Google announced the Pixel 8 series yesterday, mere hours after Samsung unveiled its latest Fan Edition lineup. As usual, Google's launch event was focused a lot on the camera and the advancements the Pixel 8 series presents in mobile photography and videography. One new feature is Video Boost, which allows Pixel 8 users to record HDR+ videos.
More specifically, Video Boost is a feature that relies on Google's data centers rather than mobile hardware for post-processing. The Pixel 8 can't record HDR+ videos but can send a copy of your video to Google's data centers. There, Google's AI works its magic to add HDR+ to your videos through post-processing before the final result gets sent to your Google Photos library.
It's an intriguing and very Google-esque concept that falls in line with the company's Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-driven philosophies, and it might allow Pixel 8 users to achieve stunning video recordings. But is Google overselling it?
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“A task no mobile phone can solve alone”
The Pixel phone maker explains that processing a one-minute 4K@30fps HDR+ video requires the same power needed to process 1,800 HDR+ photos. Therefore, Video Boost has to upload your videos to Google's data centers for post-processing.
Google says applying the same HDR+ photo techniques to video recordings is “a task no mobile phone can solve alone.” And as impressive as the company's Video Boost might be, we can't help but wonder if Google is overselling it.
Modern Samsung Galaxy flagships can, in fact, record HDR+ 4K@30fps videos without connecting to a data center and uploading any information. Everything is done on the device by the internal hardware. HDR+ is a Samsung Labs feature users can enable from the Camera app's settings as long as they have a 30fps video recording mode selected.
But to give Google the benefit of the doubt, Video Boost might offer significantly better results than Samsung's on-board HDR+ video recording feature. The search engine giant will probably run more powerful post-processing models in the cloud compared to whatever Samsung is using on its high-end Galaxy phones.
It could be that Video Boost outperforms other HDR+ video recording modes on non-Pixel mobile devices and might make it difficult for Samsung and other OEMs to compete if they don't take the data center route as Google did.
So, back to our question. Is Google overselling it? Perhaps not in the sense that Video Boost won't achieve great results. But Google may have oversold the reasons why the Pixel 8 series needs a data center to process your HDR+ videos and why the Tensor 3 chip can't do it on its own. It's not that no mobile phone alone can solve the HDR+ video recording problem, but that Google chose a method that suits its cloud-based philosophy best.
Now, whether or not you'd want your videos to get uploaded to the cloud for post-processing is another matter altogether, and it boils down to each individual's views on personal data sharing and the risks associated with cloud-based services.
