Samsung is gearing up to take on Apple by introducing its own pro-grade video recording codec with the Galaxy S26 next year. The company first talked about its Advanced Professional Video codec (APV) at its annual developer conference in 2023. But the codec never made its way to its flagship phones. This will seemingly change with the Galaxy S26 lineup next year.
Despite offering plenty of high-end video recording features like HDR10 support, Samsung phones have long trailed behind iPhones because they lack support for a true professional-grade codec. Leaked One UI 8.5 firmware files point to the company making amends with the Galaxy S26 next year by adding APV support (via @UniverseIce).
APV is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s ProRes codec, offering up to 20% better space efficiency. It supports lossless video recording with full LOG and HDR capabilities. Plus, it supports 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, 12-bit color depth, and more.
The codec supposedly also supports two recording profiles: HQ and LQ. The former takes 1GB of space for every minute of video recorded at Full HD resolution, while LQ drops the space required to 0.75GB. Even better, like on the iPhone, Samsung will allow saving APV videos directly to external storage.
Currently, the best Galaxy phones max out at recording 4K HDR10 videos. While this will work for most consumers, professionals who need more flexibility would still gravitate towards the iPhone with its ProRes recording support.
Google integrated APV codec support into Android 16, likely paving the way for Samsung to bring this feature to its future phones.
That’s not the only video-related improvement Samsung plans to make to the Galaxy S26 series. The phones will seemingly feature a GoPro-like Horizon Lock feature, enabling you to record super-stable videos despite a lot of movement. You’ll also be able to customize Motion Photos. While minor, the Samsung Camera app will purportedly gain the ability to scan multiple pages back-to-back with One UI 8.5 and Galaxy S26 series.
Another rumored change: the ability to directly apply LUTs to LOG videos from the Gallery app. While this is already possible on iPhones and high-end Android phones, it requires using an advanced third-party camera app.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s upgraded video recording chops should pair nicely with its improved camera hardware, which supposedly includes a wider-aperture 200MP primary sensor for more light intake.