[libcamera-devel] Video recording on PinePhone Re: libcamera on pinephone

[Laurent Pinchart]

On Wed, Jul 06, 2022 at 07:54:28PM +0300, Rafael Diniz via libcamera-devel wrote:
> "The PinePhone Pro would produce much better results for the effort."
> What does it mean?
> 
> The Pinephone Pro is a totally different phone than the  PinePhone (1), 
> also is more than twice the price. Both are currently in stock and 
> shipping, not that it matters at all. Not saying you are stealing the 
> thread. But you are.

Both the PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro are valid targets for
libcamera. They will certainly produce different results due to hardware
differences. There is very little to no overlap in the development
effort due to that, so development can happen in parallel without any
issue, with people focussing on the platform of their choice.

> Is it like "- my camera is not working!" "- so buy one 2.5x the price 
> and you'll get one working".
> 
> On 7/6/22 12:08, Joel Winarske via libcamera-devel wrote:
> > I realize this is about the PinePhone, but the PinePhone Pro (RK3399) 
> > has a dual ISP block:
> > http://opensource.rock-chips.com/wiki_Rockchip-isp1 
> > 
> > Cameras:
> > * 13MP Sony IMX258 main camera with Gorilla Glass 4™  protective layer
> > * 8MP OmniVision OV8858 front-facing camera
> > 
> > The PinePhone Pro would produce much better results for the effort.  
> > They are currently in stock and shipping.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 2:16 PM Pavel Machek via libcamera-devel wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi!
> > 
> > > > > qcam looks like a step in right direction, but .. it needs two streams
> > > > > to be able to take photos, and we don't that capability on pinephone.
> > > > >
> > > > > For taking photos, I see two possibilities:
> > > > >
> > > > > a) Do the viewfinder in low resolution, then switch to high
> > > > > resolution, take a photo, and switch back. Unfortunately pipeline
> > > > > reconfiguration is rather slow (> 2 seconds?) on pinephone.
> > > >
> > > > 2 seconds is a lot, there may be a way to reduce that, it should be
> > > > investigated.
> > > 
> > > I was optimistic. It is more like 7 seconds.
> > > 
> > > > > b) Run the chip in high resolution all the time, downscaling for
> > > > > viewfinder. Should result in less shutter lag, but viewfinder will be
> > > > > limited to 15 fps and will need more cpu power.
> > > >
> > > > Could the GPU be used to scale the full resolution down ?
> > > 
> > > Probably. But I find CPUs easier to use.
> > > 
> > > > > Camera seems to be
> > > > > able to do JPEG natively, does it make sense to try to get that to work?
> > > >
> > > > That's an option, but if you want to have a viewfinder at the same time,
> > > > you would then need to decompress the frames. Furthermore, MJPEG for
> > > > videos isn't great, as the compression ratio will be low.
> > > 
> > > PinePhone has rather weak CPUs. 4 of them, but not great. I don't
> > > think I can encode something better than MJPEG in 1280x720. So, JPEG
> > > should be good solution for PinePhone.
> > > 
> > > (But likely dead-end as it will be unavailable on PinePhone Pro /
> > > Librem -- if I understand it correctly).
> > > 
> > > > Any hope of getting the A64 video encoder to work ?
> > > 
> > > A64 video encoder? https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9231 ?
> > > Hmm. Looks interesting but a lot of work.

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart