Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has officially released its first slate of HDR programming, plying the format to the second season of original series Bosch, was well as Sony Pictures movie titles including The Smurfs 2, After Earth, Men in Black 3, Hancock, Salt, Pineapple Express, Fury, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Chappie and Elysium.
Licensing Dolby Vision technology, Amazon has joined Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) in being the first U.S. programmers to distribute shows and movies in high dynamic range, which features a vastly expanded color palette.
"Today is just the beginning. We will continue to expand our selection, adding more movies and TV series for our customers to watch and enjoy in the premium picture quality of HDR," said Jim Freeman, VP of Amazon Video, in a statement.
Both Netflix and Amazon have already begun distributing programs in 4K/HDR as well.
The deployments of next-generation display technologies by the leading SVOD services is notable to U.S. pay-TV distributors, which have lagged behind Europe, Asia and Canada in offering 4K and HDR to customers.
This summer, Comcast is set to deploy its HDR-capable Xi5 set-top. Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) will also show a small portion of the Summer Olympic Games in HDR. At the same time, pay-TV vendors like Technicolor and Vubiquity are partnering to provide turnkey HDR technology solutions to the cable, satellite and telco TV industry.
Meanwhile, the BBC has confirmed its plans to gather 4K/UltraHD programming ahead of the launch of a dedicated 4K channel, set to debut in about a year, with coverage of Wimbledon.
For more:
- read this Dolby press release
- read this Advanced Television story
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