Monuments of London: The London Eye, The Big Ben and River Thames

I captured a number of photos of the London Eye, the Big Ben and the River Thames during my tour to England. All of these spots are popular tourist attractions and receive millions of tourists from all over the world.

The London Eye and the Big Ben were voted the most photogenic locations in the United Kingdom, followed by the Bullring. When I gazed upon these monuments, it was clear that the voters had made the right choice. The London Eye and the Big Ben are just gorgeous.

I captured photos of these locations both during the day and at twilight. Currently I am uploading only two to three photos. More will be uploaded later.

The Big Ben and River Thames

The London Eye & River Thames, London

The Big Ben, London

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[HOW TO] Enable MediaTek's ClearMotion Technology on Redmi Note 2 and All Other MIUI 7 based ROMs

Short Intro: Hey everyone! :) Coming to Redmi Note 2 from my thl 5000 was not without sacrifices. I was used to the exceedingly long battery life of thl 5000 (5000 mAh) and the multimedia features of MT6592; especially the ClearMotion technology.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 powered by MediaTek's powerful Helio X10 was supposed to be a desirable update; however, I found the lack of ClearMotion very disappointing and so the developer laying dormant inside me since the CyberShot Xperience camera drivers back in 2009-2010 finally came out once more. After some research into the technology (that worked on AOSP ROMs but not on MIUI), I finally managed to get ClearMotion working on MIUI 7 based ROMs; and here it is for all of you to enjoy! :)
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The hype around Redmi Note 2 being launched with MediaTek's Helio X10 Processor was phenomenal; however, Xiaomi really stripped down the power of Helio X10 by excluding a vast number of multimedia features that the Redmi Note 2 was capable of; one of them being MediaTek's ClearMotion Technology.

About MediaTek's ClearMotion™ Technology:

ClearMotion™ is one of the most unique but under-rated features in the MediaTek line of processors. I honestly feel surprised why most people don't know about it. On several online forums, I saw confusion among a number of people who never experienced this feature, so I briefly want to describe how this technology works.

ClearMotion is infact a type of Motion Interpolation technology; which as wiki says is "a form of video processing in which intermediate animation frames are generated between existing ones by means of interpolation, in an attempt to make animation more fluid and to compensate for display motion blur."

In other words: when you play a movie/season at 24fps or 30fps; the processor continuously takes two or more adjacent frames from the video and generates an "average" of those frames and places it between those frames. In this way, it plays the video as if it was recorded in 60fps. In this way, the movements of the camera, the people or the objects in the video are very fluid and smooth; giving an overall pleasing and high-end video playback experience.

This effect is most prominent on movies and certain television series recorded at as they are recorded in 24fps. (Check out Game of Thrones intro on ClearMotion and it's hard not to come away impressed).

Most high-end televisions offer built-in motion interpolation for smooth video playback under different trade names (e.g. Sony calls it Motionflow whereas Samsung calls it Clearmotion rate)

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HOW TO GET CLEARMOTION IN REDMI NOTE 2 AND OTHER MIUI 7 BASED ROMS

Disclaimer:
Confirmed working on most MIUI builds for Redmi Note 2. (7.0.12, 7.0.14, 7.1.4.0 CHINA, 7.1.3.0 CHINA, 5.12.24, 5.12,23, 5.11.1 etc)
Does not work on Global stable MIUI Builds beyond 7.0.12; however, it works in equivalent China builds.

Pre-requisites:

• Rooted Redmi Note 2 (or MediaTek based Android 5.0 device on MIUI 7 ROM)
• TWRP or CWM recovery installed
• Flashable zip file containing ClearMotion libraries ported to MIUI: Download HEREhttp://adf.ly/1UKo4V

(Please don't mirror the file to other file sharing services: and don't mind the adfly link. The port is being given to you free of cost; and you compensate for it simply by not mirroring it. Thank you :) ) 

Method 1:

• Download the file "Enable_ClearMotion_v2a_for_Redmi_Note_2_by_Hasaan6545.zip" and place it in your sdcard
• Reboot into recovery and backup your ROM (as a precaution).
• Flash the file. Reboot
• Play a video using MX Player (or any player that supports HW decoding) and feel the difference ;)

Method 2 (Only for those who can not flash the zip for any reason; you may attempt manual installation).

