Who said 2025 wasn’t the future? Netflix has just announced that it finally supports the increasingly popular HDR10+ format, an upgrade over the basic HDR10 format it previously supported. HDR10+, if you didn’t know, is on par with Dolby Vision, both of which are constantly fighting for your eyeball’s attention wherever you go by providing a higher quality image for your favourite movies and series. There’s just one problem…
Netflix makes room for HDR10+
Okay, maybe two. First up – customers will require the weighty Premium plan (R200/m) before they can even think about viewing their shows in HDR10+. And second, those TVs which support the HDR10+ format are few and far between, even in 2025.
The addition of HDR10+ (using the AV-1 codec) will excite Samsung users most of all, seeing as it does not support the HDR10+ equivalent of Dolby Vision, forcing customers to bear with the outdated HDR10 format over these last few years. Don’t expect the same treatment from other big-hitter TV manufacturers, at least for now. Most are happy with the Dolby Vision experience, which Netflix also offers.
Fortunately, HDR10+ is supported by even mid-range smartphones, meaning customers can expect a vastly improved viewing experience when Eskom inevitably strikes again. Netflix reckons that AV1-HDR10+ now accounts “for 50% of all eligible viewing hours,” with the promise that it will continue to expand the offering – “with the goal of providing an HDR10+ experience for all HDR titles by the end of this year.”
“Nearly a decade ago, we made a bold move to be a pioneering adopter of High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology. HDR enables images to have more details, vivid colors, and improved realism,” the company wrote. “We continue to enhance member joy while maintaining creative vision by adding support for HDR10+. This will further augment Netflix’s growing HDR ecosystem, preserve creative intent on even more devices, and provide a more immersive viewing experience.”
We don’t envy whichever employee over at Netflix had the job of explaining the differences between HDR10 and HDR10+ to the masses – over a blog post, no less – but it’s managed to cobble a reasonable explanation together that even your grandmother could understand. Notice how the flashlight loses some of that detail in HDR10 (top), while HDR10+ retains that detail “with greater fidelity to the source.”
“Photographs of devices displaying the same frame with HDR10 metadata (top) and HDR10+ metadata (bottom). Notice the preservation of the flashlight detail in the HDR10+ capture, and the over-exposure of the region under the flashlight in the HDR10 one.”
