Video HDR

Video HDR captures Frames in a higher dynamic range, which allows much brighter highlights and deeper shadows.

Enable Video HDR

To enable Video HDR, find a CameraFormat that supports video HDR via supportsVideoHDR:

const device = ...
const format = useCameraFormat(device, [
  { videoHDR: true }
])

const device = ...
const format = getCameraFormat(device, [
  { videoHDR: true }
])

Then, enable Video HDR in your Camera session:

function App() {
  const device = ...
  const format = useCameraFormat(device, [
    { videoHDR: true }
  ])
  const enableVideoHDR = format.supportsVideoHDR

  return (
    <Camera
      style={StyleSheet.absoluteFill}
      isActive={true}
      device={device}
      format={format}
      enableVideoHDR={enableVideoHDR}
    />
  )
}

function App() {
  const device = ...
  const format = useCameraFormat(device, [
    { videoHDR: true }
  ])
  const enableVideoHDR = format.supportsVideoHDR

  const camera = useCamera({
    isActive: true,
    device: device,
    format: format,
    enableVideoHDR: enableVideoHDR
  })
}

const session = ...
const device = ...
const format = useCameraFormat(device, [
  { videoHDR: true }
])
const enableVideoHDR = format.supportsVideoHDR

const controllers = await session.configure([
  {
    input: device,
    outputs: [],
    config: {
      format: format,
      enableVideoHDR: enableVideoHDR
    }
  }
], {})

Implementation details

Video HDR is implemented in four different ways, possibly combined.

Higher Bit-Depth

Some Video HDR pipelines capture Frames with a higher bit-depth (10-bit instead of 8-bit) allowing for a wider color-spectrum.

Different Transfer Function

Video SDR (standard dynamic range) uses a simple gamma curve for color mapping (e.g. BT.1886), which is limited in brightness range.

Video HDR often use a different transfer functions - often PQ (HDR10/Dolby) or HLG, which fundamentally changes how brightness is encoded.

Different Color Spaces

The transfer functions often also affect color-spaces - while Video SDR typically uses 'srgb', an HDR pipeline uses a wider color-space like 'hlg-bt2020'.

Extended Dynamic Range

Many Apple devices support capturing video using "Extended Dynamic Range", which internally doubles Video Frame Rate (see "FPS") to capture an under-exposed, an over-exposed and a regularly-exposed Frame in one go and fuses them together to create a more widely-exposed Frame - this is similar to how "Photo HDR" works.