The Walt Disney Company has reportedly been able to restore 4K video streaming on Disney+ for some devices in Europe, just days after it was forced to pull the plug on high-resolution content streams due to patent litigation issues.
We first reported on Disney+’s move last week, saying that the company had been forced to remove 4K and HDR10 streaming support in a number of European countries. It came about a month after the company removed support for Dolby Vision and 3D content too. With the change, it meant that premium subscribers in affected nations could only access lower quality video streams at 1080p.
Support for 4K and HDR10 was dropped in 11 countries – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Sweden, but others, such as the U.K. and Ireland, were not affected. Disney+ also continues to offer 4K, Dolby Vision, HDR10 and 3D content in other regions.
Fortunately for those living in the affected countries, Disney is now doing something about this, making good on a promise to restore the lost streams as soon as possible.
“We have adopted an alternative technology to enable 4K UHD and HDR following a recent court ruling and have begun restoring 4K UHD support on Disney+,” Disney told HDTVTest via email. “This may cause 4K UHD to be unavailable on some devices. We recognise the inconvenience this may cause and are working to increase device support for 4K UHD and restore HDR as quickly as we can.”
Disney’s troubles stem from a recent ruling by the Unified Patent Court in Germany, which found in favor of a U.S. company called InterDigital, which owns the patents for certain video encoding techniques related to HEVC that were used by the streaming company. Because of that ruling, Disney apparently had no choice but to pull the plug on its higher quality streams.
However, the German website Heise reported this week that Disney+ is now using the VP9 video codec instead of HEVC to restore its 4K video streams without infringing on anyone’s patents. It’s a solution for some, but unfortunately VP9 does not have the same widespread support as HEVC. For now, Disney+ can only provide 4K resolution streams to newer LG TVs and devices running Google TV and Fire TV. So it remains unavailable on Samsung TVs, Apple TV 4K boxes and games consoles.
"Currently supported devices include Android TV devices, including select models from Google, Philips, Sony and others; Amazon Fire TV; LG TVs from 2020 onwards; Sky Glass; and Sky Stream. Device compatibility, support and availability of 4K UHD may vary and change over time,” Disney reportedly told Heise.
No mention was made of either Dolby Vision or HDR10, which are still unavailable in all of the countries affected by the Unified Patent Court’s ruling. Disney claims that it’s still working to address this issue, but it’s not clear how it will do so. The VP9 codec does support both HDR formats, so a solution may be possible. Another alternative is the newer AV1 codec, which also supports 4K, Dolby Vision and HDR10, but like VP9, it doesn’t have the same broad device support as HEVC.
Disney’s decision to try and find a workaround suggests that it may not be interested in negotiating a fair price with InterDigital to use its patented technologies, although we can’t be sure about what’s going on behind the scenes. Amazon Prime Video also had a dispute with InterDigital regarding patents, and ultimately appears to have caved into the company’s demands, having recently agreed on a licensing deal.
