Over the last couple of years, Samsung has made it a point to bring new camera features from its latest flagship phones to older flagship phones, but the company appears to be making an exception this year.
Some of the Galaxy S24's camera features are not coming to the Galaxy S23 series or any other existing device that could technically run those features perfectly well. Super HDR is one example: Samsung is limiting it to the Galaxy S24 lineup citing hardware limitations, even though devices like the Galaxy S23 have whatever is needed to make Super HDR support possible.
But there's another feature, which many might find more useful than the ability to record Super HDR videos and one that we would like to see on older devices: the new Dual Rec shooting mode.
Dual Rec takes dual recording one step further
Samsung previously released Director's View mode, which is available on flagship Galaxy phones going back to the Galaxy S21. Director's View is an advanced version of the dual recording capabilities smartphones have had for many years: it captures videos from the rear and front-facing cameras at the same time, but it also allows you to switch between any of the rear cameras on the fly.
With the Galaxy S24, Samsung has replaced Director's View with Dual Rec. Dual Rec keeps most of the capabilities of Director's View. You have the option to save the video from each camera as a separate file in addition to a single video showing feeds from both cameras, and you can switch between a split-screen or picture-in-picture view.
But with Dual Rec, you can capture videos from any two of the phone's cameras. Director's View, on the other hand, always has the selfie camera enabled. Dual Rec also defaults to the front-facing camera and the primary rear camera, but you can use any combination, like capturing videos with the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras at the same time.
Add the option to shoot at 4K resolution, and Dual Rec is arguably the better implementation. Unfortunately, Samsung hasn't included Dual Rec in the One UI 6.1 update for flagship phones launched last year, and we don't know if the company will bring it to older devices at a later date.
Combining Dual Rec and Director's View would be the ideal solution
While Dual Rec is an excellent feature, we don't think Director's View has to go away. Dual Rec doesn't support switching between the rear cameras during recording, which may be disappointing for those who have used Director's View, and the ideal solution would be to combine the two modes into one.
That isn't the case on the Galaxy S24 series, but here's hoping Samsung will consider making the necessary changes and implement them in upcoming devices.
