Could PureView technology from Nokia support 4K video capture?

 One of the more memorable facts from the Nokia 808 PureView launch was the insane amount of pixels the 808 has to manage whilst capturing video. Unlike other smartphones that use a video frame that is always cropped to just the very centre of the image sensor; thereby handling only 2 million pixels per frame, the 808 uses all the data coming from the sensor, a staggering 41 million pixels per frame! Multiply that figure by 30 frames per second and you end up with well over 1 billion pixels per second.

Currently, the 808 oversamples the majority of those pixels in order to give a PureView 1080p, 720p or 540p video. The resulting video capture is stunning, the best from any smartphone yet devised, but imagine if Nokia allowed the user to capture a non (or less) oversampled video...

4K video capture

In essence, the Nokia 808 should be capable of capturing a 4K video, that’s 4096 x 1714 pixels at a 2.39:1 ratio. This is the kind of resolution that only high-end video cameras are capable of capturing, I’m talking about the Red One, Epic and Scarlet-X, etc, Serious kit.

At this point you are probably thinking, what’s the point of capturing all those pixels if you need a cinema projector to see them? To answer that question, I’d like to you to imagine that this is 2002 and I’m talking about a smartphone that might be capable of capturing 1080p video instead of 640 x 480. You would most likely be saying the very same thing to me, why bother to capture those extra pixels when nobody owns a display to show them on? My answer now is the same as it would have been then, it’s all about future proofing.

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain...”

‘All those moments’ captured with your device will perhaps be the only visual record of those events, you won’t get the chance to film them again. Those moments may look good to you on your current display, but what will they look like on the displays of 2022 and beyond?

The point I’m making, in a roundabout way, is that if Nokia’s PureView technology is capable of 4K video* it would be a wonderful gesture to the creative community (and an astonishing marketing hook) if they allowed us to make the decision between capturing 4K and 1080p video for ourselves. They have already set the precedent for this by giving users the choice between 38, 8, 5 and 3MP photos. If possible, why not do the same for video capture?

Did you know that YouTube already supports full frame 4K video? 4K displays will be the norm soon enough.

*There are quite a number of issues that may prevent 4K video capture at 30FPS on the Nokia 808 PureView, but after speaking to a member of the Nokia imaging team, it certainly seems like it might be possible. Perhaps a small compromise in frame rate and/or bit rate would suffice.

Via web.me.com