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The Google Nexus 7 tablet has a 1.2MP front-facing camera. It’s hardly the best camera around, but it’ll let you make video calls over Skype or record short videos (assuming you want to shoot video with a front-facing camera.

Out of the box, those videos will be limited to 480p resolution, even though the camera is capable of shooting HD video. But if you want to record higher definition video, there’s a hack for that.

In a nutshell, all you need to do is add a 720p profile for the camera to use. There’s nothing in the Nexus 7′s hardware or software that prevents this from happening — but you will need a tablet that’s been rooted or one that’s running a custom ROM.

The simplest way to install the 720p patch is to flash an update.zip file using ClockworkMod or TWRP recovery. You can find the file at the xda-developers forum, and you can find steps for rooting the Nexus 7 and installing a custom recovery in our guide.

The xda-developers post also has instructions for modifying the necessary files manually.

via xda-developers