High Dynamic Range (HDR) support has seen significant uptake in the smartphone world, with the Sony Xperia XZ1, and others sporting the feature that has been prevalent on 4K television sets for some time. Even though content that supports this groundbreaking feature is still sparse, it promises to revolutionize the way we consume content on platforms like YouTube.
Recently, two commits to the Chromium gerrit has suggested that Google Chrome on Android could be updated soon with the capability to stream and display such content. According to the aforementioned commits, the browser will be able to unpack the VP9 HDR metadata and pass it on to the relevant codec. Android, on the other hand, already supports the feature since version 7.0 "Nougat".
Earlier this year Netflix extended HDR and Dolby Vision support to a number of flagship devices including the LG G6, and Samsung Galaxy Note8. Other Android applications that support the feature at present include YouTube and Google Play Movies & TV. HDR allows content creators to push displays that support higher bitrates to output increased luminosity and colorspace. This makes games and videos look more vibrant and crisp.
Last month, alternative video streaming platform Vimeo was updated to support HDR and 8K resolution for videos hosted on the site, which can be viewed on the iPhone X, and iPad Pro. This is in addition to it already supporting content with resolutions of 5K and upwards.
Source: XDA