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Amazon HDR streaming now available through new LG OLED 4K televisions

By Liu Hongzuo - on 7 Sep 2015, 9:12am

Amazon HDR streaming now available through new LG OLED 4K televisions

Watch HDR streams using the Amazon Video app, found on LG's WebOS, while using their latest 4K televisions.

It’s now more convenient for Amazon Prime subscribers to access High Dynamic Range (HDR) streams. LG recently announced that their 2015 4K OLED TVs will also have access to existing HDR content starting today, via the Amazon Video app on their proprietary smart television operating system.

LG televisions that support Amazon’s latest offering include their latest HDR-capable OLED 4K Ultra HDTVs, such as the just-announced EF9500 series, some EG9600 and EG9200 models, and the Curved OLED 4K TV series. Accessing Amazon’s HDR content is a simple task; users only need to navigate around LG’s smart television operating system – WebOS 2.0 – to the Amazon Video app. WebOS has many features, such as an intuitive launcher that mimics app-like layout for navigation.

Amazon Video shows with HDR support include comedy-dramas Transparent, and Mozart in the Jungle, as well as pilot episode of another comedy series, Red Oaks. All three comedies are original productions from the Amazon Original Series.

Watching HDR videos is not the same as capturing HDR images. HDR generally promises better picture quality, such as having a more expansive range of darkness, brightness and shadow detail. However, HDR for video generally relies on the device’s contrast ratio to display HDR content, whereas HDR images simply require the camera to capture the same photo at different exposure levels before digitally stitching the bright and dark photos together.

HDR streaming was available to Amazon users on non-app platforms since June 2015. According to Amazon, using the HDR stream does not require any extra cost to Amazon Prime membership. It also does not consume extra broadband bit-rate, effectively making this offering a quality-of-life upgrade at no extra charge for Internet TV users.

Amazon is also faster than Netflix when it comes to delivering streamed HDR content, although Netflix has been exploring HDR streaming for some time, having conducted private demonstrations at CES 2015 earlier in January 2015. The CES demonstration by Netflix also used an LG 4K display to showcase their efforts.

Earlier this week, Amazon also launched Video Download for iOS and Android device users. This enables Amazon Prime users to store videos on their smartphones or tablets for offline viewing. With this, Amazon Video is currently the first and the only online subscription streaming video service that enables downloads of titles, unlike other services such as Netflix.

However, Netflix has not been idle – this month, the media streaming company will carry a slew of new content, such as the fifth season of The Walking Dead and season one of Gotham.

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