Like with everything else, google arrives late and indecent. Hopefully this will be an improvement, I am sick and tired of android camera continuously refocusing and ruining footage even when the phone is on a stand and shooting a stationary object. It is plainly retarded.
BTW still waiting for low latency audio google is promising for like 5 years now... Pathetic considering android is just linux and the entire low latency audio stack for linux has been around for quite a while.
It "was coming" with JB and KK as well. My expectations have been tuned down to save myself the disappointment, they will probably shave a few ms off the latency, but not really low level low latency audio that would be usable for music making applications.
I've read about "rewriting" the audio system. Hopefully they did not only rewrite it, but rewrite it right and abstracted it away from the VM and java runtime, which was the reason it was so laggy to begin with. It was far from low-level, even when using the ALSA C API. Usable low latency audio will probably require real-time kernel, which unfortunate I don't see happening with android. Meaning expected latency won't be lower than 20 msec, which is still pretty high, 10 and below would be nice. I've been able to get 2 input and 3 input for a total of 5 msec latency in Linux with Jack and RT kernel on a machine about as powerful as current high end android devices.
They still aren't low enough. They admitted as such, though it is around 20ms as it stands in L. They are using opengl es now to do audio or its counterpart. You can watch it for yourself if you search for the i/o schedule and watch the segment on audio.
I'm really excited for RAW support for upcoming phones, here's a 100% crop comparison I made between a RAW out of the OPPO 7a that I ran through Lightroom, and a out-of-phone-jpeg. You can clearly notice the additional sharpness of the bricks, flora and the asphalt.
i2.minus.com/imZpFpS3b7PnH.png
This is the 13MP Sony IMX214 sensor that is probably on half of the Android devices that came out this year.
Colors and Gamma is slightly off on the RAW because Lightroom didn't have full support for the Oppo when I processed it.
The quality of the image has little to do with the format JPEG itself, the implementation of image processing APIs is the main factor.
One can directly convert RAW to JPEG with no visible difference in the result. RAW allows better image at the end because it allows the often weak image processing software in the camera to be bypassed, then the image can be developed using software like Lightroom, and finally burn into a good JPEG.
Usually JPEG used in phones uses a lot of compression, blurring the image a lot. The denoise filter is also too high. Of course you can use little compression when converting from RAW to JPEG and use a less agressive denoise filter.
Well, that's because you oversharpened a noisy image thus producing a somewhat sharp but also very busy picture. The processing engine probably employed some blurring as a primitive from of denoising and didn't sharp that much (maybe to keep the size down).
I don't think RAW support will really matter because in the end the sensors used in most smart phones are still utter crap and I don't expect that to change much, unless using a compact camera running on Android. Trying to postprocess RAW capture of a crappy sensor is just a waste of precious time, people who are halfway serious about producing usable images will still have to buy a dedicated camera with a bigger sensor.
The noise on the RAW is low if you consider it was a 750px, 100% crop from an 4k*3k picture. A RAW file out of a DSLR has the same high-frequency luma noise before you put it through a noise-reduction filter (which I didn't apply on the crop).
It's okay if you don't like the detail though, since RAW is non-destructive you can just apply whatever amount of filtering you'd want. Undoubtedly there are going to be Android Apps like a camera app that internally shoots RAW but converts them on-the-go to JPEG with your own custom processing profiles.
Unlike my phone, I don't have my DSLR or compact with me everywhere so I welcome every improvement to the image quality on phones, skipping in-phone-processing happens to be a significant one.
The only thing I can say to having RAWs on a mobile phone is that I love, love, LOVE this option on my Lumia 1020. Even though the internal jpeg processing became quite decent with the Lumia Black update, it is still way behind the quality I can squeeze out of those RAWs myself. Yes, even the beast that the 1020 is in the mobile phone camera area severely lacks behind any DSLR. But as MyRandomUsername just said, the Lumia is the device I have on my almost all the time. This and not being forced to be on mercy of the internal image processing (this and having quite nice manual options while shooting nonetheless) makes a huge difference.
> The noise on the RAW is low if you consider it was a 750px, 100% crop from an 4k*3k picture. A RAW file out of a DSLR has the same high-frequency luma noise before you put it through a noise-reduction filter (which I didn't apply on the crop).
> Unlike my phone, I don't have my DSLR or compact with me everywhere so I welcome every improvement to the image quality on phones, skipping in-phone-processing happens to be a significant one.
I'm a MLC user and from my own experience phone pictures come out so terrible anyway that RAW doesn't help a bit; usually those are snap, show, throw away. In most cases I don't even bother pulling out my Lumia because I'm very easily annoyed by shitty photos and I don't want myself to ruin my day.
The point isn't to replace a DSLR. The point is to have significantly better detailed files to work with, which have much greater capacity to be adjusted in post, all of the times that you DON'T have a DSLR on you.
