New Netflix Feature Unlocks Better Picture Quality For Millions Of TV Owners
Netflix has revealed that it's just added a new feature to its film and TV show streaming service that should instantly improve picture quality for millions of its subscribers around the world.
This new feature is support for the HDR10+ high dynamic range video format; a premium type of HDR that adds extra scene by scene picture data to the video stream that compatible TVs can use to reproduce more accurate, more detailed and, usually, more dynamic looking HDR pictures.
Netflix has been providing HDR to premium tier subscribers with the vast majority of its new in-productions for years. Until now, though, these HDR productions have only been available either in the core HDR10 format, which doesn't provide specific scene by scene image information, or in Dolby Vision. Like HDR10+, Dolby Vision also introduces extra scene by scene data to the video stream – but it's not supported by all TVs.
Samsung, in particular, has never supported Dolby Vision on its TVs; indeed, Samsung was actually the main driving force behind developing HDR10+ as an open source alternative to Dolby Vision (which requires a licence to use), and almost all of its HDR-capable TVs have carried HDR10+ support for almost a decade now.
Given that Samsung has been the world's number one selling TV brand for 19 consecutive years, the brand's lack of Dolby Vision support must be enough in itself to mean there are many millions of potential Netflix subscribers out there around the world whose TVs have until now been restricted to the basic HDR10 system for watching Netflix shows. And that's before you also take into account that there are/have been plenty of other different-brand TVs and, more recently, projectors in the world that also support the HDR10+ enhanced HDR system but not Dolby Vision.
With this in mind it makes perfect sense for Netflix to join rivals including Apple TV+, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video in adding HDR10+ support to its platform. In fact, arguably the biggest surprise here is why it's taken the usually innovative streaming platform so long.
A quick scan of HDR content on Netflix shows that the HDR10+ support has rolled out already across an extensive range of content. This doesn't just include Netflix's own recent productions, either; it's already present on some recent third-party films such as Universal's Super Mario Bros Movie, and No Hard Feelings.
In a post about the new HDR10+ support on its Tech Blog, Netflix reveals that it's been beavering away for some time now at creating HDR10+ streams for 'both new releases and existing popular HDR titles.' In fact, it states that HDR10+ support now accounts for 50% of all 'eligible viewing hours,' adding that it will 'continue expanding [its] HDR10+ offerings with the goal of providing an HDR10+ experience for all HDR titles by the end of this year.'
That's a bold claim given how much HDR content Netflix has on its platform, but given how much HDR10+ content it's managed to make available at launch there seems no reason to doubt that it will get there over the next eight months.
Netflix's Tech Blog also explains that its HDR10+ streams are being delivered using the ultra-efficient AV1 video codec which the streamer first enabled for its SDR streams, adding that Netflix expects that using AV1 for HDR10+ will soon make it the most streamed Netflix codec, overtaking the H.264/AVC system.
As well as needing an HDR10+ and AV1-capable TV (or other video streaming device), accessing HDR10+ streams will require a Netflix Premium plan subscription.
If you've got a TV that supports Dolby Vision rather than HDR10+, don't worry: The addition of HDR10+ to Netflix's streaming options isn't going to supplant the streamer's long running Dolby Vision support. In fact, one of the footnotes to the Netflix Tech Blog post stresses that the streamer 'continues to accept only Dolby Vision masters on the ingest side, i.e. for all content delivery to Netflix as per our delivery specification,' adding that 'our encoding pipeline is designed with flexibility and extensibility where all these HDR formats could be derived from a single Dolby Vision deliverable efficiently at scale.'
Also, if you have a TV that's capable of playing both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision formats, it appears (from testing it with a European TCL P755K model) that Netflix will default to the Dolby Vision stream rather than HDR10+.
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