I have searched and I know this question has been asked before and no one has given a definitive answer, perhaps due to limited interest but I believe an app or module that could do this via software means would be invaluable to many people.
I want to be able to hold the phone in portrait mode, or perhaps just set it in my breast pocket with the lens poking out and have it record 1080p HD video and have that video recorded and play in landscape format as if the phone were oriented in landscape mode.
In theory this should be possible, as the 8MP sensor on the S4 Active has a pixel range of 3264x2448. Rotating that 45 degrees to 2448x3264 still gives us plenty of space for a full HD 1980x1080, automatically cropping out the extraneous top and bottom portions the sensor is capable of capturing.
Or is the sensor being utilized in a different manner during video capture? A slightly lower resolution would be alright.. like 720p
I would pay for this ability. Think about it!
Hi All I realise the security risk of this, but I want to use the Mi camera app in the background so I can use the UW lens as a dashboard cam. In the foreground will be my satnav program and also in the background will be VLC playing my favourite music.
The problem I have is that the Mi Camera app won't run in the background. If I start it and switch away, when I switch back, it's stopped recording. There are plenty of 3rd party dashcam apps, but camera2 API only reports 2 cameras and typically 3rd party apps haven't caught on to the multiple camera configs of phones these days.
I did find a setting in Settings/Privacy/Protection/Network Interception/Restrict Using camera in the background which I thought might be a clue, but the setting doesn't work and has blue text "Protected" next to it. Am I asking for the impossible? All workarounds gratefully received.... Cheers Steve
ps I'm running Chinese MIUI 12.5.4 Stable
If you can figure out some way to do this, the phone is going to get hot and you will probably need to keep it plugged in... This phone eats battery life using the cameras
Hi @speedtripler thanks for your reply. After much googling and playing with privacy protection settings, I found an app, cunningly called Background Video Recorder here:
Background Video Recorder Pro - Apps on Google Play
motion detection / recording videos / baby monitor / burst image capturing
play.google.com
After a quick play, it seems to work, so I'll go for the 'full monty' later and try it out with Navmii navigating and VLC playing my music. I do use a power supply in the car and I'll take a bucket of water too, in case it catches fire!
My attempts with Mi camera and GCAM 8.1 failed, as both pause video recording as soon as they go into the background.
What I really wanted was the UW lens, as this will cover the most ground, but I may have to stick with plain old Wide as not many apps support multiple lenses.
I'll update later after putting the fire out
Cheers Steve
Ok so I did a quick test last night and ran my satnav (Navmii) in the foreground, VLC playing music in the background and Background Video Recorder in the background and it all worked just dandy.
The only slight issue is the file size was large, 700MB after 15 mins. Now I have 500GB of storage, but that's a little high. There doesn't seem to be an option to set the save location, otherwise I could save it to an SD card so I've emailed the developer with the suggestion and see what he says. Also I've asked if he can support multiple lenses, as UW would be just great.
It does offer various framerates, though and 5fps is probably OK for a dashcam so I'll give that a try and report back.
After a 15 minute drive I didn't notice any overheating problems, but I have 4 hour drive on Wednesday so see how that goes.
Cheers Steve
The nice man at Arbel Solutions replied very quickly and pointed out it is possible to save to other locations in Settings. This was greyed out so I didn't see it, but you have to pay for the software to enable it as it's a premium feature which is fair enough.
On switching lenses, this is also supported, but it just offers Main and Selfie, which ties up with the Camera2 API checkers. I guess I need to root my phone and enable Camera2 API.
That's all for now....
Steve
Just a quick update on this. I ran Background Video Recorder on my trip to see my daughetr and grandkids. It's a 200 mile trek and all worked fine. I used Navmii, VLC and BVR all at once and didn't notice any over heating problems.
However, on the way back, I did the same but this time with BVR recording 8K video. Gosh, that quality is good . Now I want to buy a 4K TV!
After a couple of hours, the phone overheated, popped up a message saying just that, so I switched it off and let it cool down. The phone is working fine again now it's cool phew! I guess @speedtripler was right lol.
The 2 issues with heat are
1) The sun was shining on the phone
2) I'm using a hard plastic backing cover on the phone to mount it on the holder
2) must frustrate heat dissipation quite a bit.
So next up is to buy some gauze on eBay, cut an opening in the backing cover and fit the gauze. If that doesn't work, I'll probably have to make a piped cooling system with a fan.
