iPhone 12 Lineup Features HDR Video Recording With Dolby Vision for Vivid Colors

[Unregistered 4U]

How about better stereo microphones?

The iPhones already have pretty good stereo recording separation, making certain videos more immersive than they were with just flat audio, BUT, I wouldn’t reject an improment. I CERTAINLY wouldn’t reject a magnetically connected Dolby Atmos type capture rig.

Hmm they also said "First camera to record in Dolby Vision HDR" which is highly doubtful during the iPhone 12 briefing. Perhaps first iPhone that can.

Perhaps this is attributed to limits of the color wavelengths that the camera sensor is capable of, compared to being a true 10 bit video photography?

I looked up online and saw in April 2020 "Qualcomm Spectra in the Snapdragon 865 is the world’s first ISP to feature Dolby Vision for video capture". List of phones that incorporate it.

Maybe it takes more than just having an ISP than can do it? I just checked the website for one of the phones, the Samsung S20 Ultra, and it doesn’t mention Dolby Vision for video capture. That is, of course, assuming that Dolby Vision is a think that Samsung would want to clearly state. Maybe the high resolution and super zoom was more important to them. So, even though the capability is there, they didn’t implement it (especially since they’d likely have to pay licensing fees to Dolby to say that).

I DON’T think I have the stamina to check through all the others’ websites right now, but I’m sure it won’t take the internet long to find the REAL first camera to record in Dolby Vision HDR.

UPDATE:
Mi 10 Pro doesn’t have Dolby Vision HDR listed on their page either.

EDIT/UPDATE:
So, just doing a search for “Dolby“ on that website shows that
”Some other important upgrades include new Tensor cores in the Hexagon 698, the integration of a new hybrid LPDDR5 and LPDDR4X memory controller, and new camera capabilities like 8K video recording, Dolby Vision video capture, or 200MP photo taking.”
So, a company COULD have Dolby Vision video capture, but, in the feature lists of all the phones on that page, it shows only one having Dolby Atmos audio playback. Now that Apple has adopted it as a bullet list item, though, I’m sure that an Android phone that supports it is likely to show up in six months or so. I still haven’t looked at all the linked pages BUT I’d fairly confident that if any of those supported Dolby Vision, that page would have called it out. So, first phone that can? Highly likely. Still haven’t looked into “first camera” though.

 

[aaronhead14]

99.999% of the purchasers of this phone don’t go through a proper post workflow. I think they’ll be fine.

Yep. That’s precisely why they shouldn’t be delivering Dolby Vision content. Haha.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Yep. That’s precisely why they shouldn’t be delivering Dolby Vision content. Haha.

99.999% of the purchasers of this phone won’t be delivering Dolby Vision content to anyone. They’ll attempt a share and the system will use the profile to automatically provide the best content for the target device. They’ll be ok.

 

[mihike]

Where was the desert video shot at?

Anza-Borrego State Park and other sites near Borrego Springs / Ocotillo Wells in Southern California. The overlook at the beginning is called Fonts Point.

 

[HDFan]

What are the issues editing a Dolby Vision capture in another program, such as FCP or Premiere?

 

[JimmyHook]

Was confirmed. It is the first camera in general to record directly to Dolby Vision. Very impressive technical achievement that’s doable because the SOC and ISP being incredibly advanced

 

[bluetang]

50ish comments. Seems like no body cares lol

 

[ErikGrim]

It should be noted that Dolby Vision is now an acquisition format, previously only a delivery format.

Fixed that for you. Preview and capture is all tone-mapped to DV in real time, making it in effect an acquisition format.

 

[ErikGrim]

Hmm they also said "First camera to record in Dolby Vision HDR" which is highly doubtful during the iPhone 12 briefing. Perhaps first iPhone that can.

No it is not. Tone mapping to DV is computationally heavy, which is why it is always done in post. The iPhone is likely be the only camera to record in DV for the foreseeable future.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

What are the issues editing a Dolby Vision capture in another program, such as FCP or Premiere?

FCP was mentioned as being upgraded later this year to work with it BUT that MAY mean exclusive to Apple Silicon. Has anyone looked into what level of PC is required for DV editing?

 

[dan98]

Very pretty but to my eyes photos like this just look 'hyper-real' and over processed.
Take away the lens / angle distortion and complex digital processing, you might end up with something that *actually* looks real.
But I guess that's not what people actually want these days.

 

[vladi]

Yeah.....but is it 10 bit 4.2.2 or 4.2.0.?

DV Profile 5 HEVC Main 10 YUV420 10-bit
[automerge]1602752745[/automerge]

So if I don’t have Dolby Vision display will it convert to regular HDR metadata?

Nope. SDR. That's why BD releases have both HDR10 and DV streams.

 

[vladi]

it seems like you are saying this based on absolutely nothing. While you may be right (doubtful) there are other key differences which may enter into the speed of computation which is impacting the result. 1) RAM, 2) extra camera, 3) LIDAR (faster auto-focus, night mode portraits - extra processing). Which actually makes sense, because those features (except RAM of course) are not available on the selfie camera and all models are limited to recording dolby vision at 30fps

It comes down to a sensor and sensor only. It is not yet confirmed if all three sensors will be able to capture 10bit HDR in 60fps or just the main sensor.

