Netflix has added HDR images to its user interface in a bid to bring its content browsing experience in line with the HDR content the service has featured since 2016.
In an announcement on its official blog, the company wrote, “It turns out that compositing and displaying HDR graphics along with video is harder than you’d think — there are a variety of technical hurdles yet to clear, and it will take some time for the hardware that can do this compositing to find its way into reasonably priced TVs and streaming accessories. Also, it wasn’t even initially clear to us how to create or store HDR images”.
The page for Netflix Original ‘The Innocents’ now displays an HDR image.
The 16-bit PNG and JPEG2000 file formats are being tested initially, though the company said this may change in the future, adding that there is no defined standard for still HDR images.
The company also touched upon the Alliance for Open Media’s open-source AV1 video codec, saying, “There is also work being done on a new AV1 image format that looks promising, and we’re hopeful this royalty-free format will continue to make progress and gain the adoption needed for widespread use”. Netflix is one of the companies involved in the project.
