This is a guest review by Samuel Bilodeau who just completed testing the Dolby Vision HDR features of his new iPhone 12 Pro Max. Let’s see what conclusion he came up with. The new iPhone 12’s been out in the wild for a short while, and I’ve been taking mine for a spin to test out the feature that made me open my wallet and upgrade: the new native Dolby Vision HDR shooting. As a professional with over 5 years experience grading and teaching on HDR, I needed to know, is it any good? Three things went through my head when Apple announced the new iPhones back in October 2020, and I saw the words “HDR video recording with Dolby Vision”. First came the thought “Wait, what? How?”. Next came the thought “But will it actually be any good?”. And then lastly “well, it looks like I’m upgrading my phone this year.” I bought the iPone 12 Pro Max, and received my new phone on release day for that model, November 13th. Then it was time to start answering questions. How Does Dolby Vision on iPhone 12 Work? If you’re familiar with HDR formats you’ll know a couple of things. First, Dolby Vision mastering uses the Perceptual Quantization (PQ, SMPTE-ST.2084) transfer function, developed by Dolby and the first HDR video format released. But PQ is an exclusively display referred transfer function, which means you can’t (shouldn’t) use it for shooting or grading. So what dark magic is Apple using for...
Published By: CineD - Wednesday, 9 December, 2020