TL;DR:

  • iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16 models can shoot spatial video at 1080p 30fps using both front and rear camera pairs
  • Spatial video plays back on Apple Vision Pro in immersive 3D, and on Meta Quest 3 and 3S through the Apple immersive app
  • Files are large (around 400MB per minute), editing requires Final Cut Pro or compatible software, and sharing is easiest through iCloud Photos

The moment people try spatial video for the first time in a Vision Pro or Quest headset, they tend to have the same reaction: genuine surprise at how different it feels from regular video. Your brain reads the depth cues as real. People you’ve filmed are present in the room with you in a way that flat video never achieves. It’s one of the few spatial computing features that immediately makes sense to non-technical people.

Getting good spatial video requires understanding a few constraints that don’t apply to normal filming. Here’s a practical guide.

Which devices can record spatial video

iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max were the first iPhones to support spatial video, shooting at 1080p 30fps. Both front and rear camera setups can capture it, but rear camera spatial video uses the main and ultrawide lenses, which are physically closer together than ideal — more on why this matters in a moment.

iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max improved this significantly. The cameras have slightly wider separation and the processing has been refined, which results in noticeably better depth at normal distances. The 16 Pro models also added spatial video support in Cinematic mode.

iPhone 16 and 16 Plus (the non-Pro models) also support spatial video via the front camera. Useful for spatial selfies and video calls, but limited to front camera only.

For everyone else: certain Android devices with dual-camera setups can record 3D video in formats compatible with Meta Quest, but Apple Vision Pro currently only plays back spatial video from Apple devices or content encoded in MV-HEVC through Apple’s tools.

How to enable and shoot it

On an eligible iPhone, go to Settings > Camera > Formats and enable “Apple ProRes” (Pro models) or look for the Spatial Video toggle under record video settings. When the feature is on, a spatial video icon appears in the Camera app in Video mode.

The technical format is MV-HEVC (Multi-View High Efficiency Video Coding) — essentially two slightly offset video streams encoded together as a single file. These files are substantially larger than regular video: roughly 400MB per minute at 1080p 30fps. Budget storage accordingly if you’re shooting events.

Shooting tips that actually matter:

Distance from subject. Spatial video works best at 1–3 metres. Much closer and the 3D effect becomes uncomfortable (the eyes fight the depth cue). Much further and the depth effect flattens. Think portrait photography distance rather than landscape.

Keep the camera steady. Handheld wobble is much more noticeable in spatial video than regular video because the viewer’s brain is looking for consistent depth cues. A gimbal or at least two hands make a significant difference.

Avoid quick pans. Slow, intentional movement works. Fast pans cause a “depth tearing” effect that breaks the immersion. Think documentary rather than action.

Lighting. The computational depth processing relies on visual separation between subjects and backgrounds. Flat, even lighting or very bright backgrounds make it harder for the system to resolve depth. Some foreground/background contrast in the lighting helps.

Horizontal framing. Spatial video is a landscape format — always. Portrait orientation doesn’t record as spatial video.

Editing spatial video

If you’re using a Mac, Final Cut Pro (version 10.6.5 or later) supports spatial video natively. You can import spatial video files, apply basic edits, colour grade, and add titles, then export back to spatial video format. The editing timeline shows a flattened 2D view; the spatial effect is preserved in the file metadata.

For simple trims and cuts, the Photos app on iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro handles basic editing directly without exporting to another app.

Third-party options are limited but growing. Adobe Premiere Pro has MV-HEVC import support but export back to spatial format is more complex. DaVinci Resolve has been adding spatial video support incrementally.

What you can’t easily do at the moment: add complex motion graphics, compositing, or VFX that respect the 3D depth. Spatial video editing remains fairly basic compared to regular video post-production. For content creation beyond cuts and colour, this is a real constraint.

Sharing and playback

The easiest distribution path is iCloud Photos. Spatial videos stored in iCloud retain their spatial format and play back automatically when viewed on Vision Pro or through the immersive viewer on compatible devices. There’s no re-encoding step.

For sharing with someone who has a Meta Quest 3 or 3S: Apple’s Apple Immersive Video app on Quest supports MV-HEVC spatial video files. Export from Photos as the original file and transfer to the Quest via a USB cable or the Quest’s file transfer app.

For sharing broadly (people without headsets): spatial video files play as regular 2D video in any standard video player. The file looks normal on a phone or laptop screen — it just doesn’t appear 3D. You lose the effect entirely but the footage is still usable.

YouTube has spatial video support for Vision Pro users; you can upload an MV-HEVC file and YouTube preserves the spatial format for headset viewers while serving regular 2D to everyone else.

What it’s actually good for

The use cases where spatial video genuinely adds something: family milestones, travel memories, events where the presence of people matters more than production quality. Watching your child’s birthday party in Vision Pro a year later is a different experience from watching it on a phone screen. The same goes for capturing places — a spatial video from a holiday has a quality that flat footage doesn’t.

What it’s less suited for: anything where the depth range exceeds the sweet spot, fast action or sport, situations where you can’t control framing and distance, or any context where post-production matters.

The technology is improving quickly. The gap between the 15 Pro and 16 Pro results already showed meaningful progress. Expect the shooting constraints to loosen as the camera hardware and processing improve in future iPhone generations.