While Video Boost isn’t the ‘aha’ moment that Night Sight was for still photographs, it’s a promising sign of things to come.
It was a revelation when Google released Night Sight on the Pixel 3.
It was almost as if someone had switched on the lights in your low-light images. Previously unattainable shots become achievable without the use of a tripod or a deer-in-the-headlights flash.
After five years, capturing images in the dark is second nature — nearly every phone, regardless of budget, has some type of night mode. Video, on the other hand, is a different matter. Night settings for still photography collect numerous frames to generate one brighter image, and the physics of that feature simply cannot be copied and pasted to video, which is already a sequence of images by definition. The answer, as it appears to be lately, is to turn to artificial intelligence.
Google mentioned a feature dubbed Video Boost with Night Sight in a future software update when the Pixel 8 Pro was released this autumn. It processes your movies with AI, bringing out more detail and boosting color, which is especially useful for low-light footage. The only catch is that this processing takes place in the cloud, on Google’s computers, rather than on your phone.
Video Boost, as promised, began appearing on devices a few of weeks ago with the December Pixel update, including my Pixel 8 Pro review unit. And it’s great! However, it is hardly the watershed moment that the first Night Sight was. That speaks to both how remarkable Night Sight was when it first launched and the unique hurdles that video poses to a smartphone camera system.
Video Boost works as follows: first, and most importantly, you must have a Pixel 8 Pro, not a standard Pixel 8 – Google has not answered to my queries on why this is the case. When you wish to utilize it, just switch it on in your camera settings and then begin recording your video. When you’re finished, either automatically or manually backup the movie to your Google Photos account. Then you have to wait. And then wait. Keep waiting in certain situations – Video Boost works on videos up to ten minutes long, but even a couple of minute clip might take hours to finish.
That delay may or may not be worthwhile depending on the sort of video you’re capturing. According to Google’s support material, it’s intended to allow you to “make videos on your Pixel phone in higher quality and with better lighting, colors, and details,” in any setting. But, according to group product manager Isaac Reynolds, the fundamental purpose of footage Boost is to improve low-light footage. “Think about it as Night Sight Video, because all of the tweaks to the other algorithms are all in pursuit of Night Sight.”
Depending on the type of video you’re recording, the delay may or may not be useful. According to Google’s documentation, it’s designed to let you “make videos on your Pixel phone in higher quality and with better lighting, colors, and details” in any situation. However, according to Isaac Reynolds, group product manager, the primary goal of video Boost is to improve low-light footage. “Think about it as Night Sight Video, because all of the tweaks to the other algorithms are all in pursuit of Night Sight.”
All of this clarifies what I’m seeing in my own Video Boost films. I don’t see much of a difference under decent lighting. Some colors stand out better, but I don’t see anything compelling me to utilize it on a daily basis when available light is ample. In extremely low light, Video Boost can recover color and information that would otherwise be lost in a regular video clip. However, the contrast between a conventional shot and a Night Sight photo under the same settings is not quite as striking.
But there’s a nice sweet spot between these two extremes where I can see Video Boost coming in useful.
