Weird question, what technical reason exists for lumia 1020 to not record at 4k?

[Chintan Gohel]

I've been wondering about this, 20MP cameras such as 930 or 950 can record at 4k resolution but the lumia 1020 cannot even though it has a 41MP sensor.

What's the technical reason behind this?

 

[dKp1977]

Just randomly guessing, but couldn't it be the Snapdragon S4 simply lacks the processing power required to record video in such high resolutions?

 

[Harrie-S]

Or in other words the camera sensor is not the bottleneck but the processor/software used in your phone.

" 4K is a resolution and refers to a display device or content with a horizontal resolution of around 4000 pixels, though the standard accepted 4K resolution as defined by Digital Cinema Initiatives is 4096 x 2160.

In practice though that’s mostly the resolution used in cinemas and a number of things get labelled as 4K, including devices and content which don’t quite have 4000 pixels across either axis. On smartphones and most other consumer devices the standard 4K resolution is 3840 x 2160."

The 930/1520 records 4 K in 3840 x 2160 pixels and this is about 8.3 MP per frame ("picture") and can record max 30 fps (frames per second or pictures per second).
So you even do not "need" a 20 MP camera sensor.
But to "translate" the data from every pixel of a frame into a "picture" and store it (30 times a second) you need a "powerful" processor and "dedicated" software.
Now the 930/1530 have the processor and the software but the 1020 not. There where already long threads of why the 1020 could not do it because the Snapdragon 4 "should" be able to do it but for sure the 1020 does not have the dedicated software to do this.

 

[Mr Kaja]

Processor (MSM8960) doesn't support more than full HD recording.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Thanks for the answers

 

[nedarata]

When they released 1020 it already had obsolete cpu/chipset
Just simple test - how much 5mp images you can take in 10s with 1020/iphone 4/galaxy s3? and remember that iphone 4 has 512mb ram and 1 core...

 

[Mr Kaja]

I don't think you really understand it. You can't compare i4/s3 like this. In lumia 1020 case, it has still work with etc. 40mpx picture even so, it is saved only in 5mpx...so still - you need much more processing power or time (as well as more RAM, that why l1020 has 2GB). When was l1020 new, chipset wasn't obsolet. Problem is elsewhere. Nokia 808 has slower chipset, but faster processing times even so, resolution was quite same. In a simple way - there was a special HW, helping with processing, so there was no need for powerfull chipset. This was missing in case of lumia 1020 (drivers, price, chipset compatibility? Who knows....).

 

[nedarata]

if you use stock camera app not lumia one it just takes 5mp
without any 40mp proceesing, there is huge startup speed difference between both camera apps