New Leaks Show The iPhone 8 Will Support 4K 60fps Video on Front And Rear Cameras

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Not happening. I would see a bump in storage though for the base model. It'll probably be 64, 128, 256 GB. Besides, you can turn down the resolution of the video recording from the settings. 

If you have to turn down the resolution then wouldn't that indicate there isn't enough storage/options?

[captain_to_fire]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If you have to turn down the resolution then wouldn't that indicate there isn't enough storage/options?

Or pick a higher storage iPhone. I don't think Apple would even consider putting SD card slots on their iOS devices because they make a lot of money from licensing their proprietary lighting connector to third party vendors. Personally, it's not that much of an issue for me. I pay for 100GB Google Drive storage so I enable automatic uploads of my camera roll and once my iPhone's free space is around 20%, I delete my camera roll to give way to new pictures. 

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Or pick a higher storage iPhone. I don't think Apple would even consider putting SD card slots on their iOS devices because they make a lot of money from licensing their proprietary lighting connector to third party vendors. Personally, it's not that much of an issue for me. I pay for 100GB Google Drive storage so I enable automatic uploads of my camera roll and once my iPhone's free space is around 20%, I delete my camera roll to give way to new pictures. 

well, I guess it will still fly regardless.   But I wouldn't be paying that much for a feature that uses up all my mobile data so I can keep recording.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, mr moose said:

well, I guess it will still fly regardless.   But I wouldn't be paying that much for a feature that uses up all my mobile data so I can keep recording.

I set Google Photos and Google Drive to only sync on wifi. You can do this to other cloud services like One Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox. 

[ionbasa]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

well, I guess it will still fly regardless.   But I wouldn't be paying that much for a feature that uses up all my mobile data so I can keep recording.

You could always get an unlimited data plan  (if they existed). /s

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, hey_yo_ said:

I set Google Photos and Google Drive to only sync on wifi. You can do this to other cloud services like One Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox. 

what if your out on a hike or tour?  Most of the photos I take are miles from wifi.

[mr moose]

Just now, ionbasa said:

You could always get an unlimited data plan  (if they existed). /s

yep, I'll pay for it with my centurion AMEX.

[ionbasa]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

yep, I'll pay for it with my centurion AMEX.

 

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

what if your out on a hike or tour?  Most of the photos I take are miles from wifi.

 

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

well, I guess it will still fly regardless.   But I wouldn't be paying that much for a feature that uses up all my mobile data so I can keep recording.

 

In all seriousness, in the end it doesn't matter. We don't actually know what storage options will be available for the upcoming iPhone, if it comes in large storage options, and consumers are willing to pay for it, then more power to them. People vote with their wallets. The best we can do at this point in time is speculate.

 

So, my final thoughts: Its a neat feature, if it can be implemented properly. From an engineering perspective (I am an Engineer :P) I think its always good when companies push the boundaries and always upgrade hardware. It keeps the market competitive instead of stagnant. 

[captain_to_fire]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

what if your out on a hike or tour?  Most of the photos I take are miles from wifi.

Either wait for the hike to end and hoping the hotel or Airbnb rental has strong wifi upload speeds or pay for lovely data overage fees that greedy wireless carriers love to gouge from their customers. Lucky for Americans though, they have unlimited data plans* from T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. 

 

*unlimited data means (x) amount of high speed LTE and later throttled to 2G/EDGE speeds. But at least they don't charge for overages. 

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, ionbasa said:

 

 

 

In all seriousness, in the end it doesn't matter. We don't actually know what storage options will be available for the upcoming iPhone, if it comes in large storage options, and consumers are willing to pay for it, then more power to them. People vote with their wallets. The best we can do at this point in time is speculate.

 

So, my final thoughts: Its a neat feature, if it can be implemented properly. From an engineering perspective (I am an Engineer :P) I think its always good when companies push the boundaries and always upgrade hardware. It keeps the market competitive instead of stagnant. 

 

I have no issues with pushing the boundaries,  it just strikes me as a rather large step that (if we are genuine to the benefits of 4K) could put a lot of strain on storage.

[ionbasa]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 

I have no issues with pushing the boundaries,  it just strikes me as a rather large step that (if we are genuine to the benefits of 4K) could put a lot of strain on storage.

Which is why I said "if it comes with large storage options" and "if it can be implemented properly". Apple is usually pretty secretive with their hardware, for all we know they could have large storage options available or some sort of lossless compression no one knows about. There's too many variables to know exactly what's at play here, which is why this is all speculation.

If they keep the current standard storage sizes, and implemented this camera, it would seem a bit unbalanced. 

