Netflix is making picture quality better, but not for everyone

Nearly a decade ago, Netflix rolled out High Dynamic Range (HDR) support starting with the launch of season one of Marco Polo. The addition of HDR enhanced details, made colors more vivid, and improved realism. Fast forward to today, the streamer is ready to roll out a new format for even better picture quality.

Netflix has announced that users will now be able to stream content in HDR10+, a rival to Dolby Vision. Compared to HDR, this format offers a wider dynamic range for a bolder and brighter image. It also allows for frame-by-frame tone mapping, which means it’s not all up to your device to figure out how to best get all the detail in a very dark or very bright scene. Instead, this metadata is embedded in the content, serving as a guide for your TV, phone, or tablet.

As a result, you should see fewer crushed blacks and blown-out highlights, leading to greater visual fidelity. To better understand the difference, Netflix shared images of a scene with HDR10 and HDR10+. You can see in the HDR10+ image that the details of the flashlight are preserved. Also, the region under the flashlight isn’t overexposed like it is in the HDR10 image.

Netflix says that it is enabling HDR10+ with the AV1 codec that was released in 2018. This codec was originally adopted by Netflix to lower the amount of data customers use when streaming 4K content on phones. But the codec works just as well on large HDR files.

At the moment, HDR10+ is only available on select content. The company says the format will initially be available for “50% of all eligible viewing hours.” However, it’s unclear what it means by “eligible viewing hours.” Netflix does intend to expand the availability of the format, expecting to have support on every HDR movie and show by the end of 2025.

The bad news is that HDR10+ won’t be available for everyone. You’ll need a Netflix Premium subscription and a device that supports AV1 and HDR10+. When the new format launches, you’ll need to enable the HDR toggle and find a show that supports HDR10+ to start watching in the format.