One of the coolest Galaxy S24 features that Samsung showed off at its Galaxy Unpacked event is the ability to take a snippet of any video captured by the devices and convert them into slow motion clips. It’s called Instant Slow-mo and leverages the new Galaxy AI editing tools of the phone to achieve this. Based on the demo Samsung showed off, it looked pretty legit.
But as an avid videographer, I was a little skeptical that it could actually pull it off and make it look realistic. Phones already have dedicated slow motion modes, including the Galaxy S24 series, but I understand how this specific feature could be helpful. When I’m shooting video with my phone, there could always be a moment when I think slow motion could make it look even more epic. Now, I can do this.
What I’m most interested in is how generative AI is filling in the gaps in between the frames — and how the end result looks because that’s what matters most. Now that I have the Galaxy S24 Ultra in hand, it’s time to see if it can pull off the impossible and make me a believer in the power of Galaxy AI.
Shoot now, worry later
When you shoot as much video as I do, you always have to be mindful about what resolution you’re shooting in and the frame rate. These are two very important parameters to keep an eye out because there are situations when I need to go to 30 or 60 frames per second as opposed to my usual 24 fps rate, but 60 fps is ideal for when I want to slow down the footage.
Thanks to Instant Slow-mo on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, now I don’t have to be concerned about those parameters because I can shoot in any resolution and frame rate — and then later on — select the snippet I need to slow down. For candid moments that I don’t expect to capture on video, it’s incredibly handy to apply a slow motion effect without the need to shoot in a dedicated mode.
Galaxy S24 Ultra: AI slow motion looks convincing
After applying the Instant Slow-mo effect to the video above, I was impressed by how convincing the clip looked when I watched it on the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x display. Seriously, I couldn’t tell it was manipulated in any way because the portion that’s slowed down looks smooth. There’s no jerky effect or oddities that I’m able to see from a cursory inspection.
Besides the ice skater in the middle of the frame, the generative AI model that’s being leveraged here appropriately keeps the static elements in the video, like the small orange cones, in their respective positions as I move the camera to follow the ice skater. I captured a few more other videos where Instant Slow-mo’s effect looks pretty realistic…until I inspected the finer details.
Blurring the lines
In order for me to see what Galaxy AI is doing with these Instant Slow-mo videos, I inspected each frame of the slow motion effect to see what’s happening. From what I can see so far, there are some minor nuances that appear in another video I captured at the skating rink above. This time I shot it at 4K 30fps and you can see above how the skater in the gray hoodie at around 0:20 flies by really fast through the frame.
With the second clip below that shows off the slow motion effect applied, I can see that Samsung’s filling the gaps in its AI-produced frames by blending two frames together to produce the artificial ones. You can see it best with the skater’s hand with the gray hoodie on, which exhibits a ghosting effect that makes his glove somewhat transparent.
As much as I’d prefer more solid looking details, I can see how this approach better serves the slow motion effect. When you think about all the processing required from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, such as analyzing each frame to merge two together to form the artificial one, it’s pretty impressive how convincing the final result looks.
If this is what artificial intelligence could do to video, then I’m looking forward to what can do more for me in other areas pertaining to capturing photos and video. Sure, the camera hardware doesn’t seem like a tremendous upgrade over the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but its various Galaxy AI features are giving the flagship phone its biggest lift. Even better, Instant Slow-mo isn't exclusive to just the Galaxy S24 Ultra; you'll get it with the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus too.
