Expert Blogs
(Beware: highly technical article! If you aren't a programmer and/or don't want to see how my backup / restore algorithm works, step right to the last two chapters, starting with "Important note for 3G S users"!)
WARNING: this article can be highly technical and is definitely NOT meant for people that haven't ever tried hacking the camera of their iPhone 4 or 3G S. If I don't run into other obstacles (I find out something very important), the next one I publish will be meant for newcomers to iPhone 4 or 3G S enhancement. If you, however, are a seasoned hacker and/or a programmer interested in writing apps for Cydia and/or have previously used my hacking tools before and would like to know what the new versions contain, you will want to read on. AGAIN: this article is NOT meant for complete newcomers!
The new versions
I've made a lot of pretty advanced resolution tests today to find out the effective (real) resolution of my iPhone 4 and 3G S hacks and enhancements.
For this, I've used the well-known ISO 12233 resolution chart available HERE for printing / ordering. Please read THIS (additional info in THIS / THIS / THIS article) in order to be able to correctly understand how the frame grabs should be evaluated.
Having dug deep into the configuration files and the video “hacking” of the iPhone 3G S (see my yesterday's post HERE [beware, it's quite technical and mostly meant for advanced users / programmers]; I'll also very soon post a full all-in-one 3G S article for beginners), I've found the „ 1080p” settings I've used there applicable to the iPhone 4 too – in addition to the default (here: true HD with full frame rate, near field-of-view and bad low-light performance) and the full sensor (high-resolution video with great low-light performance and, on the iPhone 4, greatly widened field-of-view but severely reduced frame rate).
I've just uploaded version 1.4 of my free(!), open-source(!) iPhone 3G S video recorder enhancer tool to Cydia. As usual, add the repository „http://www.winmobiletech.com/cy” or „http://winmobiletech.com/cy” to your Cydia client and download the new version from my repository. When the development is finally finished, I'll make the two programs be available in traditional Cydia repositories so that you don't need to access it from my private repository.
Main changes in this version:
I've just posted the new (1.3) version of my iPhone 3G S Video camera enhancer to my Cydia repository. (Please see my previous, dedicated articles [e.g., THIS] on accessing it.)
Unfortunately, when it runs under iOS 4.3.x, it has two main disadvantages compared to the pre-4.3 version:
- no on-device playback of anything over 1 Mbps. That is, you can't set for example 2Mbps as your video data rate if you want to watch the video on your iPhone.
- no Full sensor mode, also meaning less real resolution and worse low-light performance (but much better framerate and no „clicking” bug)
New version (1.1) of iPhone 3G S Video Enhancer uploaded to Cydia, with the following changes:
- CameraRollValidator.plist and MediaValidator.plist are now granted a+w in the app delegate, which means you may not end up having to use iFile to set permissions manually, which means you will be able to play back the high-resolution videos right on your phone, and not only on a desktop computer. (This was missing from v1.0; see the related discussion HERE)
- I've reworked the previously iPhone 4-specific help text (third tab) and the label (first tab)
The video recorder of the iPhone 3G S can heavily be enhanced. As opposed to the iPhone 4, where the main enhancements are “only” making the field-of-view much wider, the data rate selectable and, with pixel binning, the low-light performance much better (by sacrificing some resolution and speed), the enhancements of the 3G S camera, in addition to the better low-light performance through pixel-binning, are waaaay superior: you can greatly increase the resolution, almost to the level of the iPhone 4 or traditional cameras.
The first real iPhone 3GS video camera hack released!
I've just released the 3G S version of my previous iPhone 4-only camera hack (see http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/how-you-can-make-your-iphone-4-much-more-versatile-video-camera ; please check out the iPhone 4 manual for more info on how the GUI works. The 3G S version is only a bit different from the iPhone4 one, so, your learning curve won't be so steep as when starting from scratch.). The tool allows for greatly increasing resolution and fine-tuning data rate (in Simple view) and fine-tune all parameters (in Advanced view).
Back in 2008 and 2009, I've already introduced (see THIS and THIS) MobileTerminal (by Allen Porter), a local, Cydia-based (sorry, jailbreak is required!) terminal emulator you can use for a lot of things; among other things, changing the root password from the default „alpine” to something (if you do install OpenSSH) less dangerous.
|
|
<br />
<br />The new iPhone 4 video enhancer is available in Cydia, in the usual repository <i>http://winmobiletech.com/cy</i>. As usual, I)
