diff --git a/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.test.ts b/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.test.ts
index 4332c359d..d0d42c7bd 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.test.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.test.ts
@@ -41,11 +41,33 @@ describe("pageScreenshotCapture supersample plumbing", () => {
     expect(send).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
       "Page.captureScreenshot",
       expect.objectContaining({
+        captureBeyondViewport: false,
         clip: { x: 0, y: 0, width: 1920, height: 1080, scale: 1 },
       }),
     );
   });
 
+  it("uses captureBeyondViewport only when callers opt in", async () => {
+    const send = vi.fn().mockResolvedValue({ data: ONE_PIXEL_PNG_B64 });
+    const page = makeFakePageWithCdp(send);
+
+    await pageScreenshotCapture(page, {
+      width: 1080,
+      height: 1920,
+      fps: { num: 30, den: 1 },
+      format: "jpeg",
+      captureBeyondViewport: true,
+    });
+
+    expect(send).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
+      "Page.captureScreenshot",
+      expect.objectContaining({
+        captureBeyondViewport: true,
+        clip: { x: 0, y: 0, width: 1080, height: 1920, scale: 1 },
+      }),
+    );
+  });
+
   it("passes `clip` with scale 1 when deviceScaleFactor is exactly 1", async () => {
     const send = vi.fn().mockResolvedValue({ data: ONE_PIXEL_PNG_B64 });
     const page = makeFakePageWithCdp(send);
diff --git a/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.ts b/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.ts
index ffbe0be56..9e15c0773 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/services/screenshotService.ts
@@ -135,11 +135,10 @@ export async function pageScreenshotCapture(page: Page, options: CaptureOptions)
     format: isPng ? "png" : "jpeg",
     quality: isPng ? undefined : (options.quality ?? 80),
     fromSurface: true,
-    // The explicit clip rect constrains output to exact composition
-    // dimensions. The viewport-boundary pre-clip from captureBeyondViewport:
-    // false is redundant, and Chrome's compositor rounds it inward under
-    // multi-tab load — clipping the bottom/right edge of tall viewports.
-    captureBeyondViewport: true,
+    // Use Chrome's faster viewport-bound screenshot path by default. Callers
+    // opt into the beyond-viewport path only for known compositor edge cases,
+    // such as native video surfaces in tall portrait renders.
+    captureBeyondViewport: options.captureBeyondViewport ?? false,
     optimizeForSpeed: !isPng,
     clip,
   });
@@ -172,7 +171,8 @@ export async function captureScreenshotWithAlpha(
     const result = await client.send("Page.captureScreenshot", {
       format: "png",
       fromSurface: true,
-      captureBeyondViewport: true, // see pageScreenshotCapture for rationale
+      // Preserve the #1094 tall-portrait edge-clipping guard on HDR alpha captures.
+      captureBeyondViewport: true,
       optimizeForSpeed: false, // `true` uses a zero-alpha-aware fast path that crushes real alpha values — observed empirically, CDP docs don't spell it out
       clip: { x: 0, y: 0, width, height, scale: 1 },
     });
@@ -237,7 +237,8 @@ export async function captureAlphaPng(page: Page, width: number, height: number)
   const result = await client.send("Page.captureScreenshot", {
     format: "png",
     fromSurface: true,
-    captureBeyondViewport: true, // see pageScreenshotCapture for rationale
+    // Preserve the #1094 tall-portrait edge-clipping guard on HDR alpha captures.
+    captureBeyondViewport: true,
     optimizeForSpeed: false, // must be false to preserve alpha
     clip: { x: 0, y: 0, width, height, scale: 1 },
   });
diff --git a/packages/engine/src/types.ts b/packages/engine/src/types.ts
index 726b14a36..ff9caf600 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/types.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/types.ts
@@ -92,6 +92,13 @@ export interface CaptureOptions {
   format?: "jpeg" | "png";
   quality?: number;
   deviceScaleFactor?: number;
+  /**
+   * Opt into Chrome's capture-beyond-viewport screenshot path. Keep this off
+   * for ordinary viewport-sized captures because it is substantially slower in
+   * Chrome's screenshot compositor path. Enable for known compositor edge cases
+   * such as native video surfaces in tall portrait renders.
+   */
+  captureBeyondViewport?: boolean;
   /**
    * FFmpeg-probed intrinsic dimensions for videos whose frames are injected
    * out-of-band. Applied before the readiness wait so layout that depends on
diff --git a/packages/producer/src/services/distributed/renderChunk.ts b/packages/producer/src/services/distributed/renderChunk.ts
index b1cc2588d..d87962175 100644
--- a/packages/producer/src/services/distributed/renderChunk.ts
+++ b/packages/producer/src/services/distributed/renderChunk.ts
@@ -507,6 +507,7 @@ export async function renderChunk(
       // declare `data-composition-variables` leave this undefined and the
       // engine skips the `evaluateOnNewDocument` injection.
       variables: encoder.variables,
+      captureBeyondViewport: (planVideos?.videos.length ?? 0) > 0,
       // lock the BeginFrame warmup loop to a fixed iteration count so
       // `beginFrameTimeTicks` is host-independent. Only chunks ever set this.
       lockWarmupTicks: true,
diff --git a/packages/producer/src/services/render/observability.ts b/packages/producer/src/services/render/observability.ts
index ffc0cfa61..130346824 100644
--- a/packages/producer/src/services/render/observability.ts
+++ b/packages/producer/src/services/render/observability.ts
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ export interface BrowserDiagnosticSummary {
 export interface RenderCaptureObservability {
   forceScreenshot: boolean;
   captureMode: "screenshot" | "beginframe";
+  captureBeyondViewport?: boolean;
   workerCount?: number;
   useStreamingEncode?: boolean;
   useLayeredComposite?: boolean;
diff --git a/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.ts b/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.ts
index 6bc15b7a8..ec33f792a 100644
--- a/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.ts
+++ b/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.ts
@@ -1213,7 +1213,11 @@ export async function executeRenderJob(
       quality: needsAlpha ? undefined : job.config.quality === "draft" ? 80 : 95,
       variables: job.config.variables,
       deviceScaleFactor,
+      captureBeyondViewport: composition.videos.length > 0,
     };
+    updateCaptureObservability({
+      captureBeyondViewport: captureOptions.captureBeyondViewport ?? false,
+    });
 
     // Capture sessions do not need native browser metadata for videos whose
     // pixels come from out-of-band FFmpeg frame extraction. Waiting on those
@@ -1438,6 +1442,7 @@ export async function executeRenderJob(
     observability.checkpoint("capture_strategy", "resolved", {
       workerCount,
       forceScreenshot: captureForceScreenshot,
+      captureBeyondViewport: captureOptions.captureBeyondViewport ?? false,
       useStreamingEncode,
       useLayeredComposite,
       usePageSideCompositing: usePageSideCompositingForTransitions,