 

[vladi]

Was confirmed. It is the first camera in general to record directly to Dolby Vision. Very impressive technical achievement that’s doable because the SOC and ISP being incredibly advanced

It's doable because of the licensing. DV Profile 5 is not a heavy CPU hitter, if a phone can do HLG it can do HDR10 and HDR10+ and it can do DV5

 

[MVMNT]

Did a YouTube side by side of Chrome 1080 HDR with Safari 1080 HD on my Retina 5K iMac.

Chrome HDR looks really badly blown out in all the highlights, and crushed in the blacks. Not sure if this is a Chrome issue, but looks really nasty, and has that classic iPhone over-sharpened look to it.

Something to consider for sure when putting footage out there.

 

[vladi]

No it is not. Tone mapping to DV is computationally heavy, which is why it is always done in post. The iPhone is likely be the only camera to record in DV for the foreseeable future.

Not necesserally, there are no ehnahncment layers here, no 12bit, and it only tone maps for SDR. Apple TV has been doing it for quite some time now. It uses streaming DV profile which is considered lightweight.

 

[vladi]

Did a YouTube side by side of Chrome 1080 HDR with Safari 1080 HD on my Retina 5K iMac.

Chrome HDR looks really badly blown out in all the highlights, and crushed in the blacks. Not sure if this is a Chrome issue, but looks really nasty, and has that classic iPhone over-sharpened look to it.

Something to consider for sure when putting footage out there.

Looks like you are forcing HDR on non HDR display and there is some nasty stuff going on.

Here is the same scene on non-calibrated SDR (bottom) and calibrated DoblyVision device (above) which means nothing cause YT doesn't support DV, instead uploader in this case Apple, must have converted it to HLG I would assume.

 

[MVMNT]

Looks like you are forcing HDR on non HDR display and there is some nasty stuff going on.

Here is the same scene on non-calibrated SDR (bottom) and calibrated DoblyVision device (above) which means nothing cause YT doesn't support DV, instead uploader in this case Apple, must have converted it to HLG I would assume.

View attachment 966800

Ahh, thanks for this, I checked Apple's one-pager and it appears to be the case, 2020 onwards.

Play HDR video on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

Support for high dynamic range (HDR) video, such as HDR films and TV programmes from Apple or other providers, requires the latest version of macOS, a compatible Mac model and an HDR10-compatible display, TV or projector.

support.apple.com

It's forced on by YouTube in Chrome, it provides no other option other than HDR across the board.

So not sure how it's regarded a good user experience with such an extreme change in quality with such a popular browser. If I had been Chrome-first I'd have been questioning what was going on. There will be others out there probably thinking the footage looks awful.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

So not sure how it's regarded a good user experience with such an extreme change in quality with such a popular browser.

Isn’t this something for Chrome to fix, though?

 

[DarthDon]

i love that!!!

 

[mi7chy]

If you upload HDR content to YouTube, can you play it back in HDR on the same device? Question is, does the new iPhone finally support VP9 profile 2 or better?

 

[jasonacole]

Anza-Borrego State Park and other sites near Borrego Springs / Ocotillo Wells in Southern California. The overlook at the beginning is called Fonts Point.

The Iron Door is off of Split Mountain Road & 78

 

[Rocko99991]

Anza-Borrego State Park and other sites near Borrego Springs / Ocotillo Wells in Southern California. The overlook at the beginning is called Fonts Point.

I thought I recognized that place! Thank you. I believe Lubezki was the DOP for a movie shot there in 2014/2015 also.

 

[loybond]

This is exactly what I wanted. 10-bit HDR, but without having to learn and do grading on every clip. I wish the mirrorless full frame cameras did this too! And ideally I'd love to see a much easier editing workflow in something like iMovie for casual use.

 

[vladi]

If you upload HDR content to YouTube, can you play it back in HDR on the same device? Question is, does the new iPhone finally support VP9 profile 2 or better?

That's really up to Apple to work it out with Google. You can upload HGL or HDR10 to YT. The former has dual streams SDR and HDR while latter is HDR only. Like in the case of Apple's video showcasing DolbyVision they must have converted the DolbyVision graded footage to HLG somehow. I would assume iPhone records some ProRes file (which is not ideal for DolbyVision even in 444 but you can bet phone can't do more than 422) which later down the line applies the curve and creates metadata. Most likely you will be able to extract ProRes 422 which is 10bit with chroma subsamping hence the reason why it's only 700mil colors and not a billion like true 10bit. EDIT: I assumed wrong, file format remains HEVC but at 10bit output. That file alone is HDR but without DV metadata, you can convert it to HLG right away or find a desktop solution to re-apply DV curve and then export to HLG. It's way too complicated.

The bottom line is: DolbyVision on iPhone is meant for streaming to Apple TV or AirPlay 2 to get that HDR effect on HDR screen. If you want to share it in a message or upload it to web it will be converted to SDR. If you want to extract the original from the phone you will most likey get a flat ProRes 422 file HEVC file (this is my assumption)