Roku Confirms HDR Support And/For New Models

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If you needed a bit more confirmation of Roku’s all-new 2016 lineup, the streaming pioneer just published a support note confirming three of the five incoming models: the Premiere, Premiere+, and Ultra. They’ve also confirmed HDR will be available on a subset of devices and kindly explains why compatible 4K television set owners should care.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) improves picture quality by expanding the range of both color and contrast of any image.  In more simple terms, in any scene, details that are typically lost in the brightest and darkest areas in a scene will have more details. Wide Color Gamut goes further to expand the number of shades for each color to provide richer color depth, resulting in colors that are more true-to-life.

As to the flavor of HDR, Roku indicates they’re going with the Sony- and Samsung-backed HDR10 over Dolby Vision.

The new Roku Premiere+ and Roku Ultra models support HDR-10 standard. Your existing High Speed HDMI®cable that is working will continue to work However, you will need to connect the Roku Premiere+ and Roku Ultra into the HDMI 2.0a port for HDCP 2.2.

Unfortunately, Roku appears to contradict themselves… So, while it seems 100% likely that the Premiere+ (Roku 3-equiv) and Ultra (Roku 4-eqiv) will render HDR video, it’s not clear if the Premiere (Roku 2-quiv) will. In any event, with the publication of this support note, we must be getting real close to an official reveal.

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13 thoughts on “Roku Confirms HDR Support And/For New Models”

  5. They have to pay more to license Dolby Vision and its hardware- it will add to the cost of the device (negligible but still more) and they probably don’t want to pass that cost onto the consumer.

    http://www.mi.com/en/mibox/

    The Mi Box (Android TV platform) has apparently been selling at a few Walmarts before street date- it also supports 4k HDR (after an update) for only $70. I found Android TV to be a much nicer platform, plus you can run most Google apps (including Kodi and most likely Plex).

  6. This week would seem like a solid bet for the new Rokus, given the support note cited above as well as the fact that the Mi Box Android TV looks set to release on Tues. or Wed. (per Walmart) and AFTVnews reports a new Amazon Fire TV Stick (and Box?) will also release this week.

    I’d expect to see at least some of the Ultra HD Bluray Disc players coming out over the next several months to support HDR in Dolby Vision (in addition to the spec-required HRD10). There are signs that we may see a refreshed Nvidia Shield Android TV box this fall. The current one supports HDR10 and I’m hoping a new one includes Dolby Vision, as that — and/or a built-in TV tuner — is really the only thing that box is now missing, hardware-wise.

  9. Isn’t it pretty unlikely to see anything with dolby digital (content wise) at this point? My understanding is that UHD Blu Ray has settled on HDR10. I can’t imagine any streaming services doing dolby digital at this point, even though my Vizio supports both.

  10. Vudu exclusively supports DV now but will also support HDR10 soon. Netflix and Amazon support both now. All UHD Bluray discs must support HDR10 but I think many will also support DV too.

  11. UHD BDs don’t need to have HDR10. There is no requirement for a UHD BD to have HDR.

    There are several UHD BD titles out without any type of HDR on them. Just the UHD resolution.

    What is required is that if a title uses Dolby Vision, then it is required to also have HDR10.

  12. Of Course the UHD BD format has been out almost nine months now. And there are zero titles with Dolby Vision. And zero players with Dolby Vision capability.

  13. I have the 65EF9500. It only supports HDR-10, UNFORTUNATELY.
    However, those who have a 2016 model of the LG, both formats are supported. DV requires a chip , so cannot be software updated.
    The good news is that the new Chromecast Ultra (out next month), support HDR-10 and DV.
    Hope that helps.

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