I was having a look through the specs of the Samsung Omnia HD, the other day, and yes, before anyone asks, the bit about true 720p HD video recording did jump out at me. But it got me thinking as to why they’ve put HD video recording in there.
To understand that question, it helps to know a bit about HD TV and video. Y’see there are a couple of different high-def standards, the main ones of interest here being 720p and 1080p (a measure of their pixel resolution). 1080p is obviously the higher resolution display, and it’s 1080p that you see on HDTVs, not 720p. (Oh, and if you want to know why HD video is so much better than standard, I’ve done you a piccie comparison, to show you.)
That’s what got me thinking. Why has the Samsung Omnia HD gone for 720p? Well, there is something that regularly uses 720p resolution for its video, but it’s not a telly.
It is, in fact, Youtube. Intriguingly, Youtube’s high-definition videos run at 720p (as well as, to be fair, most HD videos on the internet). And that leads me to wonder whether the main purpose of the Samsung Omnia HD is to actually record HD video to be displayed on Youtube. Is it, when you get right down to it, a ‘Youtube phone’, designed to let people easily get HD videos onto their favourite video site? The evidence is compelling, especially since it’s got HSUPA as well as HSDPA (so that uploading vids would be ultra-quick, too).
Or, is the cynical, more prosaic answer true, that they simply haven’t been able to get a proper 1080p camera working in a phone yet?
We’ll get our answer when it’s released, but my money’s on Youtube phone. And if it comes with a dedicated Youtube app, that allows one click uploading, that’ll pretty much prove me right…
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