320x240 video camera!

[GoldenTiger]

Is anyone making a program to let us use 320x240 camera resolution in video mode on the NZ90?

[Alistar]

How about for the NX too

[hansschmucker]

Not without any APIs I bet. About NX/NZ: Don't worry. If Sony releases the APIs I'm sure they will be identical for pixtures up to 640x480

[Donk]

Originally posted by GoldenTiger
Is anyone making a program to let us use 320x240 camera resolution in video mode on the NZ90?

I would like to use that VIVID software on my NX, seems they can do 320x240 video capture.

[dramsey]

I suspect the reason the Clie limits video to the very small frame size it uses is the bandwidth available to write to a Memory Stick. Maybe the increased bandwidth of the MS Pro will allow the image to be larger.

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by dramsey
I suspect the reason the Clie limits video to the very small frame size it uses is the bandwidth available to write to a Memory Stick. Maybe the increased bandwidth of the MS Pro will allow the image to be larger.

Lets count a little...

According to Sony you get about 60 minutes of video on a 128 Mb stick. That is roughly 30 seconds per Mb.

1 seconds worth of video capture is then about 33 Kb = 33 * 8kbit = 264 kbit. And the write speed to MS is about 10 times that fast atleast. So it is not the MS write speed that limits this. Probably the MPEG4conversion takes too much CPU speed for the 200 Mhz Xscale to do any bigger video size.

[avega]

That's a good analysis, I personally agree the limit is the MPEG convesrion 'on the fly'

[eric2002]

i know this subject hasn't been touched for awhile, but 240x320 video capture for the NX/NZ still interests me. To the above post, then how come 2 megapixel sony cameras can take 240x320 resolution video? ...i am sure they don't have 200mhz + processors. Also anyone know of any 3rd party companies that are working on this technology for the NX/NZ??? , or heard anything more about this???

[eric2002]

so i just checked out the "Vivid" site ...vivid is a program that allows for 320x240 video capture on the NR Clie. So this software works for the NR, ...there must be a way for a program to work on the NZ/NX?
check out the site:
http://www.clievideo.com/

[Enceladus]

I really can't see why Sony would not do this to begin with.

[dks99]

I emailed the VIVID guys some time ago regarding a different feature of the NZ camera. They told me that currently there are no APIs released for the NZ and that they will look at creating an NZ version once they become avail.

FYI
dks

[dks99]

Enceladus

This is totally unrelated, but I was looking at the image of the NZ browser you have under your name.

It shows a picture of a Yahoo site sideways (landscape mode).

Is this an Adobe Photoshop work, or is there actually a browser that does that ?

thanks,
dks

[ralchizar]

Wishful thinking dks
I asked him about that the other day, it looks really nice doesn't it? It is just a file viewed in picsel viewer, no landscape browsing for us yet :(
I wish someone out there was reading this and would up and write the program for it.
Like right now.
Well ?????

[Unregistered]

<bump>

I want 320x240 video capture on my NX!!

</bump>

[eric2002]

what is an "api"? dks99 stated that there is no "api" from Sony available yet..

[YTTAN]

I don't know what is "api" too.

I prefer to 320x240 video capture for the NX/NZ but i am sure if they use more than 200mhz processors, battery life span will very short even less than 2 hours usage at this moment. They had to improve battery life 1st before they can increase the CPU speed.

[dks99]

API means - "Application Programming Interface"

I guess the API is already included in the NZ90, what is missing is the documentation for it.

its a list of available commands that a programmer can use to call the hardware. Documentation explains how to call the different camera functions in software, its limits, parameters etc.

Sony released an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the PalmOS5 which includes API Documentation but NOT for the Camera stuff.

the SDK deals mostly with the silk screen, MP3 player, HiResolution graphics etc...
Not a word about the camera...
its also not an NZ90 specific SDK but deals overall with CLIEs in PalmOS5

We will just have to wait a bit longer ... :(

Thanks,
dks

[eric2002]

thanks for the explanation dks99,
I am sure you are correct about the API not being available as to why no 320x240 video.
I don't believe it has anything to do w/ the processor speed or memory issues as previously stated, if those were the case ... there is no way 320x240 video would have worked for the 66mhz NR Clie's!