Oh well, back to reality!
Cheers
Steve
Oh, I forgot there's another workaround for this. If the camera doesn't work in the background, you can run it in the foreground with other apps.
Sound simple? Well it's a bit fiddly, but Android 11 offers split screen, so you can have two apps running in the foreground. The only gotcha is that both apps need to support split screen.
Surprisingly, the stock camera doesn't so that's out. Neither does GCAM 8.1. Good 'ole OpenCamera does and it works well.
I'm still getting the hang of split screen but here's a basic guide:
1) start both apps
2) Go to Task Manager (hamburger icon)
3) long press on the first app and choose split screen ( like 2 oblong boxes, 1 on top of the other)
4) In Task Manager, click on the other app
Now the 1st app will appear in the top of the screen and the second at the bottom.
For my example, I now have OpenCamera recording video and Navmii giving me directions.
Brill!
Below is a screenshot. See the small white horizontal bar in the middle of the pic? You use this to change the size of the window. What's not to like? (sorry about getting my big finger in front of the lens)
The grids arrived yesterday to ventilate my hard plastic case so I set about cutting holes in it to fit them. The case is very hard and difficult to scratch, but was no match for my Dremel.
Hopefully this will promote air flow and cooling when the phone is crying while it's pushed hard.
The grids were stuck on with Gasket Goo which is good up to 230° C at which point I think the phone would be spitting flames!
This needs testing on a long journey on a hot day. If it still overheats, I'll clip on a mini 5V fan which I'm sure will sort it.
A phone with a cooling fan? Lol
Cheers
Steve
Hi all. I am looking to draw over videos on my Tab S7 while giving feedback on exercise videos and recording the screen with loom or similar. I have been able to do it with the draw on screen app and the built in screen recorder but I cannot use the touch screen to pause/play the video at the same time.
I want to be able to draw over the screen/video using the S-pen while still being able to scroll and touch as normal with my finger. (just as you would in Samsung notes)
Surely this is possible or am I missing something as cannot seem to find a way.
Even better would be a way to use the tab S7 to draw over my windows PC screen as the videos are mainly on there.
I hope someone can shed some light on this. Thanks.
Hopefully there's a simple answer to this, and hopefully this is a place to find it!
I'd like to be able to switch between the front, back, and a USB-C connected camera for input to streaming apps (notably Facebook Live, and Zoom conferencing, but would like a more general solution). Ideally, video mixing (e.g., picture-in-picture), would be nice.. The primary application is to stream live interviews, site walkarounds, etc., from a gopro or the camera in a pair of AR goggles. E.g., live stream the view from the head-mounted camera, with an inset view of me, from the phone's front camera.
Right now:
- I can almost do it all from a Microsoft Surface - the basic camera app allows selection from front, back, external USB camera. Control of camera selection is through the system settings dialog.
- On a Samsung Galaxy Note 20, I can't seem to find the equivalent of a system-level setting. The basic camera app allows for picture-in-picture still & video from the front/back cameras - but doesn't seem to have a way to select an external camera. Facebook live allows switching front/back, doesn't seem to do picture-in-picture.
Documentation for all this stuff seems hard to find. I've been pouring through the various android developer sites, and device related sites - lots of stuff on low level code interfaces, nothing on what's actually coming across the cables, and mostly out-of-date youtube videos on how to do very specific things with very specific external video switches, and various downloadable apps that don't seem to work very well.
Which leads to the following questions:
- Are there any deeply buried settings - in Android, Samsung Developer Tools, or Facebook, Zoom, Teams - that let one select a usb camera? (Bonus for allowing picture-in-picture.)
- Any recommendations for an Android video switch/mix application that inserts itself between the system video interface, and standard apps?
Hopefully, amongst all the noise, there's a simple solution.
Thanks very much for any assistance anybody can offer.
What is a better way to cast/mirror the Android phone screen to a wear os watch?
Use Case : I want to use my watch as a view finder for taking pictures with my phone's rear camera. And since I am using a Vivo (non-samsung phone) with galaxy watch 5 the camera controller app doesn't work.
I have tried app called Camera One but the quality is sub-par mostly because it doesn't do any post processing magic like the stock camera.
Also, I tried an app called Screen stream which can mirror phone screen over HTTP and can be accessed via browser on watch. The issue with this method is, the output is very laggy (might be due to crappy browser and/or insufficient cpu power) and requires WiFi.
Please let me know of any other ways for my use case.