Kodak SP360 Action Cam | Hacker News Reader

Kodak SP360 Action Cam

kodakpixpro.com

41 pointsmakmanalp24 comments

I recently purchased Kodak's SPZ1 camera as a waterproof and shockproof alternative to iPhone. I made few test videos and my conclusion is that the camera is mostly unusable due to the poor video quality that is a result of some poor choices in firmware settings (that cannot be adjusted by the user). The overall video quality (sharpness, colours, etc) is noticeably worse than iPhone's. I recorded the video in the same conditions using iPhone 4S and SPZ1 and noticed that the output video file is compressed by SPZ1 with really low bitrate. SPZ1 records a file at 10mbps, while iPhone does 21mbps in the same conditions, with the same resolution and framerate. 10mbps is way too low for the HD video.

The Fujitsu DSP chip that SPZ1 uses is normally capable of a wide range of output bitrates, including the higher ones. The bitrate could have been increased (and video quality improved) by simply releasing a new version of firmware, that utilizes the chip to its fuller capacity. On a positive side, SPZ1 is using H.264 High profile for the output video, whereas iPhone 4S uses just H.264 Baseline. My guess is that it's just the default setting in the Fujitsu chip and not a result of someone's good will.

Another note is about audio. SPZ has a great stereo microphone, but the audio stream is bundled uncompressed into a video stream, which means that of the 10mbps I mention above, 1.5mbps (15% of the total bitrate) is given to audio and only 8.5mbps to video. This is such a waste -- the same Fujitsu chip can easily compress audio as well. For comparison, iPhone 4S compresses the mono stream into AAC with 0.06mbps (0.3% of the total bitrate). This also could clearly have been made using another firmware settings, but it seems like Kodak does not care.

As a conclusion, I'm pretty sceptical about anything Kodak releases lately. They may understand hardware, but like Sony, their software choices are questionable.

> They may understand hardware, but like Sony, their software choices are questionable.

Could you elaborate? I know some Sony phone is not well-made (late release, bug somewhere, laggy etc). But i don't knos about their other consumer device.

The expectation conceptually is so much greater than the results of this thing that I can't help but think that EVERYONE will be dissapointed...

Just look at their example "extreme" videos... the 360 video is disorienting and useless.

Is it just me? I clicked on the videos ready to be blown away... and I just wasn't.

Motorcycle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjybKOtJ9DE

Skydiving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dItRHmvbSjI

I kind of wonder what would happen if you coupled this camera with some software that let you virtually direct the shot in post-editing. The software would demangle the distortion, maybe smooth out the motion, and perform the pan/crop/etc.

I know that's not the goal here, they just wanted to one-up the GoPro. I agree that the distortion verges on nauseating.

Yes, 360 video is IMHO dumb. But the ability to select a "normal" shot after the fact - or in real time without a gimbal - would be really awesome. Great for capturing drone video for example.

Killer idea. Imagine one of those auto-follow drones mated with this camera...

Is there a better way to show 360-degree video that you know of, or you just don't like the whole idea?

They demo'd a few... non were more impressive than the front view.

I agree some additional processing may make this a really cool tool... but for demo videos these accurately depict a really cool idea that in reality doesn't make a whole lotta sense.

Would this be useful for viewing pictures in the oculus?

Could it be combined with some kind of depth sensor like the kinect then you could actually move around in your pictures.

Dome view with oculus would be pretty rad I suppose. The thing with moving around though is that overlapping objects usually shift relative to one another when you change your point of view.

I don't see how this would work with an oculus. This gives a 360 view looking outward, but walking around something needs 360 looking inward. That said, an oculus could be a great "monitor" to sit and look around while this video is playing "around" you! You just can't move :)

Interesting device!

Weird/unexpected/innovative form factor for an action camera, a segment that is otherwise pretty much associated with the GoPro. The 360º thing is cool, although I guess it's less suitable to be mounted on a person and do point-of-view movies? Not sure, it does look pretty small so perhaps it's doable.

The specs sheet PDF (http://kodakpixpro.com/docs/specsheets/actioncam/sp360/sp360...) was very hard to load, but it does have the dimensions. It's 41.1 x 50.0 x 38.0 mm i.e. fairly tiny.

I wonder if nobody at Kodak runs Firefox in Windows; for me the main copy on the first image is black-on-black, i.e. unreadable unless I drag to select it. "Oops", I guess.

If the optics and resolution is right, might this be Good Enough for crowdsourced StreetView?

The tricky part of streetview is that it also has accurate localization (damn good GPSes, probably with realtime kinematics) and also accelerometers / compasses and stuff to make sure that when, say, you hit a bump in the road or your camera is angled somehow, the image is fixed to account for that. Maybe you could fix that with enough images and some intelligent matching based on overlaps, but I can forsee it being quite tricky.

The Ricoh Theta is nice for streetview. It uses the GPS built into the smartphone controlling it.

Since the last update, it also supports taking pictures at regular intervals.

While 16Mp seems to be a reasonable resolution for traditional images, basic pano resolution is usually (for instance, on 360cities.net) 6000x3000 for equirectangular images, that is 18Mp. Of course if you wish to allow zooming in even a little bit, that number is much, much larger.

A modern DSLR with a pano head and a super wideangle/fisheye lens typically enables shooting somewhere in the range of (depending on actual lens setup) 60-300Mp panos with little effort - but of course we're talking about an altogether different gear.

BTW, what's the purpose for a crowdsourced StreetView, when we have sites like 360cities.net?

It makes me think of https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/giroptic/the-worlds-fir...

Nice - I once had a playsport from Kodak (no longer produced I believe) and really enjoyed it. If this is of the same quality it's certainly worth trying...

I also noticed that there is a new model of the Ricoh Theta camera available since yesterday and it finally also does 360° video.

I wonder if it is able to be used for astrophotography. If so, you can take my money.

My first thought also - might make a great all-sky camera.

Anyone know if this was produced internally or outsourced?

Outsourced. Kodak ditched its internal electronics development years ago. It is now just a brand slapped on whitebox designs from Chinese developers like Westinghouse or RCA or a host of other recycled domestic brands.

-- Former Kodak employee

Waiting for the $50 chinese clones...

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