Thinking of buying, but why is video quality so poor?

[jshamoon]

I have a Palm Pre currently and am thinking of switching to the EVO. The Pre has a pretty nice camera and the video quality is really excellent, especially the sound output. Why is the EVO's so inferior? You would think such a high quality device wouldn't disappoint in this area...

Can this be solved via a custom rom/setting? It just seems overly compressed to me.

I want to place an order for a EVO, but this is the only thing stopping me as I would be taking a lot of impromptu shots/videos of my two small children when we are out and about when a point and shoot camera isn't handy.

Thank you for all your thoughts and input.

 

[pwnst_r]

MPG4 is slightly better after Froyo, but it still sucks. I've not seen a ROM that addresses that.

 

[guerillatwang]

Probably the 30FPS cap. There's a thread floating around here somewhere where someone emailed Hesse himself and he claimed "We're working on it."

 

[pwnst_r]

I don't think an FPS lift will address the compression issue.

 

[guerillatwang]

I don't think an FPS lift will address the compression issue.

Didn't think about that, good point.

 

[jshamoon]

Does the Droid Inc, Droid X have better vid/pic quality? How about the upcoming Epic?

 

[Caitlyn McKenzie]

No to all the above.

And the quality, despite its issues, is still far better than the Palm Pre's. Keep in mind the Palm Pre only records in 480x320 maximum. You can record at nearly double that resolution with very good results (800x480). It's the 720p resolution where the quality gets a lot more shady.

 

[Jerzyiroc]

I don't know what video's you've seen but the video's on the Evo is pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good. Better than most phones out there. The picture quality is great. I've taken well over 1200 pictures with my Evo and I've been more than satisfied with the picture quality. There's a huge thread up top in the sticky called pictures taken with your Evo. It's hard not to be impressed with most of the pictures there.

 

[Kasracer]

I used to own a Pre. The photo and video quality was an absolute mess compared to the EVO. Am I missing something? The Pre didn't have a very good built-in encoded so it would have lag all the time in the video.

 

[jshamoon]

Can people post some links to some good quality vids from an Evo please?

 

[mrhankey184]

I am extremely confused on why EVO owners think the Pre had better picture quality. I have seen many pictures of the PRE and it doesn't compare. Now that i purchased the Vignette app, it blows any pictures the Pre would take out of the water.

Jshamoon, forum search "Vignette" app and look at the picture quality. Its extremely good for a cellular phone.

 

[PM-Performance]

are we talking about quality once blown up to a big screen or something? My vid quality looks fantastic from what I can see.

I only watched on my phone and my 22" monitor on my PC though. I guess I can try on my big screen in my living room too, but i cant see it being any better then my digital camcorder i paid more then my phone for that sole function.

I took a bunch of vids this weekend while shooting some of my guns and they all looked great

 

[RayStinkle]

it was already said, but you are comparing apples to oranges. the evo 720p video is a little choppy. but if you set it back down to 480, it is able to achieve a much higher frame rate at 30fps which would be smooth as butter.

the palm pre for example can probably only record at 480, so both should be similar.

all the videos you see on youtube from the evo are the 720 setting, hence its a little choppy. try and find some 480 samples (i doubt these exist cause everybody immediately goes to the 720p setting!) and you will see very smooth video quality.