Replace the camera

tinto · Jan 4, 2005

Hi all,
i just bough an i-mate Jam and it's the first time that i post a new topic here. I'm doing it because i find my new phone (is it a phone?

) wonderfull except for one thing. I guess u all know what i'm talking about: its crappy camera!

I mean, i already own a digital camera and don't really need this one, but why making it 1.3 Mpix if it can't even do a decent photo...
I tried it inside but the light was too low and the picture was too dark, i tried it outside in a perfect sunny day but there was too much light and the picture had some pink areas :? , i even tried to take a photo of a document (maybe that was its pourpose) but couldn't read it cause the picture was blurry...

Now, it's obvious that HTC (or who made it) had used cheap lens and sensor and my question is: can we replace it with a better one?
I ask u this because i know ppl that have done it to other phones; it's a quite simple task if the camera is not soldered on the main board, but i don't wanna loose my warranty to try to do something that maybe can't be done...

So, since i bet that there is already someone that have disassembled his Magician :roll: , i'm here to ask:
- is the camera soldered or just plugged into the main board?
- is it hard to remove the case?

Maybe someone would like to try it or maybe i will if i get enough support :lol:

Show me your interest, cheers

Chop! · Jan 4, 2005

XDA cameras

Yep, it's sad isn't it? Bloody great device with an eye-wateringly bad excuse for a camera (if you think 1.3 mpix is bad, try the XDA II camera!) all before they even sorted out bluetooth, wi-fi, headsets etc. typical O2 headless chicken approach, get used to it. We've been putting up with this crap for years! Happy New Year! Hope this is the year when O2 finally gets 'The Plot' !!!!!! Oops! There goes another flying pig! :wink:

maverick_uk · Jan 4, 2005

The photo quality is actually good in daylight, but very bad in night mode or dim light.

I think a new firmware could improve it greatly.

jacoch · Jan 4, 2005

They can maybe kidnap a developer that worked on Sharp phones :lol:

tadzio · Jan 5, 2005

tinto said:
I tried it inside but the light was too low and the picture was too dark, i tried it outside in a perfect sunny day but there was too much light and the picture had some pink areas

The MDA Compact, as sold by T-Mobile in Germany, comes with an upgraded Camera application (v 2.70, build 17736) in the Extended ROM. I don't know how much difference this makes, but you may want to try. That ExtROM is available somewhere here...

Also, did you try to change the "Mode" setting (not sure if this is the correct name - on my German MDA Compact, it's "Umgebung") in the Camera settings? If you change it to "Night", interior shots will have visible noise, but be at least not underexposed. And changing this setting to "Daylight" will help a lot for outside shots. On mine, the default was Tungsten ("Neon"), which is totally inappropriate for almost all conditions.

Cheers, Daniel

tinto · Jan 5, 2005

jacoch said:
They can maybe kidnap a developer that worked on Sharp phones :lol:

Well, i just took a look at some pictures taken by a Nokia 6630 and belive me those are photos!!! Incredibly high definition and wonderfull colors... Not a picture is blurry and even those taken indoor are beautyful; could be easely compared to those that come from mid-end digital cameras (except for the fact that they are 1.3 mpix only). I would definetly kidnap the guy that implemented the 6630 camera...
I belive anyway that such a result is not only obtained via software but mostly due to a high quality CMOS and lens. If changing those in my Jam allowed me to obtain half the quality of 6630 pictures i would be more than happy.

tadzio said:
Also, did you try to change the "Mode" setting (not sure if this is the correct name - on my German MDA Compact, it's "Umgebung") in the Camera settings? If you change it to "Night", interior shots will have visible noise, but be at least not underexposed. And changing this setting to "Daylight" will help a lot for outside shots. On mine, the default was Tungsten ("Neon"), which is totally inappropriate for almost all conditions.

I tried that thx, but i still consider those pictures of a too low quality for a 1.3 mpix. I'll try to flash my Jam with the extended ROM but i'm a total noob in flashin PDAs and don't have a clue from where to start (i'll learn anyway, don't worry

. Just two questions: what's the difference between extended ROMs and "normal" ROMs? If i flash my Jam with the German extended ROM do i get a German OS?)

tadzio · Jan 5, 2005

I'll try to flash my Jam with the extended ROM but i'm a total noob in flashin PDAs and don't have a clue from where to start

I have not tried to install the German Camera update to an English device, so there's no warranty that it'll work. But to install that Camera update, you don't have to flash anything! Just get the Camera*.cab, copy it to your device via ActiveSync, and execute it there. It will install itself.

Unfortunately, this .cab does not contain uninstall info, so if it doesn't work, you can't simply uninstall it. You'll either have to use special tools, or perform a Hard Reset.

Just two questions: what's the difference between extended ROMs and "normal" ROMs? If i flash my Jam with the German extended ROM do i get a German OS?)

All HTC PocketPCs have (logically, not necessarily physically) three Flash memories: the main ROM that contains the OS and Radio Stack, then the Extended ROM where network providers can put their customized apps, and lastly the user-accessible "Storage".

