What is WhatsApp’s New High Video Quality Feature?

WhatsApp is testing out a new feature that will allow users to send videos in high-quality. The feature is currently available to some beta testers and is expected to be rolled out to all users in the coming weeks.

This was announced by WABetaInfo, the trusted source for all the WhatsApp updates that are in testing. The blog states: “The feature to send high-quality videos, along with enhancements for profile icons within group chats, is available to some beta testers that install the latest version of WhatsApp beta for iOS from the TestFlight app, and it is rolling out to even more people over the coming days.”

WhatsApp has been continuously launching new features for its platform. These features include the ability to create group polls, edit sent messages, and many other features that make the user experience better. 

Source: WABetaInfo

As the above image shows, users will need to select the "HD" option when sending the video. This option will be available in the same place where users currently select the quality of photos they send.

The feature might receive future updates as even when selecting a video, it shows the option of “Photo Quality”

When sending a video in HD, WhatsApp will compress the video slightly, but it will still be much higher quality than the standard video quality that is currently available. This will make it easier for users to share videos that are clear and sharp, even if they are being sent over a slow internet connection.

WABetaInfo mentions, “since the HD option now also appears when selecting a video from the Photos app. As we explained in our previous article where we announced the high-quality option for images, this option preserves video dimensions, but light compression is still applied to the video”.

It is also important to note that sending high-quality videos can use up more data than sending standard-quality videos. Therefore, users should be mindful of their data usage when sending high-quality videos.

Apart from this, the platform mentioned that this new update also includes additional improvements to profile icons in group chats. Earlier, if a contact's profile picture was hidden or unavailable, it would simply show as a blank grey circle. 

Now, these thumbnails will be changed to the initials of the contact's name. This will make it easier for other group members to identify them. 

The video sent in high quality will be marked as HD. Further, this update only works for the videos that are sent in chat and not on the ones that are being uploaded to WhatsApp status.

The blog mentions, “When users share a video using the high-quality option, it will be marked as a high-quality video in the conversation, and a new tag is automatically added to the message bubble, as shown in the attached screenshot.” 

“This additional information will help the recipient identify that the video was sent in better quality. It is important to mention that this feature is not available when sharing videos via status updates”, it added.

To conclude, the new update to WhatsApp includes a number of welcome improvements. The ability to send high-quality videos, the new profile icons in group chats, and the other changes are all likely to be appreciated by users.