Now that the Sony Xperia 1 has been reviewed by more people, there are now sufficient video samples at 960fps to make a judgment on the performance of the slow motion mode. As you may recall, the phone is only capable of recording 0.1 seconds at 960p at full HD 1080p and 0.2 seconds at 720p at the same frame rate. That translates to a maximum of 3.2 seconds at 1080p played back at 30p and 6.4 seconds at 720p 30fps.
There is no increase in recording time from the XZ2 and XZ3 phones which had essentially the same feature as the Xperia 1. We, however, saw a little better color reproduction and slightly better artifact handling on the new phone but so minute an edge that we simply cannot recommend upgrading for this feature or considering it over other 720p slow motion phones like the Galaxy S10 or OnePlus 7.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
So now that the Xperia 1 phone has started shipping to some parts of Asia and Oceania it is time to see what the initial slow motion 960fps samples look like. It seems that the length of the playback video is unchanged at 6.4 seconds for 720p and 3.2 seconds for 1080p. So 96frames are recorded at 1080p 960fps and 192frames at 720p. This is the same restrictive spec for three years in a row by Sony.
You would think by now the phone could have increased the slow motion buffer to something useful like at least half a second instead of 0.2sec for 720p and 0.1sec for 1080p. Think again, it seems we will not get anywhere near usable times in 2019 from the Xperia Line again. Your best bet for recording on Sony will be to get a camera like the excellent RX Series that allow much longer recording times and greater resolution.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
This week Sony Announced Xperia 1, the successor to their previous flagship the Xperia XZ3 with a few new features and a very ultra-wide 21:9 CinemaWide™ 4K HDR OLED display which creates cinematic like aspect ratio UHD video with what they claim Cinealta HDR color science. The footage does look impressive at first glance but we have to remember the small sensor on phones simply cannot compete with an APS-C or Full Frame Cinealta camera sensor.
The good news is that the phone continues to offer the 960fps Full HD 1080p spec as in previous phones the XZ series. Sony chose to not allow initial samples of footage shot in various modes including the high speed because the phone is not finalized. From anecdotal evidence, it seems to compare favorably with their Xperia XZ3 but with some better color characteristics due to the Cinealta heritage color LUTs.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Now that a few days have passed we now have the first few samples of what the Galaxy Note 9 is capable of in 960fps slow-motion mode. It shows about the same effective resolution as the Galaxy S9 and S9+ which share the same camera system. The Note 9 is supposed to increase the dynamic range but it is unclear how much benefit it will show in a resolution starved 720p high-speed mode.
The best selling factor for the Note 9 as a slow-motion device is the doubling of recording time to 0.4 seconds from the 0.2sec available on the Galaxy S9. This transforms into a 12.8-second video played back at NTSC 30p which makes it much more enjoyable than the 6.4 sec on the other Samsung phone.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Samsung has released the Galaxy Note 9 today and needless to say its a spec powerhouse with a familiar design and feel. No other Samsung has ever sported such amount of features and memory footprint up to 1TB with the 512GB internal plus an optional 512GB Micro SD card. Of course, a fully specced out phone will not be cheap when the handset starts at $1,000 USD in the USA or €1,000 in Europe.
Our interest and focus are the video features and we are far from disappointed. You get improved AF with scene recognition and an increase in dynamic range compared to the Galaxy S9. You get 4k UHD up to 60p and the usual competitive frame rates of 240fps and 120fps Full HD plus the 960fps mode that made its debut in the S9 and S9 plus phones earlier in the year. The extra checkmark in this phone’s sheet is that the slow motion at 960fps is now double the rec time of the S9 at 0.4sec instead of the 0.2sec in the S9 at the full frame rate.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Both the Galaxy S9 and S9+ phones shipped with 720p 960fps slow motion capability but the recording was limited to 0.2 seconds which is just too short a time span. This made it difficult to capture things in manual mode since the reaction time of your finger is about the same as the recording time making you miss moments. Pre-record made it easier but still limited to just 6.4 seconds playback in regular 30fps video timelines.
The new S9 update allows for manual high-speed recording to be used in 480fps slow motion mode at 720p for now 0.4 seconds or twice the recording time. This allows for easier capture of moments but in real time playback at 30fps it is the exact same playback time of 6.4 seconds. Since only 192 frames are recorded in the 0.4 seconds same as in the 960fps mode of 0.2sec then the only thing you gain is double the time to capture the moment. It would have been ideal to get also double the playback time. Memory buffer seems to be the limiting factor here!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
