Howdy, Stranger!


Possible to switch which camera app is used to record video?

I'm hoping to use an LG V30 with RaceChrono and would like to use a different camera app than the default/system app. LG's app has mediocre video quality, while using a port of the google camera app dramatically improves quality.

Is it possible to have RaceChrono launch a different app for recording video? It looks like I might be able to redefine the system app if I root the phone, but was hoping to find a simpler way to accomplish it.

Thanks in advance!


  • aolaol
    edited March 24
    RaceChrono does not use any external app for recording videos, it accesses the Camera APIs directly.

    There's two different Camera APIs in Android and it can be selected in expert settings. That said, this setting should not affect the quality at all. Also the build-in app and Google camera app will be using these same APIs, so I'm not sure how they could have dramatically different video quality. Photo quality can be different, but the apps have only very little what they can do about video quality. Other than setting the resolution and bitrate, which already can be configured in RaceChrono.

    RaceChrono uses "fixed" or "infinity" focus as default, which means it does not auto focus to close. While it might seem odd (or low quality) when testing it to close range objects, in practice it works well when shooting a video from a vehicle. This also can be changed in the camera preferences.

    Notice API does not mean "app"; API means programming interface. I'm explaining this as I do not know what your knowledge level is. Sorry if it seems basic...
  • Interesting..... And this is very helpful, so your explanation wasn't overly basic at all! I'll have to see if I can put up a quick video of the same subject taken with the stock app and the gcam port with identical settings to show the difference between the two.

    I'll also do some experimenting with this phone and changing the APIs in the expert settings to see if there's any effect on video quality.

    Thank you again for the help!
Sign In or Register to comment.