Here is the first example I’ve seen where the “wide dynamic range” (WDR) setting on my innov8 phone actually makes a difference.
WDR off
WDR on
The “on” image looks over exposed. Actually, the EXIF headers in both images have the same exposure time, f#, and metering mode. So I’m not sure what makes the difference, other than my moving the camera just a little bit between shots. I’ve tried other cases with backlit subjects, and have not seen any significant improvement.
My Samsung innov8 phone takes video in VGA (640×480) resolution. Here is an example, uploaded to YouTube. The sound quality is terrible, probably because I was standing outside on a windy day with loud gongs of the dance troupe.
Here is another, at Huka Falls, New Zealand.
My Samsung innov8 phone has a cool feature that allows taking panoramas. You put the camera in “panorama” mode and take the 1st shot. Afterwards, as you rotate, it automatically snaps the shutter when the next shot aligns with the previous one. It takes around 8 shots to cover roughly 180 degreees. Then the camera automatically stitches the shots together. Each sub image has VGA resolution: 640×480, though the final image may have smaller vertical resolution from cropping during the stitching process.
Here is an example:
East Coast Park, Singapore (click to see full-size panorama)
A second example:
Nanyang Terrace Bungalows, NTU
I don’t want to sound like an old coot, but I can’t hear the dialogue in most of the movies I watch at home. The soundtrack drowns out whatever the actors are saying. I am constantly fiddling with the volume on my remote to try and catch the words without being blasted by the music.
Technology to the rescue: I bought a Yamaha home theatre system, consisting of a RX-V363 receiver, and a NS-P270 speaker system. I used the coaxial digital cable from the DVD player to supply audio to this beast.
I’ve now had the system for about 2 weeks and, after making numeous adjustments, sometimes in the middle of movies (to my wife’s annoyance), I am reasonable happy with it. The manual is about 50 pages thick, and you pretty much need to read all of it.
The receiver has an ”intelligent” speaker adjustment feature, “YPAO”, which supposely adjusts speaker levels automatically. This seems to work. It uses a microphone (supplied with the receiver) placed in the center of the room. You turn it on, it emits white noise from each speaker and then emits a series of low frequency (about 3 second period) beeps from each speaker. The recorded sounds are used by the receiver to calculate appropriate speaker levels. The system concluded that my center channel sounded as it it were far away, and recommended a boost for it. It also concluded that my subwoofer was way too powerful and needed to be essentially throttled down to just barely on. I manually adjusted the speaker levels in the receiver with these targets in mind, boosting the center channel +6 dB and turning the volume on the subwoofer down to just barely on, and also setting the receiver output to the subwoofer down -8 dB.
The most important adjustment I made (which was not suggested by YPAO) seems to be to set the “dynamic range” option on the ouput to “MIN”. (It is necessary to read the manual to know to look for this.) This seems to apply a nonlinear transformation to the sound, like a “gamma curve” in video, to boost the low amplitude portions, which is handy when you have dialogue in the middle of battle scenes.
With these settings I finally am happy with the sound. I managed to watch the Lord of the Rings’ Two Towers without fiddling with the volume on the remote. The dialogue came through clearly, you could just about feel the ”whoomsh” of the Nazgul flying beast wing flaps, and the explosion on the ramparts of the Hornburg had a nice satisfying thud.
My two complaints about this system are as follows: 1) the receiver emits a lot of heat (why is it so inefficient?) 2) the subwoofer is way too “boomy” unless turned down to just barely; 3) adjusting the center channel speaker level, which is important to movie watching, is buried so far down in the menu that it takes about 10 button presses.
I recently bought a new cellphone after mistakenly leaving my old one outside, in the rain, all night. :-(.
After considering some rather expensive alternatives, I shelled out for a Samsung “Innov8″. This is an 8-megapixel camera-music-navigation-smartphone. I bought this model because it had an optical mouse input device, and because the number keys are big enough that a sloppy texter like me can find them.
I’m very disappointed with the phone. The camera stopped working on the second day. The mechanical shutter was stuck closed. I had to visit each of the Samsung Service Centers (yes, I know both service locations in Singapore now) twice to get the problem fixed. Finally, the camera module was replaced on my last visit. The camera now works. Here is a sample picture from my recent holiday in New Zealand. In case you were wondering, the water in the foreground is really that amazing shade of blue.
Huka Falls, New Zealand
The firmware in the phone is another big disappointment. Not only is the optical mouse feature not used to its full capability (the menu browsing is 4-way rocker switch), but every operation is S-L-O-W. After some fiddling with the settings, I found way to improve it somewhat.
I hope there will be a firmware improvement from Samsung soon. (Note to Samsung: please test it before shipping).
The 8-megapixel camera has interesting features such as “Anti-Shake Reduction” (ASR), and “Wide Dynamic Range”. ASR occasionally works. Here are two pictures showing the ASR on/off
ASR off, evening cafe scene
ASR on
I have not found any cases where the Wide Dynamic Range feature makes any difference when it is on.
Samsung also provides face detection, “smile shot”, “blink detection” and a bunch of others. I found that face detection works occasionally. Here is one case where the face detection did not work (perhaps wooden faces with moko are not a fair test)
Face detection does recognize the head of this Waka
There is a “panorama” feature, which stiches together multiple frames, but disappointly it only works when the camera resolution is set to VGA.
One good thing about this phone is that the battery life is long. I can charge it on Sunday and have it work through to Friday. Another good thing is that the business card reader actually works (well, almost, with some minor editing to correct the OCR).