• Download the file "Enable_ClearMotion_v2a_for_Redmi_Note_2_by_Hasaan6545.zip" and place it in your sdcard. Extract the folder.
• Using "Root Explorer", navigate to "system/build.prop" and use its built in text editor to add the following lines at the end of the file. Don't forget to add an extra empty line at the end.

persist.sys.display.clearMotion=1
persist.clearMotion.fblevel.nrm=255
persist.clearMotion.fblevel.bdr=255
ro.mtk_clearmotion_support=1
ro.mtk_slow_motion_support=1
ro.mtk_16x_slowmotion_support=1

(Alternatively, you may add these lines to your build.prop file using any build.prop tweaker from Play Store)

• Using Root Explorer, copy the libraries located in the zip file's system/lib folder into your phone's "root>system>lib" directory.
• Reboot your system and play a video to see the difference (if the mod worked for you) ;)

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SO YOU INSTALLED THIS MOD; NOW, HOW TO KNOW IF CLEARMOTION IS WORKING?

Once you install this mod, all videos played using hardware decoder (stock player, MX player, Facebook, YouTube etc.) will automatically be optimized by the ClearMotion technology.

Unlike AOSP, you won't have a ClearMotion option in the MIUI settings app; however, ClearMotion will be installed and it will work.

If you have doubts, you may check the working of ClearMotion and compare it with standard playback using Engineer Mode through the steps below.

• Open the dialer app and type *#*#3646633#*#* to open the Engineer Mode (To help you remember, *#*#3646633#*#* corresponds to *#*#ENGMODE#*#* in Phone Input)
• Go to "Hardware Testing" tab and scroll to "Video". You will see the following screen.

• Set ClearMotion Demo to 1
• Now when you open any video using MX Player; you will see the screen divided into two halves as shown. The left side shows ClearMotion enabled and the right side shows ClearMotion disabled. This implies that ClearMotion is working. In case ClearMotion isn't working (faulty installation etc.), the screen won't divide.

After you enable the demo mode, if the screen divides as shown in video player, ClearMotion is working. You can compare the difference between ClearMotion on/off in this demo mode; Left side is clearmotion enabled; right side is clearmotion disabled.

• Turn off ClearMotion demo mode (set to 0) to enable ClearMotion on fullscreen once more.

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WHY NOT SIMPLY USE AOSP ROMs FOR CLEARMOTION ON REDMI NOTE 2?

AOSP ROMs for Redmi Note 2 offer ClearMotion and MiraVision by default; however, there are advantages of using ClearMotion on MIUI instead of switching to AOSP: (These advantages are subjective: no offence intended to AOSP fans - I myself am one.)

Redmi Note 2's Fast Focus is attributable to MediaTek's InstantFocus technology rather than the "PDAF sensor" it claims to have.

• Camera with MediaTek's InstantFocus™ and TrueBright™ technology: On MIUI, we retain a good quality camera that we have to sacrifice when switching to AOSP. (Yes, the fast focus speeds and superior image quality on MIUI ROMs are not due to the "so-called" PDAF sensor; it's because of Helio X10's  InstantFocus and TrueBright technologies; both of which are operational in MIUI Camera.
•  Most AOSP ROMs for Redmi Note 2 are (currently) plagued by an assortment of deep sleep bugs that pop up at times and drain battery during standby. This is very annoying; and is attributable to AOSP Lollipop Build 5.0.x more than the ports itself.
• Slow Motion feature on MIUI is superior to that in AOSP's (the latter needs the stock camera app and saves videos that can be played in slow motion only through the stock video player; whereas MIUI actually exports a slow motion video in mp4 format that can be played using any player, and can also be shared)
• I really feel suited to AOSP, but the MIUI ROM also has much eye candy to offer.

