Google Play Movies offers movies with hdr10 + on Samsung smart TVs

Google has started offering films in combination with the hdr standard hdr10 + on Play Movies, although that is currently limited to smart TVs from Samsung. This film service has been offering films with HDR for some time and already had support for Dolby Vision.

Samsung, the main company behind the open hdr standard hdr10 +, reports that Google Play Movies has been offering hdr10 + support since July and that it can actually be used from now on. “The HDR10 + service is now available on Samsung smart TVs in 117 countries,” the company said. On a non-Samsung television with Android TV, the Play Movies app does not yet show support for hdr10 +. According to Samsung, Google Play Movies plans to support hdr10 + on other platforms in the future, but the company does not say which platforms it will be or how long it will take.

The South Korean manufacturer says that all kinds of titles can now be viewed in 4k resolution and with HDR10 +, including Joker, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Shazam and Crazy Rich Asians. However, the support of hdr10 + is not an exclusive affair, as these titles are also available in Play Movies with the competing and more dominant standard Dolby Vision, which, like hdr10 +, uses dynamic metadata. At the beginning of this year, Samsung already announced the arrival of hdr10 + to Play Movies and said that the standard will be available for all UHD titles of the movie service.

For the time being, Google Play Movies cannot match the range and support of HDR and audio standards for films in the Apple TV app. Apple offers more than six hundred 4k titles in combination with Dolby Vision and if that support is lacking, there is sometimes support for hdr10. In certain cases, the Apple offer also supports Dolby Atmos, although this concerns the lossy variant that is offered via Dolby Digital Plus. As far as audio is concerned, Play Movies doesn’t go beyond regular 5.1 support.