Google Chrome for Android may soon support HDR video playback

Google may soon be introducing High Dynamic range (HDR) videos for its Chrome browser on Android. The official HDR playback feature on Android devices dates back to Android 7.0 Nougat and it worked only with devices whose display could playback HDR content. [caption id=“attachment_4242505” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Google Chrome[/caption] Even though **YouTube**, Google Play Movies, and **Netflix** support HDR content, their libraries are quite limited and playback is supported on only a few devices as well. However, according to “two recent commits” on Chromium gerrit, first spotted by XDA-developers, we may soon see a higher quality video experience in Chrome for Android as well. Chrome will soon be able to extract HDR metadata from the video container in which the HDR video, encoded in “VP9 Profile 2 (10 bit) video codec”, will be able to play on supported devices, according to XDA-developers. However, there still remains the problem of the limited amount of HDR content available on the internet. Also, it is a fact that HDR videos use a lot more bandwidth than non-HDR. In a country like India, where Google just launched **YouTube Go** to cut down on data consumption while viewing videos, it remains to be seen how this will pick up in India. Sure there are attractive data plans being advertised by telcos in India, but data speeds will also be a big factor in streaming content. Nonetheless, it is good to see that viewing of HDR content is becoming more accessible.