4K UltraHD video is expected to come to Android this year

posted by Alan F. / Mar 17, 2013, 10:32 PM

4K UltraHD video is expected to come to Android this year

Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 800 can do 4K HD Video

Just the other day, we told you about a phone allegedly being prepped by LG as one of several devices that Google is looking at to be the next Nexus smartphone. The specs that accompanied the rumor were pretty outrageous and included 4K UltraHD video capture on the 16MP camera. Many took a look at that and immediately stamped the whole thing as being bogus. But the truth is, 4K UltraHD video will apparently be on certain Android devices before the end of the year.

At CES and MWC, Qualcomm showed off the 4K UltraHD recording capabilities of its Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip and has previously stated that it would be "in commercial devices" by the middle of 2013. For those unaware, 4K UltraHD video offers resolution four times the 1080p that is considered a Full HD display. That works out to 4096 x 2304.

So you might as well pick another one of the alleged specs belonging to the LG Megalotron to call the whole thing a fake, because we could very well see 4K UltraHD video sometime later this year.

source: Qualcomm

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55 Comments

1. Cha7520

Posts: 222; Member since: Oct 31, 2010

WOW!!!

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 10:40 PM 15

13. SuperNexus

Posts: 127; Member since: Jan 18, 2013

Just WOW! I'll say SUPER,AWESOME,GREAT,BEST............I am little short of word here.

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 11:12 PM 8

24. omar300

Posts: 210; Member since: Jun 24, 2012

who the f**k would want that detailed video? what are you shooting? batman? even a 128gb card would fall short for such high size video. i rather take 1080p at 60fps.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 12:54 AM 16

26. Nathan_ingx

Posts: 4767; Member since: Mar 07, 2012

Well, it would be pointless if the "Megalotron" came with just 16GB of internal memory. I'm guessing 128GB minimum. I guess Blu-ray discs would seem like a 1-2 GB flash-drive soon.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 1:23 AM 5

28. anywherehome

Posts: 971; Member since: Dec 13, 2011

this is about commercial, not about productivity with 4K there will for sure be 1080p 60fps, so when there is 4K 60 fps there will be also 8K 30fps :) because Android is the only OS that causes HW innovations.....Microsoft + Apple = dont need HW innovations, they dont innovate

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 1:53 AM 7

37. shikroi

Posts: 187; Member since: Sep 24, 2012

The 808's camera already fits the bill for taking for videos its just that the processing power wasn't there at the time. I remember there being a couple articles about that. There is nothing stopping an eos device from featuring this tech, when windows blue/ wp9 comes out. And there is nothing that doesn't say that one of these devices couldn't be a p1 pureview running wp.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 7:09 AM 0

38. anywherehome

Posts: 971; Member since: Dec 13, 2011

Nokia does not care about the best HW (they have never had)....they just put something inside........just to cooperate with Microsoft with "something"....not any another meaning

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 7:11 AM 0

42. Nathan_ingx

Posts: 4767; Member since: Mar 07, 2012

Yeah, Nokia put "something" for Microsoft's "something" and now we're seeing the biggest change in the camera field of the mobile world.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 8:20 AM 1

44. cyko969

Posts: 49; Member since: Mar 23, 2010

exactly what I was thinking!

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 9:04 AM 0

50. anywherehome

Posts: 971; Member since: Dec 13, 2011

In case of a camera is the only thing for you ;-)

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 2:30 PM 0

40. SuperNexus

Posts: 127; Member since: Jan 18, 2013

if you are happy with 1080p video that doesn't mean world will also be happy with 1080p. Its innovation, learn to praise it. In future this 4K video would be normal like 720p or 1080p.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 7:32 AM 0

49. kidkudjoe

Posts: 3; Member since: Aug 14, 2012

say it again bro...its just silly.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 1:59 PM 0

41. xperiaDROID

Posts: 5629; Member since: Mar 08, 2013

WOW is not enough, make that TRIPLE WOW!!!!