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I hope this post helped you! :)

Best regards

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Nishtar Medical College, Multan. A Marvel of Architecture.

In a followup to my previous album / post where I used a novel technique to photograph the monuments of Multan, here are some of my new photos of Nishtar Medical College in its full glory during a summer sunset. 

Founded in 1951, Nishtar Medical College is one of the oldest and most prestigious medical institution of the country. The founder of the institution, Dr. Jamal Bhutta, put forward the idea of domes and a clock tower, and worked with the architect Mr. Habib J. Somjee to create an architectural masterpiece. 

NOTE:
All the images are actual photographs. There is no compositing: the details are all real.
Best viewed on a neutral LCD/LED display - Not on Samsung's AMOLEDs. Use your laptop screen for the best results.

I hope you like them :) Join my page for more: https://www.facebook.com/follow.hasaan :)

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Photographing The Monuments of Multan City - Lost Glory Recaptured

The idea for this photo-shoot came unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago.

I felt that the monuments of Multan City had never been captured like they deserved to be. I decided to give it a shot. The past few weeks, I experimented on the fine techniques of architecture photography and post-processing; and also briefly looked up at some famous architecture paintings for artistic concepts of lighting and shadows.

Then I headed off to the old, inner part of Multan city to capture some photos; then it was time to retouch them. Fortunately, it worked out very well and I was able to produce photographs that exceeded my expectations. I slightly wish it had been a cloudy day.. but this still works. :)

I hope you guys like them! :) Follow my Facebook page for more :)

(NOTE: All images are actual photographs; not composites. They have been post-processed but the views/details have not been altered. Images best viewed on a large neutral display - prefer your laptop to your smartphone; especially if the latter has an AMOLED display.)

These images were captured using a Pentax K50 with 18-55 mm lens.

Click to view in higher resolution.

The tomb of Shahrukn-e-alam in Multan photographed in a painterly view.

A view of the Chowk Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower), Multan.

A beautiful floral clock at the Chowk Ghanta Ghar, in front of Shah Rukn-e-alam's tomb in Multan.

The Multan Museum, in front of the Tomb of Shah Rukn-e-alam, Multan.

A view of the tomb of Shah Rukn e alam in Multan.

A view of the tomb of Shah Rukn e alam in Multan.

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MediaTek MT6592 (MTK6592) detailed review and performance benchmarks: at par with Snapdragon 800

Introduction to MediaTek and MT6592

 MediaTek is a rapidly growing Tainwanese manufacturer that upped its game in the last couple of years by producing high performance SoCs such as the quad-core MT6589 and octa-core MT6592.

So far, the most differentiating point in MediaTek's line of CPU's is their economy: very high performance is delivered at a very low price. This strategy led them to considerable success, and as of 2013, MediaTek is the fourth largest IC designer in the world. Although globally most flagships still use Qualcomm or Exynos CPUs, MediaTek is easily the biggest name in the Asian smartphone market and has gained worldwide attention.

MT6592 is currently the best system-on-chip in MediaTek's portfolio and has led many Asian manufacturers to produce high-end flagship smartphones priced as low as $250 to rival the very expensive flagship smartphones from Samsung, Sony, LG and other popular brands. MediaTek claims that MT6592 is at par with current flagship CPUs. Naturally, it seems too good to be true and therefore, many have been wondering whether MT6592 is a gimmick or does it really live up to the hype that MediaTek has made about it.

As an advanced user and developer, I decided to put MediaTek's claims to test and used two MT6592 devices (Uniscope XC2S and THL 5000) and thoroughly evaluated their CPU, GPU and real life performance to come up with this article.

MT6592 Features and Specifications

According to MediaTek, MT6592 is the world's first true octa-core CPU and has the following features.

