HDR videos export as solid color from Photo library with certain presets

Question

Created Nov ’20

Replies 6

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Views 1.7k

Participants 5

It seems something is broken with exporting HDR videos from the photo library. We've used the same method to export videos for years now, but all of a sudden HDR videos from devices like the iPhone 12 Pro started exporting with a solid color instead of the actual video content.

We're exporting PHAssets using PHImageManager's requestExportSession(forVideo:options:exportPreset:resultHandler:) method with the preset AVAssetExportPreset960x540.

The code works just fine for non-HDR content. I haven't been able to test on earlier versions of iOS 14, but I believe this was also working prior to 14.2.

After a lot of trial and error, I found that using a different preset works. However, a few other presets are also exporting with a solid color: AVAssetExportPresetLowQuality, and AVAssetExportPresetMediumQuality.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Any advice other than using a different preset?

I've put together a sample project that demonstrates the issue here: https://github.com/pixelmatrix/iOS14-HDR-Export-Bug

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Answer 1

Media Engineer OP

Apple

Nov ’20

Sounds like a likely regression. Please report this to Apple using the feedback assistant.

0

Answer 2

pilosof OP

Nov ’20

happened to me, was a able "hack around it":

change to:
[[PHImageManager defaultManager] requestAVAssetForVideo:asset options:options resultHandler:^(AVAsset * Nullable avasset, AVAudioMix * Nullable audioMix, NSDictionary * _Nullable info)

then use:
AVAssetExportSession *exportSession=nil;
      if (avasset!=nil) {
        exportSession=[AVAssetExportSession exportSessionWithAsset:avasset presetName:AVAssetExportPresetMediumQuality];
      }

1

Answer 3

josh112 OP

Nov ’20

Thanks for the suggestion Media Engineer. Reported via Feedback Assistant: FB8914573.

@pilosof - thanks for sending this workaround. I will give that a shot.

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Answer 4

aldukeman OP

Dec ’20

Has there been any progress on this? I am still seeing solid colors (blue/cyan/turquoise in most cases) when using some presets which are supposed to be compatible according to the class function on AVAssetExportSession: determineCompatibility(ofExportPreset:with:outputFileType:completionHandler:)

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Answer 5

josh112 OP

Dec ’20

@aldukeman - My bug report to Apple has changed status to "Potential fix identified for future OS update". Hopefully we'll see a fix in the next iOS version.

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Answer 6

SAHunt OP

Dec ’20

Does anyone have an update on whether or not this is still an issue on 14.3? I have been experiencing this same issue with my app when we upload videos, but I see that in the newest 14.3 patch notes there is a bug fix which reads:

"Some videos would not appear correctly when shared from the Photos app"

I am trying to test it, but I would love to know if anyone has found this update to solve the problem for them.

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