GTI + 4K

"jlmounce" (jlmounce) 10/25/2013 at 18:17 • Filed to: VW, Volkswagen, GTI, Video, 4K

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Recently, I upgraded my phone from my previous iPhone 4S to the new Samsung Note 3. One of the deciding factors for me on this decision was the ability to capture 4K through the phone's camera.

Now before I go about discussing this, I'll say that yes, at this time 4K is still a gimmick. There are only a few TV's on the market that will truly support 4K resolution. The price for such a unit is more than most economy cars. You also need some pretty crazy bandwidth to support it. The video I put together here streams in at about 13.5mb/sec. That's highly compressed for a 4K video, but considering the capture rate for the phone isn't that great to begin with, it's acceptable.


Watch in "Original HD"

This image was lost some time after publication.

Now on to the technical side of things. I've not done much post processing here other than slowing down the frame rate to about 24 frames per second and adjusting the levels. The reason for the frame rate reduction is more stylistic, but also gave me a bit more footage to work with.

Otherwise this is straight out of the camera. The Note 3 does allow for 30p (NTSC 29.97) frame rates at 16:9 4K. This isn't "true" 4K because of the aspect ratio, but it's close enough that I can't really fault Samsung for labeling it as 4k. Also again because you're going to view it on a screen that likely does just 1080p or slightly above, it's not going to make a ton of difference.

One thing that is noticeable here is the amount of camera shake. When filming in 4K on the phone, image stabilization gets turned off. This is obviously a sensor/processing limitation and would honestly be nice to have. For motion based films, having to hold and move the phone causes enough jerkiness to be weary of it. However for scene-scape ideas where the camera can be stationary, it's nice.

I also got to test out the tap to focus elements here, which do work in real time and do so rather quickly. The auto white balance is pretty good as well is the auto exposure compensation. All of these items of course can be manually controlled as well.

When I have more time and a better subject, I'd like to do some more in-depth testing with the 4K resolution. I'd also like to see how the camera handles low-light video. At least in the bright sunlight here, I couldn't see many artifacts, other than the fact that the car is filthy.

More to come!

maximillious > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 18:19

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I was thinking about upgrading to the Note 3... how do you like it? also welcome to android!

jlmounce > maximillious 10/25/2013 at 18:23

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So far I really like it. My biggest complaint is the bloatware. That's not really the phone's fault though. I haven't really had it long enough to say if it's better/worse than the iPhones of which I've used for the past 4 years. It's certainly an upgrade in power however.

maximillious > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 18:25

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yeah the bloatware is the WORST part of the entire android party. I know Iphone and WP8 do a better job curtailing that. I really like the N3 I would even consider the galaxy gear watch to accompany it... have you put any thought towards the watch?

scoob > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 18:30

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Bloatware? Nothing a little flash can't fix! (Don't do it unless you know what you're doing! You may break your phone.)

bourgeoisie > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 18:31

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By the time 4k TVs are even a minority in consumer's homes, your Note will be completely antiquated.

Lots of other cool things about the Note, though, so congrats on the new phone!

xxxxxx > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 18:33

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Hey guys! Note 3 owner here. Go to Settings>General>Application Manager, swipe to the right until you get to all, find the apps you don't like and that the phone doesn't need(don't delete fonts for example), click on the application, and hit Turn Off. You won't be able to do it for some apps but it really helps with the bloatware. It'll be gone from your application list but you can always re enable it with the same process. Good luck!

xxxxxx > maximillious 10/25/2013 at 18:36

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The bloatware is manageable as I stated above(maybe below, kinja'd) and the phone is just marvelous. Turn off all the eye scrolling and air gesture crap and you get amazing battery life. The back cover is worth the money alone. It feels better than any phone I have used other than maybe the iPhone or HTC One, but I still think the Note feels a little better. The back is made from plastic but it is textured to look like leather and it just feels great. Doesn't slip or stick, it's just there. Really nice device. I could go on all day, but you probably have better things to do.

TL:DR amazing phone

maximillious > xxxxxx 10/25/2013 at 18:38

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haha u would be surprised. But I appreciate the first hand review. it always helps in my future purchasing decisions.

xxxxxx > maximillious 10/25/2013 at 18:41

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No problem. If you have any other questions feel free to ask... I don't know if kinja has some sort of messaging built in. Probably not.

xxxxxx > maximillious 10/25/2013 at 18:43

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Also, see if you can get the white. I'd suggest looking at the white and the black side by side. My local store had the white in stock and I feel like this phone was just made to be white. The black does look really slick on the front, though.

jlmounce > maximillious 10/25/2013 at 18:52

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Yeah turning off all the stuff I wasn't using was the first thing I did. I'd love to just delete it, but I don't really want to take a chance on rooting the phone. I'm too new to Android at this point.

I personally went for the Black. Although the backs should be the same, I felt that the black phone had a bit more grip to it than the white phone. Being as large as it is, I wanted that extra security.

jlmounce > bourgeoisie 10/25/2013 at 18:56

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Certainly true, however what shooting is 4K really does allow is cropping without picture degradation. For personal shooting, that's usually not a huge deal, but in my job where we shoot talent for a membership site, but also need to crop footage to fill templates, it's a bonus. We can film a bit wider, then crop down to where we need the footage without losing quality.

It is cool that an $800.00 phone can shoot at resolutions double what IMAX cameras perform at. Give it about 5 years and I bet you'll see pro 35mm CMOS sensors in smart phones.

HammerheadFistpunch > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 18:58

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as a video producer who has worked in 4k I can tell you two things strait away.

1. advertised resolution means nothing, its lines resolved that matters and I'm willing to bet this thing doesn't even do 700 lines, so less than 720p, no matter how many pixels they cram in there.

2. Compression is more important than outright resolution and the math can probably explain why:

To calculate datarate take Frame size x Frame rate x Bit depth = bits. So lets see

3840 × 2160 = 8294400 x 30 fps = 248832000 x 8 bits = 1990656000 bits, or 1892 megabits per second (236 megabytes per second). Since you are recording 13.5 megabits per second that means that you are compressing at a ratio of over 140:1. That's a lot of lost info, even if the camera could actually resolve that many lines they are pretty much all gone.

The reason that I say that compression is more important is that as bits per pixel drop, overall quality drops and all the resolution in the world wont mean crap, since it will be a big blocky mess anyway. with a camera of limited capability its best to target its mathmatically native resolution (native res /8) and shoot at the lowest acceptable resolution at the highest rate.

More math!

Don't forget that as you increase the frame size you are increasing your data needs by the square, so each doubling of vertical res you are quadrupling your data requirements and if your data rates aren't keeping up you can see how it can quickly escalate to no data for the pixels so they will just just lumped back together and look worse than if you had chosen a lower resolution in the first place.

4k isn't a gimmick, just consumer 4k.

HammerheadFistpunch > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 19:00

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I agree with a crop workflow, huge believer in it, but I don't agree with s35 smartphones. Miniaturization doesn't apply to optics.

jlmounce > HammerheadFistpunch 10/25/2013 at 19:06

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I certainly understand all of that. I am after all a producer by trade. The camera itself records in an H.264 codec at close to 50mbps. So there's a decent bit of information there. However I agree, it's not really enough. The XF's I use in the studio are obviously doing that amount of data at 1920x1080.

This certainly isn't anywhere near pro-level. My render targets about 14mbps because that's what YouTube is streaming this stuff at. There's not a lot of point in rendering 4k right now simply for YouTube though. But having that flexibility is nice nonetheless.

MylesD > jlmounce 10/25/2013 at 19:48

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Nexus line, bloat free.