Is there an App that allows you to record from both front and rear facing cameras simultaneously?

defer · 3 months

I don't think this is possible on most phones, at least running Android 2.x. While the Camera and MediaRecorder APIs may be able to do so, there are some lower level limitations.

The main problem is that, at a lower level, both Cameras use the same buffers for preview/recording and mixing them will result in buffer corruptions.

Now, on Android 3.0+, things work differently and the userspace explicitly requests and requires access to Camera buffers directly. So, it may be possible to do this bearing in mind the version restriction.

smeenz · 3 months

The android camera API doesn't appear to prohibit this... it looks like you could create two camera objects and lock them both, though I haven't tried it.

jamuraa · 3 months

While the Android API doesn't prohibit using both cameras at once, I would be very surprised if many of the phones on the market supported it based on the fact that the underlying hardware is not easy to set up to record both streams simultaneously. The chips usually only have one camera interface which can be active at a time or they would need to have low level driver changes in order to record one of the streams into memory and put the other one through the GPU.

It definitely would depend on the specific mobile processor and the underlying hardware services supported by the Linux kernel, and you would probably have a very short list of compatible phones as a result.

Sockatees · 3 months

Some tape and two phones?

rafael000 · 3 months

I would use it to record a rollercoaster ride: the view and my face.

Please, do it!

positronus · 3 months

Best original app idea i have heard in years. If this does not exist it could easily go for 5 bucks on the market and make somebody a fortune.

NotSeriousAtAll · 3 months

I've never tried. I'll see if I can throw something together. I have plans later so I might not finish today.

thedoctor692 · 3 months

I'm a camera design engineer. Most camera modules I've seen used by cell phone companies have 2 sensors hooked up to a single set of processing hardware, controlled by a mux. It's not only a cost thing, it's also a size and power/heat concern. It's possible there's some that do both, but I haven't seen them.

Nice idea, probably not practical on existing hardware.

gdpt · 3 months

That would be very cool! But what would you use it for?

Randomsilliness · 3 months

oh god, someone please make this!

orivar · 3 months

I'll just leave this here...

thebudgie · 3 months

for making POV porn while capturing your O face?

silentpl · 3 months

yeah, cool idea. Hope someone makes it.

IAmASocketMan · 3 months

Hmm I set up a test app on my Epic 4g, and it doesn't seem to allow both cameras to be opened at the same time.

psilokan · 3 months

Hmm... interesting idea,especially if the audio track is perfectly synced. Sometimes I do impromptu hiking videos and it'd be nice to cut back and forth between the front and rear cameras.

ambitious · 3 months

This would be a cool idea for travelling, get two perspectives of the experience.

nom_trees · 3 months

Yeah I had a sneaking suspicion this would be the case. Thanks

benmarvin · 3 months

According to this post on Sprint dev forums, at least the EVO 4G doesn't support it at a hardware level, apparently they asked HTC directly.

I imagine the camera interface/design is pretty similar across most new generation Android phones, but I don't have specific knowledge.

Great idea for an app though.

Sephr · 3 months

Try running Stick it! while you record video in your preferred video recording app.

mshenrick · 3 months

I'd like this for iPhone, but since app store apps use apples camera api so the interface is uniform, it might have to be a jailbreak app, not that that's a problem for me

electricsandstorm · 3 months

Congrats, you just made someone rich.

ReesesPoofs · 3 months

Yes then I can finally record me fucking my gf doggy style and also get that sexy male face shot everybody wants to see.

What? Wasn't that what you guys wanted to use it for?

neoknights · 3 months

Iphone has an app for that ... sort of..

http://blog.makezine.com/2012/01/26/analog-video-mixer-for-iphone/

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