Netflix adds HDR10 Plus support to almost half of its movies and TV shows

Almost a decade after bringing HDR to streaming with its Marco Polo TV show, Netflix is enhancing its content delivery by introducing support for HDR10 Plus (alongside the already supported Dolby Vision and base HDR10 standards). HDR10+, as it’s more widely known, is superior to HDR10 as it utilizes dynamic – not static – metadata capable of adapting the picture displayed based on scene information and specific device capabilities. It works similarly to the established, Hollywood-preferred Dolby Vision standard, providing viewers with the kind of nuanced, precise visual rendering many modern productions actually need in order to look their best.

Netflix’s implementation is based on the advanced AV1 codec, widely used today because of its remarkable efficiency. To access this enhanced form of Netflix’s entertainment content, subscribers must use devices supporting both AV1 and HDR10+, although that’s rather common in mid-range and hi-end TV models nowadays. It’s worth noting that when a TV supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, Netflix will default to the latter – no particular reason was provided for this choice but, at least on paper, Dolby Vision is still superior to HDR10+.

Netflix claims that approximately 50% of its most-watched content has already been upgraded to HDR10+, with plans to extend coverage across its entire HDR catalog by the end of the year. This will arguably be the most impressive amount of entertainment content supporting HDR10+ out there, unlike the least impressive amount which comes in the form of video games (there are still just a handful of titles supporting HDR10+ Gaming). Back to movies and TV shows, it’s worth noting that Netflix will continue to only accept Dolby Vision masters from production studios, converting them to HDR10+, HDR10 and SDR on a per-case basis in order to maintain maximum device flexibility.

Netflix’s implementation of HDR10+ is particularly noteworthy for Samsung TV owners, who – for the longest of time – have not been enjoying the most popular streaming service’s content to its fullest due to Samsung’s widely-criticized choice not to support Dolby Vision. On the other side of the TV manufacturers’ spectrum, LG and Sony do not – despite it being an open standard – support HDR10+, while TCL, Hisense, Philips and Panasonic have been supporting both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision for years.

When it comes to streaming services, it’s fair to say that Netflix came late to the HDR10+ party. Amazon Prime Video offered support to HDR10+ since the earliest days of this standard, Apple TV Plus did the same in October 2022 while Hulu, Paramount Plus and YouTube have all been offering HDR10+ support for some time. Disney Plus officially announced during January’s CES that it will also be adding support for HDR10+ at some point this year. Regarding content in physical form, there are still way more UHD Blu-ray discs supporting Dolby Vision than HDR10+, a situation unlikely to change (but a number of new productions support both).

There’s little doubt, though, that Netflix supporting HDR10+ is excellent news for consumers already owning or planning to get a Samsung TV (especially a model capable of showing off what dynamic metadata can do for picture quality). Most viewers are hard pressed to discern major differences between a high-quality HDR10+ stream and a high-quality Dolby Vision one, but almost everyone can tell that HDR10+ is able to handle complex, demanding scenes better than HDR10 (especially in the case of highly compressed streams like the ones offered by Netflix). Considering that Samsung sells the highest number of TVs globally for years… it was about time, no?