How to prevent Pixel camera changing to 30 FPS

[chawke]

On my Pixel 7a, the camera intermittently switches back to 30 FPS if it's on 60. For example, if I set it on 60 one day and shoot some vids at 60, the next day I'll shoot another vid and notice it's back on 30. "Optimize FPS" is off. I read sometimes low light can cause it to automatically switch to 60. It seemed it had switched back to 30 when I shot a vid in a dimly-lit restaurant last night, although the vids before that which I shot outside in the dark were still 60 with no visibility issues. I want to keep it on 60 especially because panning on 30 makes things much blurrier and less visible compared to 60. Is there a way to force FPS to stay on 60? Android 16 (BP3A.251105.015).

 

[B. Diddy]

Are you able to take videos in ultra-wide on the Pixel 7a? If so, that drops the FPS down to 30, so if you've been taking some ultra-wide videos, that might be the reason.

 

[chawke]

Are you able to take videos in ultra-wide on the Pixel 7a? If so, that drops the FPS down to 30, so if you've been taking some ultra-wide videos, that might be the reason.

The Pixel 7a can record as wide as 0.5x zoom in 60 FPS at 1080p. The limitation for 0.5x zoom on this phone is it can't be used with 4K+60 FPS. If 4K is manually selected while on 60 FPS, the zoom switches to 1x (the widest available at that combo). I haven't been able to replicate a scenario where 30 FPS is automatically selected based on zoom and resolution settings.

 

[mustang7757]

Moved this to the pixel 7a Forums

 

[chawke]

Sent feedback to Google:

Feedback/Complaint(bug?): Camera seems to switch from 60 FPS to 30 FPS in some (but not all) relatively low-light conditions (it actually didn't switch in some conditions that were darker than conditions it switched in). At least, this seems to be a general correlation; unsure of the actual cause. The automatic switch from 60 to 30 FPS is not desired, as it makes the video noticeably less smooth and harder to track when the camera is panning due to increased blurriness (confirmed by viewer feedback), and, on manually switching it back to 60, no issues with quality were noted - lighting was still sufficient for viewing (lighting comparable to 30 FPS). There should at least be a setting to disable the automatic switching of 60 to 30 FPS in low-light conditions - and any other scenarios where it may switch. Note that "Optimize FPS" in Camera settings was already off, yet the switches still occurred, on more than one occasion recently.

 

[Bkdodger1]

What do you have set on this setting?

 

[chawke]

What do you have set on this setting?

Video stabilization is currently on but sometimes I have it off. Don't recall if on/off when it happened.

Also received a reply in official Google Photos community:

"At the moment, there isn’t a way to truly lock the Pixel camera to 60 FPS.

Even with “Optimize FPS” turned off, the Pixel Camera app still makes automatic adjustments in the background. If the camera decides that lighting conditions, stabilization, heat, or power usage aren’t ideal, it will switch back to 30 FPS on its own. Unfortunately, this can happen without any clear warning, and the setting doesn’t always persist between sessions.
Low or mixed lighting (like indoor restaurants), HDR video, higher resolutions (especially 4K60), or a warm device all make the camera more likely to fall back to 30 FPS. That’s why you may see 60 FPS working fine in some dark outdoor scenes but not indoors.

Right now, the only real workarounds are:
Double-check the FPS setting before recording each time
Use 1080p instead of 4K when recording at 60 FPS
Avoid HDR video when possible
Keep the phone cool
Try a third-party camera app if you need stricter manual control (with the trade-off of losing some Pixel processing)
So unfortunately, this is expected behavior with the Pixel Camera app rather than a bug or a hidden setting you’re missing. The only permanent fix would be for Google to add a true “lock FPS” option in a future update."