The iPhone 5s Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 17, 2013 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 5S
Video
Apple’s new H6 ISP brings with it a modernization of the video recording options for the iPhone 5s. The default video record mode is still 1080p at 30 fps, but there’s also a new 720p 120 fps “slo-mo” mode as well. In the latter, video is captured at 120 fps but optionally played back at 30 fps in order to achieve a high speed camera/slow motion effect. The result is pretty cool:
In the camera UI you can select what portions of the video you want to play back at 30 fps and what portions you want to leave at full speed. The .mov file is stored on NAND as a ~27Mbps 720p120 without any customizations, however when you share it the entire video is transcoded into a 30 fps format which preserves the slow motion effect.
The slo-mo mode is separate from the standard video recording mode, it’s the next stop on the dial in the new iOS 7 camera app. Video preview in slo-mo mode also happens at 60 fps compared to 30 fps for the standard video record and still image capture modes.
Camera preview frame rate, toggling between slo-mo and normal modes
Adding high speed camera modes to smartphones is a great step in my opinion and a wonderful use of increases in ISP and SoC performance. I would like to see Apple expose a 1080p60 mode as well. Technically 1080p60 does require slightly more bandwidth than 720p120, but I’d hope that Apple targeted both in the design of H6 and simply chose to expose 720p120 as it’s an easier feature to market.
Standard 1080p30 recording is also available:
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
464 Comments
View All Comments
teiglin - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
There is absolutely no basis to compare the process tech between A7 and Bay Trail. We know what battery life the A7 affords the iPhone 5s, but know nothing about what sort of battery life Silvermont might provide in a smartphone form factor. If those Oscar cores are really as power-efficient as Silvermont, then yes, that'd be amazing evidence of A7's power-efficiency.Wilco1 - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Given a 2.4GHz Bay Trail in a development board already cannot keep up with the A7 at 1.3GHz (A7 beats it by a huge margin on Geekbench), there is no hope for BT-based phones. BT would need to be clocked far lower to fit in a total phone TDP of ~2W, which means it loses out even worse on performance against A7, Krait and Cortex-A15.So yes, the fact that Bay Trail is already beaten by a phone before it is even for sale is a sign of things to come. 2014 will be a hard year for Intel given 20nm TSMC will give further performance and power efficiency gains to their competitors. It all starts to sound a lot like a repeat of the old Atom...
vcfan - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
"Apple's designs are superior to Intel's. and then, Intel had better watch out."first of all, its arm vs x86. and second, it was "LOLz intel cant do low power chips,arm wins", now its "but but intel is 22nm" . hilarious.
ScienceNOW - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
WE have plenty of time until 5nm, by that time most likely something New will be in place to pick up where silicone leftsolipsism - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Since when is a PS4 a desktop machine? And why only look at the GPU and not at the CPU that was clearly referenced?Crono - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Ha, I love the low-light image choice of subject. :DYou have to admit, it seems like Apple learned some things from Nokia and HTC this round to improve their cameras, though the combination dual flash is pretty ingenious. I'm wondering if the other manufacturers will adopt it or stick to single LED and Xenon flashes.
StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
My Lumia has dual LED flashes, the Lumia 928 has dual Xenon flashes.So it's hardly anything new when the Lumia 920 has been on the shelf for almost a year.
whyso - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
My HTC raider from 2011 has dual LED flash.Ewram - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
my HTC Desire HD (HTC Ace) has dual led, bought it november 2010.melgross - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
I think you missed the explanation of what Apple did here. The dual flashed in the past, and in yours and other current devices are just two flashes of exactly the same type. Apple's is one cold temp flash and one warm temp flash. The camera flashes before it takes the photo, then evaluates the picture quality based on color temperature. It then comes up with a combination of flash exposure that varies the amount each flash generates so as to give the proper color rendering, and well as the correct exposure.No other camera does that. Not even professional strobes can do that. I wonder if Apple patented the electronics and software used for the evaluation.