuration file specifically for your gen phone. For example if you have a 3rd gen phone with faster CPU your configuration file would have physics on high instead of low or something. In short, I guess it would be pretty straight forward to offer apps even when there becomes a hardware performance difference between phones.
 
I believe that the answer is simple. Apple is trying to increase the number of enterprise users, which are currently the majority of the iPhone users. Many companies do not allow their employees to use video camera phones, for obvious reasons. Therefore, Apple will not introduce video recording.

Cheers.
:)
 
Hawkeye411 said:
I believe that the answer is simple. Apple is trying to increase the number of enterprise users, which are currently the majority of the iPhone users. Many companies do not allow their employees to use video camera phones, for obvious reasons. Therefore, Apple will not introduce video recording.

Cheers.
:)
Click to expand...

#1 enterprise users are not the majority of iPhone users.
#2 Some companies do not allow phones with imaging devices. The iPhone has an imaging device. This is not a reason.
#3 Cheers
 
wonderbread57 said:
#1 enterprise users are not the majority of iPhone users.
#2 Some companies do not allow phones with imaging devices. The iPhone has an imaging device. This is not a reason.
#3 Cheers
Click to expand...

#1 Apple is trying to increase the number of corporate customers.

#2 Companies are concerned about video recording more so than still photos.

#3 Therefore no video support.

#4 Cheers
 
#5 I don't think companies consult a list of phones and check if they are video capable. I think they check/ask if it has a camera, if it does, DENIED.
#6 Apparently if your iphone is hacked you already can video record with it so the iphone should already be considered a video recording device so
#7 give us official video recording capability
#8 cheers
 
sanford said:
is the CCD camera in the iPhone capable of recording video
Click to expand...

I believe it's CMOS, not CCD. But that aside, as has been said above, the hardware is capable. I'd expect to see 3rd party apps that do this eventually.

razorianfly said:
Apple want to be the first, and only, with this.
Hence my theory of video apps not being accepted into the App Store.
Click to expand...

Or maybe it's just because they've only posted 500 out of 4,000 (at least) apps they've received. Sometimes there really isn't a conspiracy.

wonderbread57 said:
Could be that it takes too much disk space to write the video out
Click to expand...

The disk space isn't a problem, but I'd imagine they'd want to encode it in H.264 to get good quality at a small size. If you've done much H.264 encoding on a Mac you'll know that it's slow and power hungry, even on the latest Macs. I think the real problem is that Apple doesn't want a video recorder that takes 10 minutes to save the file after you shoot it!

Of course, they COULD record the low-quality files that other phones make, but that's not the iPhone way, you know?

This, more than anything, is the reason I suspect Apple hasn't done it yet.


Hawkeye411 said:
Many companies do not allow their employees to use video camera phones, for obvious reasons.
Click to expand...

I'd love to meet the company that doesn't allow video cameras but DOES allow a device that shoots still frames AND records audio too.

Surely no one actually has a policy that dumb. Do you know ANY company that fits that criteria?
 
Thanks. I think you're right on all points. I don't think it will be a forced update, or if it is, not one that will work so well. Most tiny little consumer and many full-size pro-level digital cameras shoot really good video. Video on an iPhone, it's more of an extra than a necessity, because if you absolutely demand a video camera in your phone, you don't have an iPhone. It might sell 3rd generation iPhones to people who won't buy an iPhone due to lack of video camera, but I doubt it's going to make too many people who were happy to buy an EDGE or 3G iPhone upgrade for what will still be camera phone quality video, even if good camera phone video.

As for company policy, you're right, the prohibition on phones is for phones that capture images. They could care less about video. It's not a video of a walkthrough of the offices they're worried about. What, so people can break in and steal copy machines? It's so you won't snap pictures of trade-secret documents, digital or hardcopy, or perhaps prototypes, or lab configuration for proprietary processes, for which video might be nice but you hardly need it. As for audio recording, it's a risk, of course, but since all mobiles have microphones and all contemporary mobiles have data storage, it's pretty much too hard to keep voice memo phones out.

I expect you're right: The 3rd party video apps just aren't available yet. You can't release everything at once. Have to keep some good stuff back a bit to keep people coming back. Not to mention Apple has some quality standards for apps, I bet, and if the quality and stability of the app is not up to par, they won't accept it for distribution, free or otherwise.

Small White Car said:
I believe it's CMOS, not CCD. But that aside, as has been said above, the hardware is capable. I'd expect to see 3rd party apps that do this eventually.



Or maybe it's just because they've only posted 500 out of 4,000 (at least) apps they've received. Sometimes there really isn't a conspiracy.



The disk space isn't a problem, but I'd imagine they'd want to encode it in H.264 to get good quality at a small size. If you've done much H.264 encoding on a Mac you'll know that it's slow and power hungry, even on the latest Macs. I think the real problem is that Apple doesn't want a video recorder that takes 10 minutes to save the file after you shoot it!

Of course, they COULD record the low-quality files that other phones make, but that's not the iPhone way, you know?

This, more than anything, is the reason I suspect Apple hasn't done it yet.




I'd love to meet the company that doesn't allow video cameras but DOES allow a device that shoots still frames AND records audio too.

Surely no one actually has a policy that dumb. Do you know ANY company that fits that criteria?
Click to expand...
 
If enterprise companies are so against phones with video-recording capabilities, then they wouldn't allow Blackberrys. (a couple models have cameras AND video recording)
 
I thought the SDK does not allow low-level access to the camera, so no 3rd party appstore video applications.

Its Apple or nothing.
 
Archie- said:
I thought the SDK does not allow low-level access to the camera, so no 3rd party appstore video applications.

Its Apple or nothing.
Click to expand...

Suck. Can anyone verify that? Of course if the SDK has hooks for video support then the point is moot. I can deal with Apple wanting to put video into a firmware update, but not deal so well with holding something they could easily do in software on current hardware to push buying a new iPhone with a new contract when my original EDGE iPhone contract may not even be expired for a couple months.

How goes the firmware 2.0 jailbreak? I mean, I don't want to unlock, I'm going to honor my ATT agreement (not an indictment, just what I'm going to do). But jailbreak to get video recording and do other things that run off the EDGE/voice network, that Apple still won't allow, maybe yes. Do jailbroken fw 2.0 phones still fully support apps purchased via the App Store?
 
It takes about 20 seconds to write a video recording app for an iPhone, especially with Apple's development team. They are clearly holding off for their own software update.
 
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