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200-megapixel sensors can simultaneously record a wide-angle and zoomed-in shot, and can also track subjects across a frame.
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Samsung has released a demonstration of its ISOCELL Zoom Anyplace tech which uses the company’s high resolution 200-megapixel sensors to pull off some nifty tricks with video zoom. The feature can “simultaneously capture the full field of view and zoomed-in areas on video” and automatically track and film a moving subject within the frame. Samsung first teased Zoom Anyplace at a press conference earlier this month.
Although the company doesn’t say exactly which devices will get the new Zoom Anyplace feature, all signs point to the company’s next-generation Galaxy S24 Ultra flagship which is likely to be announced early next year.
For starters, the S24 Ultra is rumored to be equipped with the requisite 200-megapixel sensor for the feature, similar to the main sensor found in this year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung’s promotional video mentions that the feature is “accelerated by the Qualcomm AI Engine” while showing a logo for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, which is the chip rumored to be powering the S24 Ultra globally.
Samsung isn’t the first company to have thought up a zoom feature like this, following the Honor 90’s Solo Cut Mode. But while Honor’s implementation of the feature limited the resolution of both videos to 1080p, Samsung says its version will be able to record in 4K even when zooming in up to 4x.
Zoom Anyplace is also capable of zooming in and out mid-shot, and Samsung claims it should also work on subjects right on the edge of the frame. At the Samsung System LSI Tech Day 2023 earlier this month, Samsung showed off the feature with its 200-megapixel ISOCELL HP2 sensor, which it announced in January 2023.
In addition to ISOCELL Zoom Anyplace, Samsung also details a feature it’s calling “End-to-End (E2E) AI Remosaic” which it says should help cut image processing times for 200-megapixel images by as much as half. It works by adjusting the image processing process to carry out the remosaicing and image signal processing steps in parallel, rather than carrying them out in sequence. The company says this should also reduce data lost due to latency, resulting in photos with “richer details and colors.”
Samsung’s press release doesn’t contain any information on when these features may debut, but the company is rumored to be preparing to launch the Galaxy S24 lineup as early as January next year.