640x480 recording resolution for H.264

[CobliClan]

Hi, I'm new to this thread. (I signed up after researching how to "ungrey" the notification option that lets you choose how long you want the LED to flash after receiving messages.)

So, maybe what I'm about to write isn't a big deal (or someone might have already mentioned it), but I'm just going to mention it anyway for anyone who wants to know. As anyone who has been through all the video camera settings knows: 640x480 can only be captured with the format MPEG4. But after learning from all the posts that more camera options could be unlocked, I also discovered that you can change the registry to fool the camera to record...say...H.264 format with that same 640x480 resolution instead of 352x288, which is the highest setting for H.264 in the options.

Using a registry editor of course, check out:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/HTC/Camera/P2"

The key "CaptureFormat" with a value of 16 is MPEG4. A value of 8192 is H.264.

The key "MainCamCaptSize" with a value of 4096 is 640x480. A value of 32 is 352x288 (the highest the H.264 resolution settings can go).

Simply edit each of the two keys to the respective values and you'll have H.264 recording at 640x480 (which you can't get through settings):

"CaptureFormat" = 8192
"MainCamCaptSize" = 4096

There's one catch though, if you ever enter into the settings in Video mode, your resolution will automatically change back to 352x288, and you'll have to edit the registry again to get back to 640x480. Otherwise, if you don't enter into the settings and just shoot video after changing the registry as afore mentioned, you'll have H.264 video in 640x480. I verified my results by opening each video file with MediaInfo.

Again, maybe not a big deal, but I was thinking that if anyone knows what 720p would be, that setting might be changed to see if 720p resolution could be spit out...worth a shot.

CobliClan

[Singh336]

Hey ! cool i'll try this, i hated the small resolution under H.264 options, hopefully it makes a greater difference for youtube...

[boredandtattooed]

pretty cool man! might try this out sometime....

[shatner]

try and post to youtube. seems if the video quality IS better it would be worth it.

[eric12341]

I always thought mp4 was better than H.264.

[puff601]

sweet, im going to give this a try. i also have a few camera tweaks:

Increase Picture Quality of Camera Photos:
The following tweak will allow the camera to save images at a less compressed jpeg rate, meaning that the image will be sharper and more detailed.
HKLM\software\htc\camera\image\jpegquaity\superfin e
Replace the 3Msize value with "746028"
This is said to make the camera take 7mp pics instead of 3mp. im not sure if it actually takes 7mp pics now, but the pics are alot sharper


Improve Camera Recording Quality of MPEG4-VGA Videos:
The following tweak will increase the video quality from 2100avg bit-rate to 4500avg bit-rate.
Go to [HKLM\Software\HTC\Camera\recparam\MP4VGA and replace the BitRate value with 4194304 (default value = 2097152)

I found those in a hd2 forum somewhere

[nayr1482]

Originally Posted by puff601

Increase Picture Quality of Camera Photos:
The following tweak will allow the camera to save images at a less compressed jpeg rate, meaning that the image will be sharper and more detailed.
HKLM\software\htc\camera\image\jpegquaity\superfin e
Replace the 3Msize value with "746028"
This is said to make the camera take 7mp pics instead of 3mp. im not sure if it actually takes 7mp pics now, but the pics are alot sharper

This one seems to either help a bit or do nothing for me. Anyone else tried it?

Originally Posted by puff601

Improve Camera Recording Quality of MPEG4-VGA Videos:
The following tweak will increase the video quality from 2100avg bit-rate to 4500avg bit-rate.
Go to [HKLM\Software\HTC\Camera\recparam\MP4VGA and replace the BitRate value with 4194304 (default value = 2097152)

This makes video look like a$$. Default on my phone is 768000.
2097152 makes the video look very grainy. 4194304 is even worse.





If these were found in an HD2 forum...maybe they wont work on the TP2 since the Hardware on the TP2 is not as good?

[creedo]

The h264 thing was interesting, but I wanted to also give a big old thanks to puff for his camera tweak. I guess it's old news by now, but the phone is still new to me and I had no idea how much it was overdoing the compression on these jpgs. The quality difference is really obvious when you make the registry edit. Like the difference between quality 5 JPEG and quality 9 JPEG.

I made a lil sample pic to show it, this is a photo of some fine print. I cropped and resized to make it not take up the entire forum width. You might think I just botched the zoom in the first pic but I did several pics to be sure. The default value just sucks and it's a crime they don't have it set correctly right out of the box. It actually hurts their ability to market the phone when people see photos coming from it that aren't half as sharp as they should be.

[CobliClan]

Well, not only is 4,194,304 a wacky number, it is aparently too high of a bitrate. I kept it within the 128,000 multiplier and changed both "BitRate" and "VSBitRate" values to 1,024,000 (which is 128,000 x 8 ) and "FrameRate" to 30 and it seems to give good quality video, increasing a normally 1MB file to 1.5MB.

:/

CobliClan

[puff601]

Originally Posted by creedo

The h264 thing was interesting, but I wanted to also give a big old thanks to puff for his camera tweak. I guess it's old news by now, but the phone is still new to me and I had no idea how much it was overdoing the compression on these jpgs. The quality difference is really obvious when you make the registry edit. Like the difference between quality 5 JPEG and quality 9 JPEG.

I made a lil sample pic to show it, this is a photo of some fine print. I cropped and resized to make it not take up the entire forum width. You might think I just botched the zoom in the first pic but I did several pics to be sure. The default value just sucks and it's a crime they don't have it set correctly right out of the box. It actually hurts their ability to market the phone when people see photos coming from it that aren't half as sharp as they should be.

wow that is a huge difference! i know there was a diff in the quality after the reg edit but i didnt know it made that big of a difference. thanks for the before/after shot, glad i could help man.

about the video reg edit, i never really compared that one much as i rarely record vids, mostly pics.