[Jito463]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Assuming a 4K camera is actually worth using on a phone, does this mean apple will finally put an sd card slot in  it so you can actually use it for something without running out space on your phone?.

Considering that MicroSD to USB adapters exist, I'm a bit surprised no one has tried to make a MicroSD to Lightning adapter.  Yeah, I know Apple would never authorize such a thing, but that doesn't mean someone wouldn't try to make it anyway.  The only reason I can think of, is that there's no way to get iOS to recognize such an adapter and mount the storage device inside.

[ionbasa]

2 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Considering that MicroSD to USB adapters exist, I'm a bit surprised no one has tried to make a MicroSD to Lightning adapter.  Yeah, I know Apple would never authorize such a thing, but that doesn't mean someone wouldn't try to make it anyway.  The only reason I can think of, is that there's no way to get iOS to recognize such an adapter and mount the storage device inside.

It exists: https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-microSD-Lightning-Reader-LRWMLBNL/dp/B012PKYVT8

You can transfer photos and videos from Lexar's app to external storage.

[Jito463]

16 minutes ago, ionbasa said:

It exists: https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-microSD-Lightning-Reader-LRWMLBNL/dp/B012PKYVT8

You can transfer photos and videos from Lexar's app to external storage.

Huh, I didn't know that existed (obviously).  I guess that deals with that issue.

[themctipers]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

Pretty great to see 4k60 on a rear facing camera, couldn't really care about it on the selfie cam but I can see why some would find it appealing. Personally I find Sony's 960fps slomo more interesting and would like to see that expanded so that it can be taken at higher resolutions for longer periods, but for a first go it's super cool.

Where's my futuristic 5 sensor cameracentric phone Nokia. Give it to me!

If by torch you mean flash, there's already other phones that have beaten them to that long ago

I don't see why improved spec is a downside.

I think it's a natural evolution. Everyone was probably going to move to it this year anyway. Can't pack too many features in to one year, what will they have to talk about the next?

You're probably just not a selfie type of person There are tons of people that would love this.

I don't think it'll be that high. It'll be more, for sure, but I think $1,000 - $1,200 might be a more reasonable price.

Haha, the CAD isn't that bad!

Plus the current top tier iPhone is $1,300. A couple hundred more for what might be a completely new design would make sense (for an Apple product).

You're comparing two different things though. They also constantly improve camera modules.
Let me ask you this: Is it unfair to say that this new sensor would give better quality than the current one?

Funniest thing I've heard all day.

To be fair, they could have also been the first to implement Samsung's UFS microSD cards. The technology is there, they just don't want to implement it when they can charge a premium for more storage.

Didn't they have their own compression algorithm that would allow for greater storage? I remember something about it over the past few months, just can't recall what it was called.

Gotta save their pennies somewhere

it is terrible considering that the 128gb 7+ is $1175 CAD, and that's ~$950 US, which is the price of a 256gb 7+

 

A couple hundred more would be completely unreasonable. The price right now is unreasonable also. The damn 1080ti is cheaper than a 7+ 32gb. 

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, ionbasa said:

Doesn't matter though. The concept still applies, regardless of sensor size or application. Where talking purely about down sampling. It makes no difference if its on a phone, in a video game, or on a camera (either pro-sumer or professional). Were talking purely about down sampling.

Hold on now.

While I agree that downsampling is a legitimate way of making something look better, that assumes that the only difference is the resolution.

My phone's 4K (downsampled to 1080p) video will not look as good as my DSLRs native 1080p video.

 

Remember, if Apple has not increased the sensor size of the front facing camera then it might have more pixels, but each pixel will be worse (assuming they don't have some secret sauce to improve each pixel of course).

 

I've never seen anyone test this, but I doubt that just increasing the sensor's resolution and then downscaling would make the picture look better.

 

 

The higher resolution will be good for digital zoom and digital image stabilization though. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

 

The higher resolution will be good for digital zoom and digital image stabilization though. 

 

And better if you want to edit the video applying filters and cropping and whatnot.  

[jagdtigger]

7 hours ago, dizmo said:

You're comparing two different things though. They also constantly improve camera modules.

Let me ask you this: Is it unfair to say that this new sensor would give better quality than the current one?

Im comparing the two resolution in regards of quality, how could be this comparing two diffrent thing? But here is the final nail. File size, even if its on par with FHD(which i doubt) 4k is so huge in file size that its just impractical on a phone. Now regarding the sensor even if its improved(which i doubt) it wont matter because it will get lost during compression. The CPU wont be able to keep up with that frame rate at high bit rates. Even with low bit rate it will overheat in a matter of minutes(see: galaxy s5, and that one only done 30 fps).

