Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chip makes it easier for phone makers to offer Duo Camera like features

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 allows phones to offer two-camera systems like the Duo Camera on the HTC One (M8). According to the chipmaker's senior director for cameras and imaging, Tim Yates, Qualcomm plans on developing a reference design that supports both stereo and depth cameras, so that phone manufacturers won't have to do it themselves from scratch.

The Snapdragon 805 has a pair of ISPs that allow it to capture HD video and 16MP burst photos at the same time. Or, it can handle input from two sensors at the same time. The Snapdragon 805 can also offer 3D noise reduction on videos, and the chip's gyroscope allows for digital image stabilization.

The HTC One (M8) Duo Camera sensors send image and depth information to the Snapdragon 801 that powers that device. But the Snapdragon 805 is a different beast with the focus on image processing. Qualcomm Snapdragon silicon powers up the Lytro ILLUM light field camera, which not only means that we could see more Snapdragon powered cameras in the future, it also means that Qualcomm could make it easier to bring Lytro-styled focal changes to smartphones.

And Qualcomm is also hard at work on improving the audio capture on video. A directional microphone array was displayed by the chip producer, that shows how Qualcomm can focus the recording of sound to a specific area while other sounds are ignored.

It all adds up to better photos and videos on newer smartphones, and with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips doing all of the hard work, all of these great new features will become standard on future handsets.

source: SlashGear