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 7:32 AM 0

2. clevername

Posts: 1436; Member since: Jul 11, 2008

But what's the point. 4k tvs certainly aren't widely available and monitors certainly don't have it either. You'd be using a ton of space and processing power to record it, and not be able to watch it in 4k beauty. In a few years when the technology is cheaper and widely available this will be much more popular.

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 10:46 PM 5

5. ama3654

Posts: 295; Member since: Nov 27, 2012

At Android central if you got the tech, flaunt it, 4K tv is available and will be popular this year, just imagine the beauty of those breathtaking videos

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 10:52 PM 1

12. Hemlocke unregistered

For the same reason Android phones were sporting first-gen, battery thrashing LTE radios when the chips were bad and there were only a few markets that had it worldwide: To say "first." This will be the same way. There's no good reason other than that. I would rather see the technology for these various leaps improve a bit to the point that they are usable and make sense, rather than just tossing them in because the OEMs can. That's vanity engineering, not good engineering.

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 11:09 PM 2

15. Droid_X_Doug

Posts: 5993; Member since: Dec 22, 2010

Besides, the carriers will absolutely LOVE 4K video - think of how fast an upload will kill your data allowance....

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 11:15 PM 2

32. sleepyjohnny

Posts: 151; Member since: Dec 16, 2009

in your regards to LTE, it wasn't to "say 'first'". It just happened that they were first. Someone had to be first, someone had to be second. The whole first generation of LTE phones weren't nearly on par as what they are now, but because of that first generation, we now have the current generations thanks to the experiences learned. To be the first ones to release a product gives a higher percentage of being the ones to perfect the product. Do not be so against change and innovation. People want the newest thing out there, and it's up to them whether they'd like to wait for the "perfected" product or not.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 2:47 AM 0

45. VZWuser76

Posts: 4974; Member since: Mar 04, 2010

Exactly. If all these vain enginneers waited until these technologies were absolutley perfect in a lab environment, by the time it was ready, something to replace it would already be in the pipeline. Like it or not but consumers today are beta testers, plain and simple. And I'm not just referring to everyone but WP users (Chris Parnell ads), if your phone been recalled, had a software patch, etc, you were a beta tester. The thing is, when you consider all the million things that has to happen everyday for these phones to work as they should, the problems we see are usually minute in comparison.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 9:08 AM 0

3. ama3654

Posts: 295; Member since: Nov 27, 2012

Pushing boundaries, bleeding edge, Android FTW! nuff said

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 10:47 PM 6

36. _Bone_

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

I have to call BS on that. FHD video is hardly tolerable with all the noise filtering, occasional stutter, refocusing and compression; the same issues will be ugly at higher res and you won't be able to enjoy it unless you buy a $4K 4K TV.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 4:19 AM 0

4. MrJerry

Posts: 403; Member since: Oct 05, 2012

How about Battery then?

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 10:48 PM 2

30. jlp34876

Posts: 80; Member since: Dec 02, 2012

Yeah this is just another hype for now, i have a nexus 7 and it can only last for 5hrs of gaming. Imagine recording a 4k video will take a lot of processing power.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 2:24 AM 1

6. darkskoliro

Posts: 1092; Member since: May 07, 2012

waste.of.space. Like a one minute video is just going to be... Trying to send a video through bluetooth... Quality... Playback consumes more battery... Sure, 4khd is awesome but be prepared to face the price you pay for it :L Dont think its going to be my thing for another year at least

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 10:56 PM 4

9. aokde

Posts: 186; Member since: Jul 09, 2012

The new H.265 codec will help reduce size by alot, i forgot exactly how much, but alot...you can google it if you're interested

posted on Mar 17, 2013, 11:03 PM 3

22. Luisit0

Posts: 73; Member since: Feb 18, 2013

I believe I read somewhere that H.265 supports up to 8K and will be using half the bandwidth H.264 currently uses.

posted on Mar 18, 2013, 12:34 AM 0

20. bayusuputra

Posts: 963; Member since: Feb 12, 2012

well, you can always choose the HD or FHD options. Like, I now don't really shoot FHD because most of the time, 720p is enough. more choices are good, aren't they? :)