EVO Video Camera Settings

The EVO has a real nice camera and a dual flash (finally). For video, it comes with Qik. I did some testing to figure out how ot make the best Qik videos. Here are the settings for the app when operating on the Sprint 3G network. For 4G results, see below.

low- front (and rear) camera

328 kbits per second

~30frames per second

320 x 240 (qvga)

MPEG-4 video with AMR NArrowband audio (mono, 8KHz)

normal- rear camera

355 kbits per second

~30frames per second

640 x 480 (vga)

MPEG-4 video with AMR NArrowband audio (mono, 8KHz)

high- rear camera

387 kbits per second

~27frames per second

800 x 480 (wvga)

MPEG-4 video with AMR NArrowband audio (mono, 8KHz)

So which looks best? Well, ironically the so-called low quality settings produce the best looking video by far. This is because these settings use nearly the same data rate but only record at qvga size. Simply put, you get more bytes of data per frame (since the frames are smaller) so the quality is higher. I confirmed that using the 'low' quality settings on the rear camera also produce the same good video. I would expect it to be slightly better looking since it uses a better lens, but the data rates are the same.

To really use the normal and high quality settings to get better quality, a much higher data rate is required for the larger video resolution. This shows a basic misunderstanding by Qik as to what affects video quality.

Luckily, the limits of Qik are not the limits of the phone hardware. I did a separate test using the Camcorder app. It recorded VGA video at 30 fps and at a data rate of 1.6 mbps. Now we are talking! The audio is still weak, though, since it uses AMR Narrowband even though the device can record raw 16-bit audio at 44.1 Khz (CD quality). Oh well. I can't upload this video to Qik since I didn't take it with Qik.

Now to test on 4G

Things are much better when on 4G. Qik has this part right- they sense the network you are on and adjust the quality accordingly.

high- rear camera

1 mega bit per second

24 frames per second

800 x 480 (wvga)

MPEG-4 video with AMR NArrowband audio (mono, 8KHz)

You can see this isn't as good as the Camcorder app can deliver, but is excellent for mobile video and truly game changing.

low- front (and rear) camera

1 mega bits per second

~30frames per second

320 x 240 (qvga)

MPEG-4 video with AMR NArrowband audio (mono, 8KHz)

Oddly enough, the Qik app also uses 1 mbps when on low quality for the front camera. This only captures at 320x240 making 1 mbps an absolute waste. All you get is a file 3 times the size with no discernible quality improvements. This really should be set to no more than 400-425 kbps and the lower rate when on 3G (of 325kbps) looks as just good.

Conclusions

With the EVO's front camera and high quality, video calls are going to be great on this and future 4G devices. This type of device, plus 4G will make video calling a meaningful and fun application. Qik has to work out a couple of things regarding how they manage data rate and indicate video quality settings, but their system and Android app is so much better thanks to devices that can really use it well.

You can see the test videos at http://www.qik.com/ski