I examined the Pixel 8 Professional Video Enhance on the Eiffel Tower and Paris Opera

Some of the awaited Pixel 8 Professional options is lastly right here. Video Enhance, which was teased on the telephone’s launch in October, started rolling out final week as a part of (and generally regardless of) the December Function Drop, so I made a decision to take it for a spin.

And what can be higher than snapping some movies of the glowing Eiffel Tower within the Parisian night time? Or the Paris Opera with its well-known Auditorium and chandelier, its Grand Staircase, and the Rotunda of the Glacier? OK, sure, I do know I’m a bit fortunate to have the ability to shortly pop by a number of the world’s most well-known monuments to check new smartphone options, however hey, when in Rome Paris, proper?

So I took the Pixel 8 Professional’s new Video Enhance on an journey and shot over a dozen quick samples, principally in dimly lit environments and at night time. My colleague Damien additionally snapped some samples in daylight, and put all the pieces collectively within the video you see on the high of this submit. You’ll be able to take a look at all of the side-by-side comparisons of unprocessed and processed samples to get a really feel for the way Video Enhance works and decide whether or not or not it improves the Pixel 8 Professional’s rank amongst the finest digicam telephones.

Video Enhance is spectacular in some conditions

Amongst all of the samples, the Opera ones are essentially the most telling, with notably totally different colours, shadows, and highlights. To me, the impact seems similar to the end result I get from selecting the Dynamic edit in Google Images on nonetheless photos. It noticeably boosts HDR and ends in punchier and extra colourful photos.

Nevertheless, should you’re questioning whether or not we’re veering too far off from actuality, you don’t want to fret. In my expertise, the unprocessed video is just too tame and lifeless, whereas the processed one is nearer to what I used to be seeing with my very own eyes.

Look intently and also you’ll additionally discover that Video Enhance smoothed out the jittery actions of my palms and stabilized the video. It’s a great answer for individuals who wish to shoot handheld movies with out bothering with gimbals and tripods.

And eventually, you may see the good thing about Evening Sight within the Eiffel Tower video, with brighter sky and clearer buildings and gardens surrounding it.

In its first launch, Google’s implementation of Video Enhance suffers from a sequence of limitations:

• It’s a must to manually allow it (which requires a few additional faucets) every time you open the Google Digicam app. Although, should you ask me, this can be a little bit of a optimistic as a result of I don’t need all my movies to be boosted.
• Unprocessed movies are recorded in 1080p, even should you select 4K within the settings, however the boosted video is in 4K. That is complicated.
• You’ll be able to solely zoom to 1x and 2x — no ultrawide or tele lens. In case you have been planning to spice up some 5x-10x movies, you may’t try this now.
• Video period is capped at 9:59, so you may’t increase movies which might be longer than 10 minutes.
• Boosting a video of 10 or so seconds takes about an hour, so that you higher be affected person should you report many or longer movies. We’re undecided if this delay will all the time be there — it may very well be a case of individuals speeding to try it out and overloading Google’s servers now — however you’ll all the time must account for add instances, regardless. And should you solely again up your movies over Wi-Fi like I do, you’ll have to attend till you’re dwelling to start out the method.
• Boosted movies take a major quantity of Google One storage, principally for the unprocessed model. Fortunately, you may all the time delete that while you’re executed.
• It’s also possible to discover some artifacts in stabilization while you transfer or pan too shortly.

For now, I really feel like Video Enhance is a neat additional, however maybe not one thing I’d depend on for each single video and setting. I recognize that the function is there, nevertheless it doesn’t appear absolutely baked but. I’d like to apply it to 4K video (even when it’s restricted to shorter samples), with the choice to change to the ultrawide and 5x lenses, and I’d somewhat see fewer artifacts ultimately video. A shorter processing time or native, on-device processing can be improbable too.

And if Google can handle to make it accessible for any video, as an alternative of requiring you to first allow the mode, that’d be even higher. Think about boosting older movies shot with worse and fewer succesful cameras!

I do know I’m asking an excessive amount of, however I like trying forward on the future. Within the meantime, I’d contemplate this a crutch and never an alternative to truly capturing an ideal video to start with.