Managing the storage and battery resources in an image capture device (digital camera) using dynamic transcoding

Advances in hardware imaging technology and user demand for convenient mobile electronic image capture are fueling the development of inexpensive image capture devices that can acquire images rivaling the image quality of photographic film. Improvements in the hardware imaging technology have to be matched with intelligent image storage mechanisms that are aware of local storage and battery constraints. In this paper, we explore using a dynamic, informed image transcoding technique to manage the consumed battery and storage resources in digital cameras. Such application aware technologies are fundamental for the mass consumer acceptance of these newer digital technologies. We show that this technique can allow the camera to store an order of magnitude more images. For a moderate number of images (e.g. 40), transcoding techniques can also maintain high quality images. The availability of fast wireless networks can allow the camera to capture 58 high quality images (51 uploaded) before running out of battery power. Storage technologies with expensive read and write operations (such as micro disks) can have a minor negative impact on battery life because of the extra read and write operations associated with transcoding operations. We show that the ability to effectively communicate the power vs. size vs. quality tradeoff to the end user is important for applications to adapt to the prevailing operating conditions.