Netflix wants to add HDR content

These days everyone is talking about 4K video. If you’re buying a new TV, you’re probably walking right past the old 1080p ones for the latest and greatest. While Netflix is dedicated to pushing 4K content, the company is already looking past 4K. But not to more pixels.

If you’re not familiar with the details, 4K video utilizes nearly 4 times the amount of pixels that a similarly-sized 1080p screen would contain. As you can imagine, more pixels in a similarly-sized screen results in a more detailed picture. But just adding more pixels isn’t the only way to get a better picture.

Most content that you see these days uses 8-bit color space. This gives you 256 shades of each color, which looks pretty good. After all, you probably haven’t been complaining at the lack of colors on your TV. However, Netflix is wanting to start producing content using HDR or High-dynamic range. By blending together images taken at different exposures, you can see more details than you would if you looked at just a single image. Areas that were overexposed can now be seen more clearly, as can areas that would have been too dark to make out details.

By utilizing this technique, Netflix will be able to provide content that looks more crisp and realistic to the viewer. The only issue is ensuring that you have a TV that can display more than 8-bit color. Most 4K TVs can already do this, so if you’re upgrading, you should be fine.

Since HDR is a technique that has to be planned out in advance, Netflix will only be able to add this option to future movies and TV shows that it produces. So don’t expect old movies to suddenly have a new look to them. The company stated that they aim to have 5% of their content available in HDR by next year, and 20% available in HDR by 2019.

VIA: Forbes