When you first switch on your device (or do a Hard Reset), the OS looks for AutoRun.exe in the ExtendedROM, and that program installs several .cab files from the ExtendedROM. If you perform a Soft Reset immediately after the short tutorial that executes after each Hard Reset and before the Today Screen appears, the ExtendedROM is not executed and remains visible. You then can decide which .cabs you want to install - just use a file explorer to browse the ExtendedROM. But I disgress...

Most programs in the ExtendedROM just add some branding and network-specific settings, so you should not install German T-Mobile ones on your device. Some others (Intellidialer, Intellipad) are also available in English, so again don't use the German ones. The Camera may be the only one not available in English, but maybe we should first try to find out what the differences really are between the built-in and the ExtendedROM Camera app. Which version is your Camera app?

Cheers, Daniel

tinto · Jan 5, 2005

Thx a lot for your explaination, i think i got it now

Now, my camera app version should be 1.0.0.1 (i had to get it through ActiveSync since u don't have a property menu in the FileExplorer, right?), so i belive it's the very first release (or at least the second if the first was 1.0.0.0). What's yours?
Could u post a picture taken with your camera so i'll do the same and we can compare them? (i suppose u have the German camera update)

Thx again for your help :wink:

tadzio · Jan 5, 2005

tinto said:
Now, my camera app version should be 1.0.0.1 (i had to get it through ActiveSync since u don't have a property menu in the FileExplorer, right?)

That number surprises me, and I don't think it's the correct one. Where exactly did you look? Try the following: start the Camera app, tap the toolbox icon to go to the settings page, then click on the "Extras" menu, then on "Info" (names are from my German app, may be slightly different on your device). What is the version number displayed on that page?

Could u post a picture taken with your camera so i'll do the same and we can compare them? (i suppose u have the German camera update)

Attached are two pictures (packed into one ZIP file) - one taken with my MDA Compact, the other one with my Ricoh Caplio R1. It was a rainy and dark day, so both are somewhat dull. It's true that despite the darkness, the MDA picture is still a bit overexposed. It was taken with the mode set to "daylight". And of course the difference between 1.3 and 4 MPixel and the difference in the quality of the lenses is very evident. But I think the quality is in line with what can be reasonably expected.

Oh, btw, I did not compare myself, but I heard people say that if you set the resolution to less than the maximum of 1280*960, the picture quality increases. This could be due to some post-processing of the image. I always use 640*480 when taking photos with the MDA Compact.

So, how does the quality of your pictures compare to mine?

Cheers, Daniel

tinto · Jan 5, 2005

tadzio said:
That number surprises me, and I don't think it's the correct one. Where exactly did you look? Try the following: start the Camera app, tap the toolbox icon to go to the settings page, then click on the "Extras" menu, then on "Info" (names are from my German app, may be slightly different on your device). What is the version number displayed on that page?

idd was the wrong one

anyway i upgraded today to the italian ROM and the camera app version is 2.70 build 17975. Let me know if it is the same

tadzio said:
So, how does the quality of your pictures compare to mine?
Cheers, Daniel

I gotta say it's almost the same. Anyway i didn't know that with lower resolutions the quality of pictures increases. All the picture i took before where in 1280*960.

Now i'll show u something i discovered:
i attached 2 pictures taken today before the ROM upgrade; i know they are ugly but was the first thing i had in my view

. The picture number 1 is a street where i live during a rather sunny afternoon. Notice that everything bright is shown with a pink tone (and in every other picture taken by MDA compact that i've seen it's the same). Now look picture number 2; that's the same picture with levels, contrast and colors automaticly set by Photoshop. IMO picture quality is much higher...

So my point is: after all the MDA camera is not that bad, what really sux is the sofware that reprocesses the pictures, as maverick stated above...

tadzio · Jan 5, 2005

tinto said:
anyway i upgraded today to the italian ROM and the camera app version is 2.70 build 17975. Let me know if it is the same

You now have a newer one, see my first post in this thread.

Notice that everything bright is shown with a pink tone (and in every other picture taken by MDA compact that i've seen it's the same).

Oh, that! Then I think I have good news for you: the Camera app has settings to correct such problems. In the Settings Page, tap on "Extra", then on the first menu entry (in German it's "Ansicht einstellen") - not the "Options" menu entry! There you can set contrast, brightness, hue, gamma, crispness etc.

Although these settings are under "Ansicht" ("View"), they do affect the pictures you take! (I have to admit I only just discovered this. Otherwise I would have let you know a lot earlier, of course...)

Hope that helped!
Daniel

zairyaab · Jan 5, 2005

tinto said:
tadzio said:

contrast and colors automaticly set by Photoshop. IMO picture quality is much higher...

