MIUI Camera reveals a future Xiaomi phone will support [email protected] videos

The phone may have the next flagship Snapdragon chip

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This week, Xiaomi has once again shown us just how capable they are of making class-leading phones at different prices. At the budget segment, the company unveiled the Redmi 8A with a 6.2″ HD+ display, 5000mAh battery, Snapdragon 439, 18W charging support, and 12MP Sony IMX 363 for Rs. 6499 (~$92.) At the budget flagship segment, they announced the Mi 9 Pro with 5G connectivity, 30W wireless charging, 10W reverse wireless charging, and the Snapdragon 855 Plus for ~$520. Finally, they went absolutely bonkers with the ~$2800 Mi MIX Alpha and its 180% screen-to-body ratio to prove they can innovate. It seems that Xiaomi still has more tricks up its sleeve, though, as we discovered evidence in the MIUI Camera app that a future smartphone will support recording videos at 8K resolution at 30fps.

Alongside the Mi 9 Pro 5G and Mi MIX Alpha unveiling, Xiaomi also revealed a new version of its Android-based software, MIUI. The main highlight of the MIUI 11 update is the new design, but of course, there’s also an updated camera app. Since MIUI 11 betas started to roll out in China, we took the time to analyze the latest MIUI Camera APK to find new features. XDA Junior Member kackskrz tipped us off about the inclusion of strings for capturing UHD/8K videos at 30fps.

<string name="pref_video_quality_entry_8kuhd">UHD 8K, 30fps</string> <string name="video_ultra_clear_tip_8k">8K UHD</string>

Looking into the code, we spotted evidence in classes related to configuring the video quality that reveals that the output resolution of this new profile is indeed 7680×4320, or 8K. We also spotted a new drawable resource for the [email protected] recording mode. The [email protected] logo next to the Mi logo in the featured image shown at the top of this article was actually pulled directly from the latest MIUI Camera app. Thus, we can conclude that Xiaomi is working on adding this video recording profile in the future.

Future Xiaomi Phone with [email protected] Video Recording

The next question, then, is what Xiaomi phone will this feature end up on? I eliminated the idea that it’s a camera mode on the new Mi MIX Alpha since it wasn’t mentioned in any online coverage, isn’t listed on the official product page, and it exceeds the technical specifications provided by Samsung. (Samsung’s 108MP Bright HMX camera sensor is capable of video recording at up to 6K resolution at 30fps.) No other Xiaomi phone supports recording videos at this quality, so it’ll definitely debut on a new device. Interestingly, the new Mi TV Pro is capable of 8K video playback, so Xiaomi may position its new smartphone with 8K video recording as a complement to its new 4K Mi TV.

I don’t think this new camera mode will debut on any new smartphone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, though, since the technical specifications for the Spectra 380 ISP list [email protected] as the maximum supported video recording quality. While it is possible to push the Spectra 380 to process [email protected], as shown on the Red Magic 3, it struggles to handle it. On the ASUS ZenFone 6 and ASUS ROG Phone II, it’s possible to record videos at [email protected] (!) using a custom profile in FreeDCam (thanks for that tip, XDA Senior Member defcomg!), but the experience is far from pleasant as EIS isn’t supported.

I suspect that an upgraded Spectra ISP in the next Qualcomm Snapdragon flagship SoC will be capable of handling [email protected], which if true, means this new camera profile will debut on a Xiaomi flagship with the next flagship Snapdragon chip. However, we don’t have any confirmed details we can share for the next flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC, so we can’t say for sure which SoC will power the Xiaomi smartphone with this feature. Once we have more concrete details, we’ll let you know.

Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.