Occurrence of sporadic super-knock is the main obstacle in the development of advanced gasoline engines. By utilizing a rapid compression machine, events of pre-ignition and super-knock in a closed system under high temperature and high pressure were captured by synchronous high-speed direct photography and pressure measurement, with the results demonstrating that the mechanism of super-knock is constituted by hotspot-induced deflagration to detonation followed by high-pressure oscillation (DDP). (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.