Hi,

We all know that video recording quality is a downside of N900. Let's collect tips & tricks to improve it a little

Wiki page: http://wiki.maemo.org/index.php?titl...ideo_recording

What I know:

1. Overclock
2. Using 720p by freemangordon to record in HD.

But can our camera really take advantage of 720p? Will it be real 720p or just upscaling?

Please share anything that might be useful If you post something here, feel free to add it to the wiki.

I would be interested in hearing opinions as to whether moving swap to the SD Card will improve recording performance. Relatedly, if you have moved swap to the SD Card, is it better to record video to the card or internal storage?

I currently have swap on the SD Card, but have decided to move default DCIM back to the internal memory. The camera would frequently lock up and crash if both DCIM and swap were active on the card...

Upgrade device. Everyone's happy.

this one is not an option untill this community goes completely down.

On topic. Installing CSSU Camera app reduces frame drops which we see in Nokia camera app and also it allows to manually focus in video recording by half pressing camera key. But CSSU camera app has some bugs which are not fixed yet.

Why isn't it an option? The opposite is patching what can't be patched for f*cks sake. Clinging onto obsolete, almost unfixable hardware is only an option if you cannot even spare 100EUR for better hardware.

@don_upgrade isint an option because you cannot get a secondary device like this if there is i will be happy to dich !

yep. No such device like n900, gimme a better device with maemo no such. MEego is good but lack of support of gtk and plain qt is a bummer.

i nearly done the €100 euro preorder from Jolla. Don't like iOS (hardware is ok), won't touch Windows after recent Microsoft/NSA revelations. Android.. most are nasty in terms of build quality, even samsung don't feel great. samsung have too many custom apps, flashing stock reduces battery life. To top it all, phones way too big. smaller screen seems to have to mean worse specs. htc one? meh.

Jolla, being crafted by many of the people behind N900 and N9 is the closest we've got at the moment to a spiritual successor. What put me off? Love the new contact details screen, love the ambiance idea and the active app thumbnails, andriod support etc. What I can't stand is the lack of keyboard and the media player, the way the genres as shown across top of window are truncated. Hopefully it will be polished before release. The lack of apps previewed (web browser?) is another concern.

As you can see, nothing is currently able to replace my beloved N900 as a *mobile device*, a there when you need it camera. The more we can do to get the most out of it until a worthy replacement comes along. If I know I'm gonna be taking lot of photos or short videos, I take my lumix

video recording quality is downside on N900? Funny, as I always thought otherwise - at least, since using 720p video recording and after comparing it with many androcrap mobiles and tablets, bombing us with "awesome" Mp counts, coupled with crappy optics.

So, if we put aside pseudo-advices from lumniaandro-man, who couldn't stop himself from trolling off-topic comments about his pathetic new toys, (that aren't interesting for anyone here, anyway), it goes down to few points:
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1. 720p video recording patches.

2. Writing video to *different* storage medium, than our swap-keeping one (it doesn't affect quality - rather, overall performance of device during recording).

3. Overclocking is *not* affecting video quality, save for slight DSP overclock, required for 720p video recording/playback.

4. Remember to adjust focus *during* (and before ) recording - the former, thanks to CSSU'ish camera-ui.

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It's worth to note, that - while N900 optics is superior than 99% of cameras on market today (save for things like pureview) - it is still too small for "real" 5Mp *photographs*. Thankfully, video resolution of 720p video recording is much *below* our optics limitations, so it isn't affecting our video quality.
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In addition to software tweaking, some hardware modifications can help, too:

1. Use tripod - it require either modified backcover with mount-point for tripods (I'm using it for ages and recommend it), or slightly over-priced and over-sized tripods for mobiles/tablets, used in iPhone/android world. No need to add, that the latter option is boring and less effective in practice (as everything in iSheep/googleoid world ), right?

Anyway, tripods make video recording *super* sharp.

2. Use hardware camera filters appropriate for light conditions, thanks to modified/custom backcover. This one can have great results, if you know anything about filters usage.

/Estel

2. And what if both swaps are enabled (swapset startup)
3. Why not? Won't it improve the overall performance while recording?

Isn't the "stuttering" of the video caused by the unability to save everything on time?