[Token User]

Originally posted by dks99
API means - "Application Programming Interface"

I guess the API is already included in the NZ90, what is missing is the documentation for it.

its a list of available commands that a programmer can use to call the hardware. Documentation explains how to call the different camera functions in software, its limits, parameters etc.

Sony released an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the PalmOS5 which includes API Documentation but NOT for the Camera stuff.Actually, the API is more than just documentation, and is not "included" in the PalmOS per se.

Within the Clie's PalmOS are a series of libraries. To access these libraries, you need to be able to map from your application requirements through to the calls in the operating system that do what you need.

This requires two parts in the SDK. The first part are libraries of function calls that are in a "friendly" format (given that these are "C" code libraries, "friendly" is subjective :)) for you to use - these provide the "interface" part of the API acronym. The second part are header files that contain both definitions of the function calls, as well as specific information such as constants that define how certain properties of a function call will behave.

A third part is actually documentation of the function calls.

The Sony OS 5.0 SDK, as it was released, provides access to a subset of the capabilities of the device. Access to advanced functionality of the OS5 based Clie's is being kept close to Sony's chest and apparently is available - povided that you have an appropriate releationship with Sony.

Next month (April 12) the Los Angeles Palm User Group is having Sony onsite talking about their new devices. Access to the full SDk is a question I have submitted in advance. Who knows - we might get a straight answer, but eitherway, we should see some cool devices :D

[Bionic Antboy]

Actually, I would imagine that it MAY be possible to even capture 640x480 video at a frame rate at least comparable to to the 320x240 video Vivid did with the NR series.

Considering that 640x480 video is 4 times the information of 320x240, and the fact that the camera hardware is definitely able to capture 640x480 stills, it's just a matter of how fast the processor can handle such a task. Of course, this still leaves some overhead to record sound with the clips as well, depending on the efficiency of the encoding process etc...

I remember seeing a comprehensive speed test between older Dragonball processor based Clies and the NX and Tungsten, but can't find that. I believe that hardware wise, the ARM based palms were seeing a performance increase of over five fold. I understand that there is variance due to software optimizations etc, but even so, 640x480 video at a reasonable rate with sound shouldn't be out of the question for someone who could get into the guts of it.

At least AFAIK. :)

[reggae]

Originally posted by eric2002
i know this subject hasn't been touched for awhile, but 240x320 video capture for the NX/NZ still interests me. To the above post, then how come 2 megapixel sony cameras can take 240x320 resolution video? ...i am sure they don't have 200mhz + processors. Also anyone know of any 3rd party companies that are working on this technology for the NX/NZ??? , or heard anything more about this???

you're right... they don't. the fact is that you can get a 66MHz machine to outprocess a 200MHz machine. how? because the 66 may have been DESIGNED with different (more specialized) instruction sets than the 200. our clie's are built to handle appointments, tasks, a few floating point operations, mp3's and small video. it was NOT designed to be a vhs (320x240) replacement. so it (the xscale) does NOT have the bandwidth to process 320x240 (uncompressed) video streams. compressed it would look like $hit... like 112x96 (or whatever the dimesions are). decoding is one thing we'll be able to PLAY 320x240 but encoding is a whole different load.

[eric2002]

I got an email back from the people at vivid:


"We might create a version for the OS5 CLIE's of Vivid. I will let you know
when/if it will be released."

-so I guess it will be awhile if it ever happens!

[dks99]

I just noticed something. The NZ90's camera creates the record movie in what it calls a MoviePlayer format and not in MPEG format.

The MPEG Format takes a LOT of time to encode even on a Pentium 4 PC, there is hope that the MoviePlayer format (while most likely not as high quality) doesn't need as much CPU juice. So maybe it will be possible to write an application to give up better recording capabilities.

Later,
dks

[eric2002]

so do you think that the NZ's movie player format could be the reason it is blockier than than the NX's mpeg movie format which shows smoother video??

[YTTAN]

eric2002, let it is not another CF driver crap promise again.

[YTTAN]

eric2002, let hope that it is not another CF driver crap promise again