HDR has slowly become available on quite a few Android flagships over the past year or so, and Google made a big move last week in making it available to more users by adding it to YouTube for Android. That rollout included the Pixel, which technically doesn’t have an HDR display…
The LG V30 was just announced this morning and it has a lot of attractive selling points, but one of the biggest is the new display. The 6-inch 18:9 OLED panel is gorgeous in person and is also HDR certified. Now, Netflix is adding official support for HDR playback on the V30.
HDR has been growing in popularity on the big screen, but with new phones on the market such as the Galaxy S8, Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium, and the LG G6, it’s going mobile too. Arguably the biggest collection of easily-accessible HDR content is on Netflix, and now, the streaming giant is opening support for HDR in its Android app.
About a month ago YouTube announced official support for HDR video, but only on a select few devices. Google’s new Chromecast Ultra, of course, brought along support for HDR, but few TVs natively support the feature. Google announced that Samsung’s 2016 UHD TV lineup would bring support, and starting today, that support is available.
We’ve known for a while now that YouTube has been planning to add support for HDR (high dynamic range) video and now, ahead of the release of the Chromecast Ultra, Google has just made it official. Creators can start uploading HDR content, and users can start viewing HDR content on support devices effective today…
[youtube=youtube.com/watch?v=_b6iApsCyOI&feature=youtube_gdata]
Samsung uploaded a new video showing off the Galaxy S5 today and this time, instead of going after the iPhone, it’s decided to instead show off the device’s camera quality with a short film shot in Trieste, Italy.
Samsung notes the ad, titled “Sunrise to Sunset”, is made with HDR Video and FHD 1080p footage straight from the Galaxy S5, but we imagine some post-production was done elsewhere as the fine print warns, “Certain images and videos may be enhanced.”
Samsung’s latest ad for the S5 is a cinematic spot that features famous surfers through a tie-in through its partnership with the Association of Surfing Professionals. It has, however, continued going directly after Apple and the iPhone in many of its recent commercials and online ads Galaxy devices. Most recently it posted a new ad mocking the upcoming iPhone that is expected to have a display size similar to the current S5.
Earlier this month, developers poking around the Android source code discovered that Google was preparing to add support for RAW photo capabilities to its mobile OS. Today, Google has revealed that Android’s photography software was in fact updated with the ability to capture and store RAW images as well as support for burst mode photography. These changes to the Android base are not yet available to third-party developers, but the company has announced that the necessary APIs to take advantage of these new features will soon be available, allowing any developer to improve their app’s photography capabilities.
The recently-released Nexus 5 already takes advantage of the technology behind burst mode when creating HDR images. However, the quality of the camera has been a sore point for some Android users, including 9to5Google‘s own David Beren. Google has promised “insanely great” cameras in upcoming Nexus devices, though, so it’s not a big stretch to assume that these software enhancements are laying the groundwork for even better mobile cameras in the future.
As for third-party developers, a few have already started improving on the Nexus 5’s camera software on their own without official support from Google. It seems that Google is now preparing to give all Android developers even more to work with in the area of photography.
