Back in January Netflix launched a test program for their new “Super HD” video streaming for many regions, which is a new low-compression 1080p stream, and this week they’ve officially launched it for all subscribers. With less compression we get better quality streams. It’s still 1080p, but it should look better. Now we’re hoping for something similar for Android.
For those who enjoy Netflix on their Android devices, the quality hasn’t been the best in the past, but has continued to improve with each and every update. When Google announced their new Nexus 7 earlier this year we were introduced to a new Netflix app for Android with full 1080p video streaming. Instead of the 720 and sometimes lower we’ve received thus far.
Netflix confirmed the new 1080p streaming for mobile devices back in July, but it was only for Google’s new slate and Android 4.3, with support for additional devices set to arrive later in the year. We’ll, we’re now nearly done with September and are hoping something exciting gets announced soon. There’s plenty of Android 4.3 devices that could enjoy this.
The announcement this week about Super HD doesn’t have any mention of mobile, but we have a feeling some more details will be arriving shortly. If you don’t want to wait we hear a few hacked HD versions are floating around XDA. We expect Netflix to bring a better full 1080p HD streaming experience to many mobile devices soon, and will update when we know more.
VIA: SlashGear
Let them fix all of the other major problems with the Android app first.
What needs to happen is 1080p on the device itself. Not just via HDMI or chromecast. My 10 inch tablet has a 2560×1600 resolution display. Whatever the native resolution of the stream that the Netflix app produces is – it looks crap when it’s stretched across that many pixels.