Nokia 5800 nHD Video Makes Objects Bigger

May 10th, 2009 • Mark Guim • Filed Under •

When the Nokia 5800 came out, Nokia was boasting about its “nHD video” recording capability. It sounds good, but it is really only 640 x 360 pixel resolution compared to 640 x 480 resolution used by previous phones that featured “VGA video.” What’s my problem with Nokia’s implementation of nHD? The objects appear bigger.

Nokia 5800
Nokia 5800 in front of the Macbook.

Nokia N85
Nokia N85 in front of the Macbook

I set up the Gorillapod tripod about 2 feet from my Macbook and placed both the Nokia N85 and Nokia 5800 to check the difference.

As you can see, the Nokia 5800 makes the Macbook bigger than than the Nokia N85 at the same distance. I don’t like this, because it means standing further away to fit objects in videos.

James Whatley and Ben Smith from The Really Mobile Project made an entertaining sample video to make this point. They had to sit further away from the Nokia 5800 to fit in the video and the audio suffers because of the longer distance from the microphone.

Have you noticed this on your Nokia 5800?

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  • I've noticed this on the 5800 too. Not liking it at all tbh.
  • In one way it's cool because it is zooming the video without affecting its quality.Bigger object means better viewing.
  • Hey,
    indeed, I've noticed it and actually I don't like it.
  • ron
    but the n85 was on image mode while the 5800 was on video. of course that will give different resolutions. . . ryt?
  • The Nokia N85 was on video mode.
  • Wes
    It's mostly a crop effect. You see, to take a widescreen video, you're cropping top and bottom part of the image, so things seems ''bigger'' because you're "zooming in" However, if you set the camera back to highest quality (640x480) thing get back to normal, unzoomed state, so you can actually record some quality, 4:3 video without having to sit miles away from the phone. You can prove it yourself by setting the video to widescreen, catching a snapshot, setting it back to 4:3 and catching a second snap. You'll note the difference between distances.

    ba-dum-DISH!
  • Nice one Mark, I wrote a follow up piece here:

    http://thereallymobileproject.com/2009/05/nokia...

    Good work.
  • btomoran
    That means that nHD is only a zoom of VGA recording?

    I want to know if that happens too in VGA 640/480/30fps mode...
  • Recording on "TV high quality" aka VGA mode isn't zoomed in, but you'll lose the widescreen aspect.
  • I like this. Would be great for when I go record concerts
  • Good point, I can see it as benefit if objects are already far away.
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