I just got the Pixel Video Boost feature today, and it is a true test in patience

Early this morning, I opened my camera on the Pixel 8 Pro to scan a QR code and the notification I’ve been waiting on since the October hardware event showed up, signifying that it was finally my turn to try out the new Video Boost feature Google showed off with the launch of the Pixel 8. It looks a little something like this:

Be patient as this feature arrives

I was initially really excited, but I was in the school drop-off line with my son, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to play with this new feature until I was settled somewhere. More than anything, I just wanted to know how it worked from a functionality standpoint. Do you turn it on before you shoot? Is it like the color pop and cinematic images in Google Photos where you just wait for it to apply and see what happens after the fact? Could I force a recording to be in the Video Boost mode if I choose?

But those answers would have to wait for a few minutes. At the next red light I came to, I went to at least dig in the camera settings to see that I actually had the new Video Boost feature, and much to my surprise, I found absolutely nothing. There wasn’t a single setting that would hint at the fact that I had Video Boost at my disposal now.

I took a quick video hoping to see some sort of notification that Video Boost was being processed on it, but nothing happened. And it was at this point I started to wonder if perhaps I had fat-fingered the pushing of the “Turn on Video Boost” button and started searching for any way I could manually try again. Alas, there were no settings or other indications that I did or did not enable Video Boost, so I just waited a bit. Patience.

Once I got to the office and tackled my normal routine, I returned to my camera app and though nothing changed at the outset, I clicked over to my video camera settings and I now had a section in my quick settings (where stuff like frame-rate, HDR, stabilization, etc. live) just for Video Boost. Time to try it out!

How Video Boost works

Like other video features, you can turn it on or off, and when you do use it to record a video, the standard version is available immediately. The boosted version is processed on Google’s servers via Google Photos and you get a notification when it is ready. And you get a little icon at the top of the screen as well to let you know that the current video is capturing with Video Boost turned on. It is also worth noting that when you exit and return to the camera app, Video Boost will default back to the “off” state.

Finally, the other odd point that I’m unsure about with all of this is in the last of the photos below. The time allotted for the processing of my video depends on multiple factors and most of those make plenty of sense. Specifically, both the length of video and internet connection speed clearly matter for backing up and processing time on Google’s servers. But what does my battery status have anything to do with how this is taken care of in the cloud? Is there something locally still happening on the Pixel 8 Pro to pull this off? I’m not quite sure just yet.

Be very patient as your Video Boost processes

It took a long while for my video to get finished processing, and I’m really hoping Google’s servers get better at this over time. I don’t mind waiting 20 or 30 minutes, but it took a solid 2 hours for a 45-second video to process; and yes I know I said to exercise patience, but this seems a bit egregious. Hopefully this was an early hiccup and I won’t be waiting this long in the future.

That being said, the before and after are pretty interesting to look at. For reference, I filmed the original in 4K/30 with 10-bit HDR turned on. And for videos you take with Video Boost on, when you view them in Google Photos, you’ll see two options to choose from at the bottom: original and boosted. To me, the standard video looks really good on its own, but the Video Boost does add a level of HDR that is pretty astounding. Take a look for yourself.

Now that I have this power at my disposal, I’ll be putting it to the test in a handful of conditions. Rarely do I need to take a quality video and share it immediately, so if I can snag great footage with Video Boost on and have it available to me later on for sharing, I think I’ll take advantage of it quite often. The increase in quality of the video is just too good to ignore, and once again we see Google attacking one of its weaknesses (video) with not just a hardware solution, but a software one as well. I’m interested to see how good this can get.