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

what do u mean by automatically set by photoshop ??? how,d u do that :$ ??? plz explain.....thanks

tinto · Jan 6, 2005

zairyaab said:
what do u mean by automatically set by photoshop ??? how,d u do that :$ ??? plz explain.....thanks

my version of photoshop is in italian so i dunno the right name of the menu but i'll try to explain...
Go to menu Image (3rd menu from the left), then Regulations (the second string from the top) and then click on Automatic Levels, Automatic Contrast and Automatic Color. Anyway u can do a better job manually if u know what to do. My example was just there to show that the pictures of our lovely Compact could be slightly improved with a simple piece of software.

tadzio said:
Oh, that! Then I think I have good news for you: the Camera app has settings to correct such problems. In the Settings Page, tap on "Extra", then on the first menu entry (in German it's "Ansicht einstellen") - not the "Options" menu entry! There you can set contrast, brightness, hue, gamma, crispness etc.

i've seen those too when u told me where i could find the camera app version. I've tried to change some but i don't really see a big improvement; anyway i'll try again tomorrow with the daylight. I'll let u know the results (and let me know yours :wink: )

ramram · Jan 6, 2005

I guess there should be some1 developing 3rd party camera software don't you think?

tinto · Jan 6, 2005

ramram said:
I guess there should be some1 developing 3rd party camera software don't you think?

I hope so. I'll try to take a look

For what concerns the camera settings, i've made some tries today in a perfect sunny afternoon and i found that i could improve a little the overall photo quality. Anyway the generalized pink tone is still present and can't be removed (u can turn it in a cyan tone but still not white; i belive u should be able to use decimals in the settings to remove it, cause with a hue of 5 the picture has pink while with a hue of 4 it has cyan tones).
My settings for a perfect sunny day are:
Contrast 6
Brightness 5
Gamma 5
Hue 5
Higher crispness gives u better details under the daylight, lower gives better quality in low light conditions.

Cheers

zairyaab · Jan 7, 2005

XDA II CAM SOFTWARE ALLLLL CRAPPP !!

i haf noticed one thing....n i think alll the xda II or guys usin himalaya device shud try this toooooo.....wat ive noticed is....i taken out a pic from ma xda II on default settings wid out changin gamma or contrast or sharpness.....wid pic resolution of 480 (thts the max it has FOOOOOK) ne wayz...i sent the pic to ma frnd via bluetooth on his nokia 6600 n the other frnd on some new siemens set....n guesss wat.....the freaky pic was loookin as if i toook it out from a DIGI CAM......not just on the damn cellll but wen they downloaded from the celll to their pc's too then also the damn pic had a totallllly diffff color n resolution then wat ma xda II was givin me.....so i am sure there has to be something wid the software tht generates the pic n reproduces it on the lcd....caz after takin a pic out from xda II n sendin it to frnds cell n burnin it out on the comp it was just awesome wat does tht MEAN ????? SOFTWARE PROB FOR SURE..... wat do u guys say ????

zairyaab · Jan 8, 2005

anyone tried the thing i mentioned above ??

zairyaab · Jan 9, 2005

I have noticed one thing, I think all the XDA II or people using Himalaya device should try this too, what I've noticed is, I took out a picture from my XDA II on default settings without changing GAMMA, CONTRAST or SHARPNESS.... with picture resolution of 480x640 (that’s the max XDA II has) any ways after taking out the picture I sent the picture to one of my friends via Bluetooth on his NOKIA 6600 and the other friend on some new SIEMENS Cell and guess what ??? the picture was looking totally different as if someone took it out from a DIGI CAM not just on the cell but also when they downloaded it on their computers the resolution and colors (graphics) was totally different then what my XDA II was giving out.

So I am sure there’s something to do with the software that generates the picture while sending it out on the Desktop Pc or LCD of the Handheld’s we are using.

What do you people have to say about this ?

Hope the grammar is OK for you guys to understand now

cekicik · Jan 30, 2005

CAmera Version

Hello, I am a newbie in this area. I recently bought an I-Mate Jam and was immediately dissatisfied with the performance of its camera. I read that the German ROM cab file works better. Could you please tell me where I can find this cab file?

THanks

skagen · Jan 31, 2005

I have the JAM, bought it 2 weeks ago. The camera version is 2.70, build 18177. I would say the pic quality is mediocre for 1.3MP camera. Sometimes I get white spots in the pic too.

Maybe as someone above said, the processing is doing something odd. However I personally suspect that its a cheap camera and cheap lens.

Also, I wouldn't be suprised if its NOT really a 1.3MP camera. Maybe they have that "1.3MP by software enhancement" crap and that's its really a VGA camera. That would be my guess.

Anyway, lets face it, we didn't buy this device for the camera. If the Jam had no camera, I would have paid the same price for it as a PDA/Phone of this size. THAT's why I bought it, not for the toy camera.

I see the Nokia 1.3MP camera and it IS better, but you know these things are still basically toys. When I want a picture I use my Panasonic DMC-FX7, which is about the same size as the JAM and has 5MP and a kick ass picture.

When they make a phone camera that is at least 4MP and has an 3x optical zoom lens, give me call. Becuase that is the point when there is any value in the camera that would make me leave my real cameras at home. Until then I dont think I really care about these toy-class 1.3 MP cameras. Its not worth the trouble to even worry about it. That would be me stressing over the video quality of my digital camera - its a gimmick.

Replace the camera

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