4K HD Video Capture is HERE!

Admittedly, I am not excited or surprised by this announcement by Acer, which has stolen the thunder from Samsung with a 4K resolution video camera on a mobile device. The new toy from the Taiwanese giant, codenamed the Liquid S2, comes with a 6-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 IPS display, 13-megapixel camera, and will be one of the first devices to unlock the 4K video recording capabilities.

Samsung was suppose to out a similar video capable camera on the Galaxy Note 3 but heck, I don't shoot video much to warrant the need of such a device so here goes nothing. 

What the heck is 4K?

For the record, 4K refers to the pixel resolution from end to end of a horizontal screen. Remember the old 1020p resolution? That referred to 1020 pixel from end to end of a horizontal screen. For 1020p, all you needed was a 2 megapixel sensor in your camera. Whereas the new 4K standard requires 8 megapixels.

These days, cinemas that have gone digital tend to adopt the 4K projection standard. Beyond Hollywood and Cineplexes, no one really uses 4K at least not until the advent of UHD TV, which is being rolled out to consumers now. To understand the technical nature of 4K, you can refer to the chart below, which it taken from Wikipedia.

Resolutions of common formats

Format	Resolution	Display aspect ratio	Pixels
4K Ultra high definition television	3840 × 2160	1.78:1 (16:9)	8,294,400
Digital Cinema Initiatives 4k (native resolution)	4096 × 2160	1.90:1 (256:135)	8,847,360
DCI 4K (CinemaScope cropped)	4096 × 1714	2.39:1	7,020,544
DCI 4K (flat cropped)	3996 × 2160	1.85:1	8,631,360
Academy 4K (storage format)	3656 × 2664	1.37:1	9,739,584
Full aperture 4K (storage format)	4096 × 3112	1.32:1	12,746,752

Video Versus Still Photography

I have said this before and I will say it again, 4K video has enough resolution to put still photography to bed. If you don't mind the weird aspect ratio, the 8 megapixel still you can pull out from a video feed is essentially a 8 megapixel still image. 

There are even newer video cameras that can capture 6K resolution(6144 x 3160 pixels).

That means a 6K still image is 19 megapixels! But these are awfully expensive and are found in the RED Dragon video camera. It has the dynamic range to put any high end DSLRs to shame! It has 20 stops of dynamic range.

Never Miss a Moment

This is the frightening reality of the future. That for whatever reason that you do not wish to miss one moment, you can shoot 82 frames a second on 6K video and still put out a decent still image from one frame. That is incredible if you asked me. 

There is no reason to shoot stills if you can shoot video at that high a resolution and frame rate. Even now, with a 4K camera, you can avail yourself to a 8 megapixel still image from a video feed. Discounting the 16:9 aspect ratio, that raw video footage has every frame from a scene you can think of. 

Any Weak Points of 4K cameras on mobile?

There is of course, low light handling will be subjected to much scrutiny and of storage concerns. Your puny mobile isn't going to have enough storage to hold all that video if you used it constantly. Burning through 16GB of storage will be real easy. 

Dynamic range will also be suspect as a small sensor found in the likes of the Galaxy Note 3 and Acer S2 won't have the muscle to capture high contrast scenes. Noise will be a problem in low light but it should be decent if you shot anything in daylight. 

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Rambus: HDR on a Chip

I have been looking through some new technology for high dynamic range sensors and this came to light. Binary Pixel technology is suppose to give you DSLR style dynamic range for your mobile device such as tablets and smart phones.

If this is really true, then it could mean the end of the DSLR camera. Which fool would want to use a DSLR for imaging when you can get the same result from a puny device. Sounds too good to be true? You bet.

Rambus has made many claims to the new technology and though they have a proof of concept example, I have my doubts.

First, in the tech explanation, no qualitative examples were made in terms of the number of EV or stops that this particular type of Binary Pixel processor is able to claw back from high contrast scenes. Is this a pixel binning technology? Or a Jedi mind trick?

There is also no mention in the text about this being a patented technology (patent pending). This leaves me to believe that technology isn't yet mature for mass market use and isn't new.

There are ways to claw back some dynamic range from high contrast scenes in imaging. If you look at how the Fuji XE-1 and Fuji Xpro-1 does it with its Dynamic Range Expansion Mode, you will get a good idea on how this can also filter down to mobile devices.

Quad-core mobile processors can handle a lot of the heavy lifting needed to produce expanded dynamic range. This will of course come at the expense of battery life, but Binary Pixel technology makes a contradictory claim by saying it will not hinder battery usage.

Right now, it remains to be seen if this new technology will be a hit but stay tune for updates.

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