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Mobius 2 - a brief look into the near future
With 1080p-60fps action cameras starting to show up in the marketplace, the developer has agreed to a brief status update on the M2 development here. So here's what I can tell you:
1. The M2 will obviously be capable of 1080p-60 fps as well as 720p-120 fps. Other resolutions have not been determined yet, but the M2 is NOT chasing the 2K/4K market, so don't expect it.. The goal is superior image quality at the resolutions and frame rates mentioned above.
2. Other goals are improved low light ability and better dynamic range. The imaging hardware in the M2 will be different from the Mobius of necessity, but no details on specs are being released other than it will NOT use an Ambarella DSP chip for many reasons I won't go into. I expect improvements will be more incremental than earth shattering. Improved sound capture hardware has also been incorporated.
3. The M2 design has been refined for about a 30% decrease in power consumption compared to other 1080p-60fps action cameras on the market. This means the battery size can be smaller and still give good recording times with diminished heat problems. The result is a form factor that is similar to and
very close in size/weight to the Mobius, with three buttons controlling functions moved to one side of the case.
4. Needless to say excellent image quality in the Mobius tradition can be expected. Some functions will be added in stages via FW updates as they did with the original Mobius, but from what I've seen in the prototype cameras, the initial FW at release time looks like it will have a rich set of the more important basic user functions.
5. No release date or cost information is being given. If I have any further information on this, I will post it here, so asking for an update before then won't yield any new information
6. The M2 will give the user a choice of using h.264 (a.k.a. AVC) or the new h.265 (a.k.a. HEVC) video codec. So what, some may ask? This new codec will be the de facto standard for HD content in short order, replacing h.264, because
it has the ability to produce video with a similar quality to h.264 compression with nominally 1/2 the data rate, OR better quality with a similar file size. For M2 users, the main benefits from this I see are:
- Files can be 1/2 as large, essentially doubling the recording time you can save on a given memory card, or cutting in half the capacity of the memory card you may need.
- The camera will be able to write the streaming video output to the memory card faster with less power consumption.
- Files for a given recording can be read off the memory card and transferred to external storage about twice as fast.
The ability to produce higher quality with the same file size is also dependent on the resolving power of the lens optics, the pixel size of the camera CMOS array, and the pixel size of the monitor used for viewing the video. These will be limiting factors with the M2 since it is focusing on 1080p video and not higher resolution 2K/4K video.
Of course, your video player and editing software will need to be able to decode the h.265 content (and also encode with that codec if you want to do heavy editing while keeping the small file size). Already the latest VLC, WMP, and MPC-HC (free and recommended) players can play most h.265 (a.k.a. HEVC) videos. And there are downloadable filters for earlier Window video software that allow processing of HEVC content. Video editors (even some commercial ones) have some catching up to do to support HEVC editing. The latest WMM handles HEVC input files nicely. The latest AviDemux free open source editor does also.. This is leading edge stuff, and will take a little time to be widely incorporated, but the M2 will be ready for it.
If you want to see what the HEVC codec can do with one of your h.264 encoded Mobius videos,
download the free Handbrake video converter and re-encode your original with h.265 output codec set for an average data rate 1/2 of it's native data rate! I cannot tell any visual difference when I did this, other than the file size dropped from 366 MB down to 180MB! Rather amazing if you ask me!
Last edited by Tom Frank; Mar 19, 2016 at 09:21 AM. Reason: minor updates in blue