Netflix has added a new HDR format to its service, confirming that it’s now streaming in HDR10+. This isn’t just a tick box exercise, it’s a pretty big deal in the world of HDR streaming formats.
Up to now, Netflix has streamed in Dolby Vision, while also supporting generic HDR10. Let’s put the HDR10 to one side for a moment, because that’s the base standard that all devices supporting HDR will offer. If you have a device that doesn’t support Dolby Vision, you’ll end up with HDR10.
HDR10+ is an advancement of the HDR standard that adds dynamic metadata to the mix. We’ve covered exactly what this means separately, but in a nutshell it means that the information that accompanies the content can be set for each frame. That means that the color, brightness and contrast can be adapted for each frame or scene, unlike standard HDR10, which sets the values for the entire movie.
That might sound familiar, because dynamic metadata is what Dolby Vision brings to content. I’ve watched a lot of HDR content and advanced formats like Dolby Vision and HDR10+ make your content look better compared to standard HDR10. So Netflix adding support for HDR10+ is a good thing.
To take advantage of it you’ll need to be a Netflix Premium plan subscriber, but that’s not all.
There’s a compatibility catch
Just as you’d need a screen that supports Dolby Vision to watch that format, you’ll also need HDR10+ support to benefit. Across the best TVs, it’s something of a mixture. Samsung (one of the backers of the HDR10+ format) doesn’t support Dolby Vision, but has long supported HDR10+.
Amazon Fire TV Omni supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, as do brands like Panasonic and Hisense. LG and Sony support Dolby Vision but do not support HDR10+.
If you’re streaming from a separate device that will also need to support the format. Fortunately, all Amazon Fire TV Stick models do, as does Google TV Streamer, Apple TV 4K and many other recent devices.
But your device also needs to support the AV1 codec for Netflix HDR10+ to work. Most modern devices do, but if you’ve been hanging onto the Nvidia Shield TV all these years, then you’re out of luck.
Why does HDR10+ on Netflix matter?
So far the biggest source of HDR10+ content has been Prime Video. Amazon has released many of its exclusives in HDR10+ and they look great. But Prime Video has supported HDR and Dolby Vision content for a long time too, so if you didn’t have access to HDR10+, you probably didn’t feel like you were missing out.
Now that Netflix has added HDR10+, there’s the potential that those without supporting hardware could miss out. Yes, the Dolby Vision content will still be there, but if your screen can’t show HDR10+, you might not get the best quality that’s available.
Netflix says it is adding HDR10+ streams to new and existing HDR content, saying that it wants to have HDR10+ streams in place for all HDR content by the end of 2025 – that’s a big deal.
For Samsung TV owners this could be seen as a moment of victory: you’ll get better HDR visuals out of Netflix in the future following this change and some rival TV owners won’t get that.
