Photo: Kicking Studio (Shutterstock)
The iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max all have their own minor differences, but they share one major feature: Dolby Vision HDR. This format gives the videos you shoot on your iPhone 12 a fantastic dynamic range, and it looks truly great on the right display. Up until now, however, there haven’t been many sources or devices you could share this video to—but hat’s starting to change.
What is Dolby Vision HDR?
Dolby Vision is Dolby’s branded version of HDR (high-dynamic-range), and is a video format that you can enable for your iPhone 12; that format makes it possible to have a greater dynamic range (lights become brighter, darks become darker). It also provides 10-bit video recording, which gives your video a much wider spectrum of colors than the standard 8-bit video recording on many other devices.
Dolby Vision looks great on devices and displays that are compatible with the format—such as your iPhone. The problem comes with devices that aren’t compatible with the format. You see, Dolby Vision’s proprietary HDR format allows them to give instructions to the display scene-by-scene; devices and displays without an ability to read those instructions aren’t able to properly reproduce the intended experience.
As such, in order to play video shot with Dolby Vision on an incompatible device, you need to convert the video into a format that is compatible. Your iPhone does this for you automatically; sometimes, it’ll still look good; other times, not so much. But either way, it won’t have the full HDR experience that you recorded it with.
G/O Media may get a commission
You can now share Dolby Vision HDR video with Vimeo
Lucky for us, times are a-changin’. Vimeo now lets you upload and share Dolby Vision video shot on any of the iPhone 12 lineup directly to their online video streaming platform. No video degradation, no format conversions; just your homemade 4K Dolby Vision HDR video.
You can upload Dolby Vision HDR video directly to Vimeo from the Photos app. Just make sure you have Vimeo installed on your iPhone, tap the Share icon when viewing the video, then choose Vimeo from the share options. Of course, you can also manually upload Dolby Vision HDR videos from iMovie or Final Cut Pro, as well.
For now, Vimeo is the only source that is compatible with Dolby Vision. Other video platforms, like YouTube, will still convert your video when you upload, so we still have a ways to go before Dolby Vision video is widely supported. Still, it’s nice to have a place to store your Dolby Vision videos, so you can share them with other people who might have a compatible display.
[Gizmodo]