• Clock speed of 1.7 GHz or 2.0 GHz; the former is called MT6592T (Turbo)
• 8 cores capable of working independently (heterogenous computing)
• Very low power consumption as compared to other leading processors (consuming only 40% power with Wifi browsing, 65% power for full HD video recording and 50% power for full HD video playback).
• Quad-core GPU (Mali-450 MP4)
• Support for Ultra HD video playback (at a resolution as high as 4096×2160), including support for latest HEVC (H.265) and Google VP9 video codecs
• ClearMotion; MediaTek's original technology that enhances the fluidity of video playback by increasing the frame rate for all 24/30 fps to 60 fps. 

CPU performance of MT6592

I used many multi-core different benchmarks to evaluate the performance of MT6592. (Single thread and single core scores are not really significant since Android ecosystem has fully evolved to support multi core CPUs). The benchmarking was performed on my THL 5000 (Android version 4.4.2 and Firmware version 1.0.9) that has the 2.0 Ghz version of MT6592.

To ensure that the benchmarks demonstrated the real-life performance more accurately, I tested my THL 5000 while it was fully loaded for daily use. All apps of daily use including a third party launcher (TSF Shell), Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Viber were installed and loaded in the background. Power saving mode was turned off. The runtime was ART (Android Runtime) instead of Dalvik since I use the former in my daily use. Airplane mode was NOT turned on.

Geekbench 3:

MT6592 scored 2553 on Geekbench 3 (multicore).

The multi-core score for MT6592 on Geekbench 3 was 2553 that exceeded not only many Snapdragon 800 smartphones including LG Nexus 5 (2538 in app and 2460 on web) and LG G2 (2478); but also some Snapdragon 801 models including Xiomi Mi 3 (2348) and LG G3 (2259).

MT6592 got a better score than LG G3 and Xiomi Mi 3 that have Snapdragon 801.

(Click to view in better resolution)

Vellamo:

MT6592 has a score of 1563 on Vellamo's complex multi-core test. It exceeds that of Nexus 5 (Snapdragon 800) and approaches Samsung Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801).

(NOTE: This benchmark was performed at a later time on Dalvik runtime with Xposed framework enabled. Scores on ART framework and with Xposed disabled are slightly higher.)

Scores of MT6592 exceed LG Nexus 5 (Snapdragon 800) and approach those of Galaxy S5 international edition (Snapdragon 801).
Click to view in better resolution.

CF Bench:

Chainfire's CF bench is a unique benchmark especially designed for multi-core devices and tests alot of parameters that other benchmarks don't. MT6592 scored 53481 in Native and 27952 in Java with an overall score of 38163.

This score is higher than that of International Edition of Samsung Galaxy S5 with Snapdragon 801 (39297 in Native, 34372 in Java and 36342 overall) and Xperia Z1 compact with Snapdragon 800 (37547, 31922 and 34172).

MT6592 scored 53481 in Native and 27952 in Java with an overall score of 38163

Antutu: 

 On Antutu, MT6592 often scores higher than 31000 points with an average of 30500 points. The highest score I got was 31700. However, Antutu also evaluates the 3D performance and includes it in the final score and we are concerned only with CPU at the moment (3D performance in GPU section).

The total Antutu score is 30656.

Antutu details show that the MT6592 has much more impressive CPU and RAM parameters as compared to Galaxy S5 Asia edition SM-G900 (Exynos Octa 5422), Galaxy S5 International edition (Snapdragon 801) and Sony Xperia Z2 (Snapdragon 801).

CPU Integer, CPU float point, RAM operation and RAM speed for MT6592 are 3482, 3963, 3408 and 1836 respectively. 

Asian edition of Samsung Galaxy S5 with Exynos Octa 5422 scores 2916, 3161, 1619 and 1206 in these parameters whereas the international edition (with Snapdragon 801) scores 3443, 3724, 2082 and 1455 in these parameters.

The MT6592 has much more impressive CPU and RAM parameters as compared to Galaxy S5 Asia edition SM-G900 (Exynos Octa 5422), Galaxy S5 International edition (Snapdragon 801) and Sony Xperia Z2 (Snapdragon 801)

The verdict: 

The results of all the above benchmarks show that MT6592 really has a lot of raw CPU power and performs as well as Snapdragon 800 and 801; if not better.


