Can the Galaxy S26 Ultra record 8K video and what is APV format?

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nullYes, the Galaxy S26 Ultra can record 8K video at 30fps. But the bigger story is APV format, which is a first for any smartphone.

What's APV and why should you care?

APV stands for Advanced Professional Video. Samsung developed it, and the S26 Ultra is the first phone to support it. The key benefit: your video quality stays almost perfect even after you edit and re-export it multiple times. With regular video formats, quality degrades with each export. APV prevents that.

APV is about 20% more efficient than Apple's ProRes, so you get similar professional quality in smaller file sizes. The codec supports 12-bit color depth and 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, meaning colors look amazing and professional colorists have lots of information to work with.

Two ways to record:

HDR mode gives you footage ready to share with vibrant colors and balanced highlights. Log mode looks flat out of the camera but gives colorists maximum flexibility in post-production.

The catch: storage

8K APV footage eats storage fast. Expect 1 to 1.5 GB per minute for high-quality recording. For serious work, you need external storage with at least 400 MB/s write speeds.

Do you actually need this?

Professional videographers and content creators who edit footage multiple times will benefit from APV. For everyone else, regular 4K recording is plenty good and much easier on storage.

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