Disney+ is once again delivering content in 4K UHD in Germany, the company told heise online. “Following a recent court ruling, we have implemented an alternative technology solution to enable the delivery of 4K UHD and HDR content, and have begun restoring 4K UHD support on Disney+ Premium in Germany”, the statement reads.
“This may result in 4K UHD not being available on some devices.” Efforts are underway to expand support to more devices and to restore the missing HDR as quickly as possible. On a heise online editorial device, both 4K and HDR are currently still missing.
The exact technical solution behind the scenes remains unclear. The patent decision that led to the disappearance of HDR and 4K resolution on Disney+ concerned the HEVC video codec. It is strongly suspected that Disney is now using an alternative video codec. Potential compatibility issues with this could mean that 4K cannot be immediately delivered to all devices.
Dispute with InterDigital
At the end of July, 4K and HDR completely disappeared from Disney+ in Germany. Even subscribers of the Premium tier could only watch movies and series in a maximum of 1080p and SDR. The background is a legal dispute with the US company InterDigital. On July 23, the patent exploiter obtained an injunction against Disney from the Düsseldorf local chamber of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which concerns HEVC encoding.
