Welcome to Tech Speak, a weekly column concerning the issues we use and the way they work. We attempt to preserve it easy right here so everybody can perceive how and why the gadget in your hand does what it does.
Issues could change into just a little technical at instances, as that is the character of know-how — it may be advanced and complicated. Collectively we are able to break all of it down and make it accessible, although!
Tech Speak
The way it works, defined in a manner that everybody can perceive. Your weekly look into what makes your devices tick.
You won’t care how any of these items occurs, and that is OK, too. Your tech devices are private and must be enjoyable. You by no means know although, you would possibly simply study one thing …
What’s APV?
APV stands for the Superior Skilled Video codec, a royalty-free video compression commonplace developed in-house by Samsung (which has an excellent relationship with Qualcomm). It is designed for capturing professional-quality video that is perceptually (probably not) lossless on a tool as small as a smartphone. As rumored, it’s supported by the most recent Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and prepared for prime time.
As a “professional” video codec, it is fairly gentle on sources. It has very environment friendly compression (that means it shrinks information in a sensible manner that appears good) whereas not needing a lot computational energy. That makes it excellent for a cellphone with inherently low computational energy due to dimension and temperature restraints.
On the characteristic aspect, the codec carries HDR 10/10+ metadata, helps as much as 8K video with high-bandwidth processing (it is quick), and is optimized for multi-CPU and GPU units. The codec sounds quick, dependable, and future-proof.
Do I would like this?
Have you ever ever informed your self you wanted a extra strong, sooner video seize and manufacturing codec than no matter you are utilizing now? You simply answered the query.
A giant deal will likely be made about this, simply because it was when Apple did it. That is as a result of it’s a huge deal and a darn marvel of software program engineering. It simply has a really restricted consumer base.
No matter what machine producers attempt to let you know, skilled, commercial-grade video just isn’t taken by folks utilizing a cellphone. Chances are you’ll discover just a few clips blended into one thing that are cellphone video, however a “low cost” machine like even the very best cellphone merely cannot examine to a correct video digicam. A codec would not change or dictate that. Physics does.
Having stated that, most of us know “that man.” You would possibly even be that man — the one who makes taking movies together with his or her cellphone greater than a passion and actually geeks out over all of it. That is for that man, and it is an superior characteristic.
Now we do not know the way this works in actual life simply but, and I’ll assume the whole lot will go as deliberate, and utilizing APV will not make telephones overheat or kill a battery in 12 minutes. You realize, the optimistic route.
The “prosumer” cellphone digicam fanatic is aware of they will not see a world of distinction visually. This does not change how the video appears to be like, per se, simply how effectively it may be captured and labored with later. For that, this must be a deal with, and the tip end result could very nicely look higher due to it.
Movies captured ought to have the ability to retain extra info, which implies the modifying software program has extra knowledge to work with. A video modifying app is like Google or Amazon and loves having a mountain of knowledge to kind by way of. An environment friendly, “lossless”, high-bandwidth seize codec means the modifying course of can spend extra time on tweaking the visuals and have extra image info to make use of whereas doing it.
It will make a distinction, however provided that you are “that man” and know the way and why you need to use it.
To date, APV help is proscribed to solely Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (my god these names) powered units. Extra details about telephones sporting the most recent chip will likely be coming, and it is doable that help will carry right down to Qualcomm’s extra mid-range Snapdragon chips someday sooner or later.
