Video recording hacks for the Pre making nice progress

The Pre's proven to be an eminently hackable platform pretty much from day one, and given that, it stands to reason that major "missing" features are going to either be added in the hard way or a few good programmers are going to die trying. The virtual keyboard developments are seen as a big win for users, and next up is true video recording -- something inexplicably missing from the device considering its ample (well, theoretically ample) processing power. Work on homebrew recording tools seems to be moving along nicely, with some open-source tools already available -- so far, they're apparently able to push it to 480 x 320 at 30fps, but it comes out encoded strangely and doesn't resemble anything your average end user would want to be dealing with. That's where Palm hopefully comes in with a future webOS update, but for now, at least we're able to play around. Follow the break for video of the hack in action.

[Via PreCentral]

[Ehg Posted Sep 25th 2009 4:43PM]

I'm having a hard time understanding why, in this day and age, high-end phones are being released without basic features. Very basic...

Anyway, good for Pre users.

[ThatGuy Posted Sep 25th 2009 5:17PM]

but really, if you have a qwerty keyboard, what is the point? I still think they should have put one on there as more of a novelty but it stands to reason on your own desktop computer. Do you see loads of people using their virutual keyboard instead of the hardware they have laying in front of them?!?!

[flexte Posted Sep 25th 2009 8:08PM]

@ SDAlpha1510 maybe he was referring to video recording being basic.
@ e I agree how can a phone release without video recording or for that matter cut, copy and paste

[Ehg Posted Sep 26th 2009 2:20PM]

Yeah, I meant the video recording. That technology has been on phones for about 5 years now. Just sayin

[ricelid Posted Sep 25th 2009 5:32PM]

Who needs a virtual keyboard when you have a real one?
"seen as a big win for users"? Seen by whom? What users?

[sed51329 Posted Sep 25th 2009 6:47PM]

I am a Pre owner.

The virtual key board comes in handy when you need to type while in landscape mode via the WebOS Browser. Also, if all you need to type is, "Ok" in response to a text, it's nice not to have to open the keyboard in order to use it.

Why just have one when we can have both?

[Dellibedaboss Posted Sep 27th 2009 1:16AM]

I, too, am a Pre owner, and it's definitely nice to have both. And with such a Huge homebrew community and the ability to freely hack and customize the phone in anyway possible.... Thats just makes it the best phone, for me that is. With such a sophisticated, yet brand new, built-from-scratch OS, I'd say give Palm a break, they're so small and can do but so much, but possibility doesn't matter to any of you. Pre does have cut, copy, & paste btw. Only 3+ months into the public use of webOS, I LOVE where this thing is headed.....