GPU performance of MT6592

The graphics of MT6592 is managed by ARM's powerful quad-core Mali450 MP4 GPU clocked at 700 MHz.

Antutu 3D: 

MT6592's Mali450 MP4 achieves 5519 points on Antutu. That is only half of that of Adreno 330 but the performance is adequate enough. Antutu declares that the 3D graphics of MT6592 are excellent and large games are fluently supported.

Antutu declares that the 3D graphics of MT6592 are excellent and large games are fluently supported.

3D Mark:

Mali450 MP4 scores around 7000 points on 3D Mark.  Snapdragon 800 devices with Adreno 330 easily achieve 15000 points. However, despite the large difference, Mali450 MP4 shows very impressive performance on 3D Mark and is declared in the results as "one of the most powerful devices around".

Mali450 MP4 in MT6592 has impressive score in 3D Mark.

Nenamark 2:

MT6592 on THL 5000 obtained an average of 52.2 fps on Nenamark 2 which shows that it can handle most of the modern games without breaking a sweat.

MT6592 got managed 52.2 frames per second on Nenamark 2.

The verdict:
 Adreno 330 clearly outperforms Mali450; however, despite not being the best GPU in town, Mali450 is still more than enough to run all the modern games fluently. 3D Mark and Antutu both declare that the GPU is one of the best around. After all, Mali450 in MT6592 is capable of 42 gigaFLOPS.

To give you an idea, PSP runs on 2.6 gigaFLOPS, PS VITA on 51.2 gigaFLOPS, PlayStation 2 on 6.2 gigaFLOPS and XBOX360 on 240 gigaFLOPS. Adreno330 runs on 130 gigaFLOPS.

How MediaTek made these great results possible with such a low price tag:

 Higher number of cores is usually associated with increased power consumption. This is the reason why most of the other manufacturers do not usually go for octa core CPUs. They tend to use ARM's Cortex A9 or A15 cores (or cores based on them i.e. Krait 400) that are powerful and deliver great performance. These cores however, are expensive.

MediaTek has taken a very different approach here. Instead of picking A9 or A15 cores, they went for 8 A7 cores. A7 is ARM's power efficient processor. A single core of A9 or A15 always performs better than A7 at the clock frequency. However, the A7 will use much less power as compared to the former two.

By increasing the number of A7 cores to 8, MediaTek has created a solution that competes with quad core flagships (based on A9/A15 cores) with low power consumption and price tag.

Real-life performance of MT6592

The benchmarks of MT6592 show great performance; now what do I have to say about the real life performance of MT6592.

The good thing is that MT6592 does deliver excellent performance . With Android Kitkat 4.4.2 on THL 5000 and 1.0.9 firmware, there was no lag in the user interface and every day apps. (Note: Of course this heavily depends on firmware optimizations as well because each update enhances the performance).

Web browsing, especially on Chrome and Dolphin Browsers is excellent. The scrolling is smooth, pages load fast and there is no lag.

The smartphone hardly broke a sweat while playing Riptide GP2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Real Racing 3 and Modern Combat 5.

Video experience on MT6592 with ClearMotion is AWESOME and I can not stress this enough. All videos play very smoothly and feel like real 60 fps. The frame rate enhancement technology works very, very well and in my opinion, is one of the most underrated feature of this CPU. People do not seem to have heard much of it, but once you see any video on ClearMotion, you'd hate to see them without it. Movies and seasons especially look great when played on MT6592.

The final verdict

MT6592 is an excellent system-on-chip. It's CPU clearly has the processing power equal to Snapdragon 801, if not better. The GPU is not the best out there but it is still extremely powerful and fluently runs large, modern games. The real life performance, as explained above, is also excellent.

My advice is that if you do buy a MT6592 device, do some research and go for good brands that provide the latest Android version (most MT6592 devices come with Android 4.2) and have good firmware support.

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