(Yicai) July 29 -- Chinese smartphone giant Honor has teamed up with Germany's Arri Group, the world's leading motion picture gear maker, to develop cinematic imaging technologies and roll out the first-ever handsets with professional filmmaking capabilities.

Honor and Arri will leverage their respective strengths to advance the robot phone initiative by combining the former's full-stack "Chip-Device-Cloud" imaging engine with the latter's century-long cinematic aesthetics and color science know-how, the Shenzhen-based firm announced yesterday. The imaging system will also be extended to other products, including the upcoming Magic9 series, it pointed out.

For the first time in the industry, a robot phone will support the Arri LogC3 log gamma, multiple Arri Look image style presets, and the Arri Wide Gamut3, bringing professional filmmaking tools widely adopted by Hollywood blockbusters to a handset for the first time, Honor noted.

The collaboration with Honor is far more than a simple co-branding exercise, said Harald Brendel, chief scientist at Arri. It marks the first full integration of the firm's century of industrial cinematic color science into consumer-grade handsets, he added.

The robot phone will support 4K 120 frames per second slow-motion recording and 4K 60fps ultra-high-definition video capture, Honor said, adding that it will enable flexible real-time adjustment of beautification and skin smoothing intensity, allowing users to generate portrait videos with natural skin tones and authentic texture with a single tap.

Preloaded with a suite of Arri Look color profiles, the device will allow users to preview visual effects in real time and render finished footage instantly, Honor stressed.

Breakthrough improvements in imaging experience do not stem from linear upgrades to isolated hardware or algorithms, but from multiplicative synergy between optical light-sensing performance and intelligent processing power, Honor pointed out, dubbing the fundamental law governing imaging evolution as the "Law of Light and Intelligence Co-Evolution."

Artificial intelligence is evolving from an add-on feature into an integral component of underlying device architecture, noted Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of global device research at International Data Corporation. Future competition will no longer hinge primarily on standalone hardware specifications, but revolve around coordination across software, algorithms, chips, and ecosystems, he added.

The innovation focus of phone makers is shifting from incremental hardware upgrades to the holistic development of underlying tech systems, according to Jeronimo.

Editor: Martin Kadiev