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MVMNT

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 28, 2010
556
755
As Safari still isn't offering anything above 1080p viewing for Youtube, I decided to see how the latest reel, shot on the iPhone 12 Pro, looked in Chrome, maxed out on my 2019 Retina 5K iMac.

I know that the 2019 does not support HDR (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210980) but I was not ready for this.

All the resolutions got a forced bump to HDR in Chrome, there's no option without it. The contrast between browsers and looks was night and day.

Chrome (left) looked a mess. The Highlights were totally gone, like these were shot on hardware from years ago that couldn't capture any dynamic range. Any light sources were white hot, blacks were crushed, and the entire thing felt over-sharpened like an over-processed iPhone look of yesteryear.

Safari on the other hand, despite on paper offering the inferior viewing experience, looked MUCH nicer. Dynamic felt more prseent, the image felt softer than any previous iPhone footage, that personally I thought was needed.

Not sure what's going on with Chrome here, maybe they need to update encode support, but it's definitely worth considering when uploading any footage on release. Especially when HDR is and always on option for Google's browser on a non HDR capable device.
 

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HDR is a feature that needs to be judiciously implemented.

Even professionally mastered content can sometimes suffer from poor implementation.

We will see what the 12 pro footage looks like.

Watching 1080p youtube on my apple TV however, looks awful compared to HDR 4k on my native youtube App, or Nvidia Shield.
 
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