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
solipsism - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
I hadn't seen such a concise explanation of this tech. Thanks.Dug - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Very interesting and strange no one else has thought of doing this. I know using Nikon's system (CLS) exposure seems to be always right on, but depending on white balance setting it always needs adjustment.zshift - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Awesome review! A great read, as always.Dman23 - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Another awesome review by Anand Lal Shimpi! Informative and on point... love it.Crono - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
I want to point out for the sake of consistency that Apple's naming convention is to use lowercase letters after the number for the iPhones. So it's "4s", not "4S", at least according to their website. It's annoying, I know, just pointing it out because it confused me at first so I looked it up.dylan522p - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Yeah, Brian went on a twitter rant of sorts about it. Pretty small but annoying change.tipoo - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Am I wrong, or is this the highest IPC smartphone core out there? 1.3 GHz, dual core, and it still doubles the performance of the A6 landing it into the territory most phones take higher clocked quads to get into.doobydoo - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Landing it way beyond all the current quad core phones.UpSpin - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Browserbenchmarks != CPU performanceSo it's possible that the good Browser benchmarks result more in a better optimized JS engine built for the A7? (because Samsung, NVidia, MS, ATI, Intel, ... all cheat in benchmarks, it's even possible that Apple still uses the not further optimized JS and Browser engine for the 5C, to increase the gap between A6 and A7 and make people believe the better browser scores are because of the A7, instead it's just heavy software optimization?)
Isn't it odd that a RAW CPU benchmark (3D Mark unlimited - Physics) positions the iPhone 5S on the same step as 5C and 5? (assuming there is no bug). 3D Mark also probably doesn't take advantage of 64-bit, but so will no near future App either, especially, because of the limited RAM, Games won't take 64-bit in the future either, else they'll blow the RAM limit more easily.
ScienceNOW - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
F'ing thing sucks! I can all write it and we do it live! we do it live!