You couldn't be more wrong about the sensors not being good enough. The sensors are more than capable for most use (obviously not large prints, but neither are most DSLRs). The gains in sharpness and image detail we've been seeing on RAW phones have been pretty good, and noise levels are pretty low sub ISO 1600. They compare pretty well to an entry level DSLR.
This is coming from a photographer who spends around $4-6k/year buying more photo equipment for his business. There have been plenty of times that I didn't have my MKIII with me that I had to use a cell phone for a quick picture and wished I could touch it up without exposing all sorts of artifacts. This looks like it will solve that problem.
isn't it possible to profile the CCD's response in different lighting situations using calibration cards and create an automatic multi-dimensional filter that fully optimizes automatically after shooting? I just want iPhone quality colors out of my photos.
Also, I'm curious; would these APIs be able to make an app that doesn't use the dedicated imaging chip on the HTC One M7? The purple haze issue is due to an overhearing dedicated imaging chip, and if you could process images without using that chip, shouldn't it fix the purple haze issue?
To be pedantic: you could do focus-stacking with multiple exposures, you might even be able to infer a depth map (or add an additional depth-sensing imager) and use a hyperfocal lens to reestimate focus in software, but you cannot magically turn a single-lens-assembly focal plane camera into a light-field camera (e.g. Lytro).
If only thethering worked on my nexus 5 with L on LTE... (Free LTE :), but changing from, 3G to LTE ends with lots connection... and wired wifi probles)
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pukemon1976 - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
About f'ing time google.ddriver - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Like with everything else, google arrives late and indecent. Hopefully this will be an improvement, I am sick and tired of android camera continuously refocusing and ruining footage even when the phone is on a stand and shooting a stationary object. It is plainly retarded.ddriver - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
BTW still waiting for low latency audio google is promising for like 5 years now... Pathetic considering android is just linux and the entire low latency audio stack for linux has been around for quite a while.Meleagru - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
That is coming as part of L. Plus USB audio out.ddriver - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
It "was coming" with JB and KK as well. My expectations have been tuned down to save myself the disappointment, they will probably shave a few ms off the latency, but not really low level low latency audio that would be usable for music making applications.Meleagru - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
It was never officially announced, just speculated about. It has been announced now and it will come, at least to the Nexus devices first.ddriver - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
I've read about "rewriting" the audio system. Hopefully they did not only rewrite it, but rewrite it right and abstracted it away from the VM and java runtime, which was the reason it was so laggy to begin with. It was far from low-level, even when using the ALSA C API. Usable low latency audio will probably require real-time kernel, which unfortunate I don't see happening with android. Meaning expected latency won't be lower than 20 msec, which is still pretty high, 10 and below would be nice. I've been able to get 2 input and 3 input for a total of 5 msec latency in Linux with Jack and RT kernel on a machine about as powerful as current high end android devices.sprockkets - Monday, July 21, 2014 - link
They still aren't low enough. They admitted as such, though it is around 20ms as it stands in L. They are using opengl es now to do audio or its counterpart.You can watch it for yourself if you search for the i/o schedule and watch the segment on audio.
MyRandomUsername - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
I'm really excited for RAW support for upcoming phones, here's a 100% crop comparison I made between a RAW out of the OPPO 7a that I ran through Lightroom, and a out-of-phone-jpeg. You can clearly notice the additional sharpness of the bricks, flora and the asphalt.i2.minus.com/imZpFpS3b7PnH.png
This is the 13MP Sony IMX214 sensor that is probably on half of the Android devices that came out this year.
Colors and Gamma is slightly off on the RAW because Lightroom didn't have full support for the Oppo when I processed it.
Filiprino - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Well, it's amazing. It shows how bad is JPEG.AnnihilatorX - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
The quality of the image has little to do with the format JPEG itself, the implementation of image processing APIs is the main factor.One can directly convert RAW to JPEG with no visible difference in the result. RAW allows better image at the end because it allows the often weak image processing software in the camera to be bypassed, then the image can be developed using software like Lightroom, and finally burn into a good JPEG.
AnnihilatorX - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Forgot to mention RAW contains extra information from the sensors and thus enable more accurate processing in the developing stage.Filiprino - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Usually JPEG used in phones uses a lot of compression, blurring the image a lot. The denoise filter is also too high.Of course you can use little compression when converting from RAW to JPEG and use a less agressive denoise filter.
soccerballtux - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
I'm not a pro, I just want the camera app to do the magic for me so that my photos actually look like iPhone for once.Daniel Egger - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Well, that's because you oversharpened a noisy image thus producing a somewhat sharp but also very busy picture. The processing engine probably employed some blurring as a primitive from of denoising and didn't sharp that much (maybe to keep the size down).I don't think RAW support will really matter because in the end the sensors used in most smart phones are still utter crap and I don't expect that to change much, unless using a compact camera running on Android. Trying to postprocess RAW capture of a crappy sensor is just a waste of precious time, people who are halfway serious about producing usable images will still have to buy a dedicated camera with a bigger sensor.