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

File size, even if its on par with FHD(which i doubt) 4k is so huge in file size that its just impractical on a phone.

Might not be an issue.

This was discovered in the HomePod firmware. If it's going to be used to stream video locally from your phone to some other device then neither bandwidth caps nor file size will be an issue.

That's assuming that file sizes and bandwidth is an issue to begin with. For small clips it shouldn't create massive files. 

 

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Now regarding the sensor even if its improved(which i doubt) it wont matter because it will get lost during compression.

You could say the same for why a 720p camera is a waste, and you'd be equally wrong. 4K doesn't become useless just because of compression.

 

They would have to get a new camera. Their current front facing camera does not have enough resolution to record 4K. (4K is over 8 megapixels, and their current camera is 7 megapixels).

 

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

The CPU wont be able to keep up with that frame rate at high bit rates.

It can and it will. Actually, if there is a problem where the hardware can't keep up with the encoding that needs to be done then they will probably throw more bits at the issue and switch to a simpler encoding style.

 

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Even with low bit rate it will overheat in a matter of minutes(see: galaxy s5, and that one only done 30 fps).

is this really an issue anymore? I know it was an issue with the first batch of 4K recording phones, but that was like 3 years ago. I doubt Apple would make such a mistake.

[jagdtigger]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Might not be an issue.

This was discovered in the HomePod firmware. If it's going to be used to stream video locally from your phone to some other device then neither bandwidth caps nor file size will be an issue.

That's assuming that file sizes and bandwidth is an issue to begin with. For small clips it shouldn't create massive files. 

 

You could say the same for why a 720p camera is a waste, and you'd be equally wrong. 4K doesn't become useless just because of compression.

 

They would have to get a new camera. Their current front facing camera does not have enough resolution to record 4K. (4K is over 8 megapixels, and their current camera is 7 megapixels).

 

It can and it will. Actually, if there is a problem where the hardware can't keep up with the encoding that needs to be done then they will probably throw more bits at the issue and switch to a simpler encoding style.

 

is this really an issue anymore? I know it was an issue with the first batch of 4K recording phones, but that was like 3 years ago. I doubt Apple would make such a mistake.

It will became if the up-scaled 1080p looks just as good as the 4k one... And even if the HW can handle all of that it will heat up to the throttle point pretty quickly. This is apple after all, by their standards form stands above usability. How exactly can they cool the CPU and the sensor in an ultra thin phone? Just because the S5 is 3 years old doesnt mean the problem doesnt there anymore, especially since this thing will double the frame rate. Highly doubt they were able to bump up the IPC of arm chips so much that it will be able to record/stream for a long period of time without throttling(at which point it will stop the record/stream). But linus did one video about this:

And these were proper cameras... Its a gimmick on a phone alright.

[VerticalDiscussions]

Should make some pretty cool looking video footage under good lighting, especially when you want it to be fluid.

[LAwLz]

4 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

It will became if the up-scaled 1080p looks just as good as the 4k one...

It will become what? Useless?

Well that's if you assume that the 1080p video will look as good as the 4K one, which we don't know.

Kind of silly to say "4K doesn't matter, if we assume that it 1080p looks just as good", right?

 

6 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

And even if the HW can handle all of that it will heat up to the throttle point pretty quickly.

We don't know that.

 

6 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

How exactly can they cool the CPU and the sensor in an ultra thin phone?

With high efficiency, dedicated hardware and just smaller parts in general. The sensor in a smartphone produces way less heat than the massive sensor in a DSLR or film camera. You can't really compare the two.

 

7 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Just because the S5 is 3 years old doesnt mean the problem doesnt there anymore, especially since this thing will double the frame rate.

Well, that's you assuming that efficiency and everything else has stayed the same for 3 years, which it hasn't.

I am not saying the issue is definitely solved, but what I am saying is that it's foolish to assume that nothing has changed in 3 years.

 

8 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Highly doubt they were able to bump up the IPC of arm chips so much that it will be able to record/stream for a long period of time without throttling(at which point it will stop the record/stream).

Video encoding is not done by the CPU on phones.

 

 

It's kind of funny. These threads reminds me of when 1080p was a new feature. Read the comments on this article and you will see that they are in some cases very similar to the comments on this thread.

[TidaLWaveZ]

but when will the iPhone's screen be better than ~720p?

[Evolution90]

Well since we have 4K screens on phones which are pointless, may as well go all out and be fullyu pointless with a front facing 60FPS 4k camera.

[Ground]

1 hour ago, TidaLWaveZ said:

but when will the iPhone's screen be better than ~720p?

Because you can see pixels with 326 ppi?