Sound recording gets a knock – AMR audio codec confirmed
Posted by soHD in Imaging, tags: AMR
There has been much debate as to what audio codec the Omnia HD will use when shooting video footage. In a move that is likely to disappoint some users, Samsung has officially confirmed that the Omnia HD will use the low-quality AMR Narrow Band codec at 8000Hz 16 bit 2 channel 12.8 Kbps bit rate.
It seems that the main reason behind the move is to not stress the ARM CPU too heavily when recording HD video. Given the amount of data to process, it was felt that AMR offers the best quality solution when taking both points into consideration. The AMR codec is also optimised for speech coding, which Samsung claims is a better choice for the human voice.
I wonder whether Samsung may include higher sound quality support in a later firmware update, although judging by the official response, it seems that they have already considered the options, with AMR offering the best trade-off for video performance. Additionally, this is the same codec used in the Samsung i8510 INNOV8 and there’s been no firmware update offering a codec better than AMR so far.
This is disappointing news. What we will now have is HD video married with sub-standard sound quality. I’m reserving judgement until I get my hands on one, but given that audio recording was one of the few negative points seen with the Samsung i8510, I’m surprised that Samsung has taken this route again with the i8910 Omnia HD.
Thanks bec!
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que desilusion.. q mierda¡¡
Hmm, that’s pretty unfortunate.
But if that video of the ‘disappearing Omnia’ was actually recorded using just the phone, the audio quality on that is acceptable for me.
It’s not like I’m planning to record any riveting dramas or anything, should be fine for what I’ll use it for so I’ll accept this in lieu of all the other features the phone packs.
Looking forward to your own impressions when you get the phone though, some samples would be great.
Not to tell you how to do your job but playing music in the background would be a good indicator of how the sound quality is for me, as most videos I make will be in the pub/ @ concerts and gigs etc.
Phil x
Not a big deal at all. If you really wanted to make a fancy home movie, you wouldn’t record audio from the same device you record video from anyway. Record it with a good microphone and combine it with the video later. For Youtube HD clips, and the like, you probably will not need any bigger boost in the audio department.
“It seems that the main reason behind the move is to not stress the ARM CPU too heavily when recording HD video.”
its not the reason, because even D1 and VGA videos has that kind of Audio.. every samsung phone has it.
The audio quality of “dissapearing Omnia” is NOT AMR QUALITY!
It’s a marketing trick.
Here’s a sample of how bad AMR encoding is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQrDwL7JJQM
Please join the active discussion on the Samsung forum.
Help us make a difference! All samsung symbians record in crappy AMR 12kb/s while devices with identical specs from nokia record AAC/MP3/MP4 @ 128 kb/s.
The omnia HD can record much better! Make yourselves heard and don’t let it let you down!
they should make some kind of boom mic that you can attach with a cord or something. with the hd vid it would be a beast
For me AMR means a no-go for this phone. Real sad…. waited for so long thought it would be the perfect successor of my N82… but AMR why???? Thats horrible :@
If the cpu is the problem put one of these in ^^
http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/Renesas-Helps-Phones-Perform-Full-HD-Video-Playback-And-Recording-2725-01.html
Have they not considered uncompressed audio? It wouldn’t be a burden on the processor at all if Samsung did that.
Wow. That audio example was terrible.
This is certainly a serious consideration. Sigh. I figured this phone would have knocked the Nokia N97 out of the ring, and more and more little niggles keep popping up, e.g. LED flash, recording, sound quality, no HDMI, NO MULTITOUCH, plastic case, etc.
Man, I hope I don’t end up having to wait for the Sony Idou. My N93 is starting to show its age.
Senseless !!! High-end video with low-end audio.
How very disappointing and a dealbeaker to me. I hope the guys at Samsung get their act together and up the audio recording quality for this very hefty phone before release.
could some third party firmware adjust the audio recording?