MyRandomUsername - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
The noise on the RAW is low if you consider it was a 750px, 100% crop from an 4k*3k picture. A RAW file out of a DSLR has the same high-frequency luma noise before you put it through a noise-reduction filter (which I didn't apply on the crop).It's okay if you don't like the detail though, since RAW is non-destructive you can just apply whatever amount of filtering you'd want. Undoubtedly there are going to be Android Apps like a camera app that internally shoots RAW but converts them on-the-go to JPEG with your own custom processing profiles.
Unlike my phone, I don't have my DSLR or compact with me everywhere so I welcome every improvement to the image quality on phones, skipping in-phone-processing happens to be a significant one.
ThoroSOE - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
The only thing I can say to having RAWs on a mobile phone is that I love, love, LOVE this option on my Lumia 1020. Even though the internal jpeg processing became quite decent with the Lumia Black update, it is still way behind the quality I can squeeze out of those RAWs myself. Yes, even the beast that the 1020 is in the mobile phone camera area severely lacks behind any DSLR. But as MyRandomUsername just said, the Lumia is the device I have on my almost all the time. This and not being forced to be on mercy of the internal image processing (this and having quite nice manual options while shooting nonetheless) makes a huge difference.Daniel Egger - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
> The noise on the RAW is low if you consider it was a 750px, 100% crop from an 4k*3k picture. A RAW file out of a DSLR has the same high-frequency luma noise before you put it through a noise-reduction filter (which I didn't apply on the crop).In broad daylight at lowest ISO? Not even 2 year old "enthusiast" compact cameras show any discernable luma noise before NR: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dm...
Current DSLRs are even ways better than that: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d3300/10
> Unlike my phone, I don't have my DSLR or compact with me everywhere so I welcome every improvement to the image quality on phones, skipping in-phone-processing happens to be a significant one.
I'm a MLC user and from my own experience phone pictures come out so terrible anyway that RAW doesn't help a bit; usually those are snap, show, throw away. In most cases I don't even bother pulling out my Lumia because I'm very easily annoyed by shitty photos and I don't want myself to ruin my day.
thatguyyoulove - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
The point isn't to replace a DSLR. The point is to have significantly better detailed files to work with, which have much greater capacity to be adjusted in post, all of the times that you DON'T have a DSLR on you.You couldn't be more wrong about the sensors not being good enough. The sensors are more than capable for most use (obviously not large prints, but neither are most DSLRs). The gains in sharpness and image detail we've been seeing on RAW phones have been pretty good, and noise levels are pretty low sub ISO 1600. They compare pretty well to an entry level DSLR.
This is coming from a photographer who spends around $4-6k/year buying more photo equipment for his business. There have been plenty of times that I didn't have my MKIII with me that I had to use a cell phone for a quick picture and wished I could touch it up without exposing all sorts of artifacts. This looks like it will solve that problem.
soccerballtux - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
isn't it possible to profile the CCD's response in different lighting situations using calibration cards and create an automatic multi-dimensional filter that fully optimizes automatically after shooting? I just want iPhone quality colors out of my photos.Filiprino - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
The possiblity of shooting RAW is a big improvement. The JPEG process removes a lot of detail.Rockmandash12 - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
About time..Also, I'm curious; would these APIs be able to make an app that doesn't use the dedicated imaging chip on the HTC One M7? The purple haze issue is due to an overhearing dedicated imaging chip, and if you could process images without using that chip, shouldn't it fix the purple haze issue?
TerdFerguson - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Add a global way to disable the camera, or I don't care.shabby - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Where does google plan to store all these raw files? Surely not in its meager 16/32gb phones does it? Give us back our sdcards google!Filiprino - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Only in your dreams you will see Google backing SD Card storage.shabby - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
Well the only other solution is 64/128gb storage options. Because the cloud doesn't work with raw images and possibly 4k video.Mayuyu - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
On the cloud of course. We also all have unlimited data plans and there aren't any places in the world without 3g connectivity.soccerballtux - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
the latency is horrendous. Takes 5 seconds just to load, when if it were on the phone itself it would be instant.Milind - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - link
You missed the sarcasm.edzieba - Monday, July 21, 2014 - link
"Lytro-style image refocusing is doable"To be pedantic: you could do focus-stacking with multiple exposures, you might even be able to infer a depth map (or add an additional depth-sensing imager) and use a hyperfocal lens to reestimate focus in software, but you cannot magically turn a single-lens-assembly focal plane camera into a light-field camera (e.g. Lytro).
przemo_li - Monday, July 21, 2014 - link
If only thethering worked on my nexus 5 with L on LTE...(Free LTE :), but changing from, 3G to LTE ends with lots connection... and wired wifi probles)
Milind - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - link
You missed the sarcasm