Vimeo today announced that support for high dynamic range (HDR) videos has officially arrived across the company's entire suite of apps for the iPhone X, 2017 iPad Pro models, and Apple TV 4K. Vimeo said this means it's "the only video-hosting platform available in HDR" on Apple's platforms right now. This might be a reference to YouTube, which has been notably absent from including 4K video on its Apple TV app due to each company supporting different HDR codecs.
For Vimeo, the company said that it's enabling HDR with 10-bit graphics and a BT.2020 wide color gamut by leveraging the next-generation High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard to keep file sizes at manageable levels. This will allow video makers and editors who shoot in HDR the ability to upload to Vimeo "in the highest color accuracy possible."
We now support 10-bit video, which means the image quality is strikingly clear and cleaner than ever before. The precision and nuance of 10-bit allows us to upgrade from 16 million colors to 1 billion colors.
With BT.2020 (or Rec.2020) support and wider color gamuts (WCG), your image will now represent over 75% of the color that the human eye can see. That’s a big change: most modern color gamuts in videos are limited to a 35% color range. But with BT.2020, we can truly depict your deepest reds, brightest greens, and darkest blacks like never before.
The new support also unlocks resolutions in up to 8K, according to Vimeo, which viewers can watch on devices that support output of these resolution levels (4K, 5K, 6K, and 8K), or download them for file sharing later. Because Vimeo is also a video marketplace where creators can sell videos, the company noted that 8K Ultra HD support isn't just about streaming video (since 8K displays are still nascent in the market), but also for selling, distributing, and submitting videos to festivals "in the best quality possible."
Viewers will be able to know when a video is available in HDR with an included "HDR" badge on the video page and player, which Vimeo automatically detects and displays. Like all HDR and high-resolution content, viewers will need a screen that supports HDR 10 and HEVC, so anyone with an iPhone X, a model of the latest iPad Pro from 2017, and Apple TV 4K will be able to watch this content on their devices.
Vimeo content in HDR will also include a separate standard definition version of the video, for users who don't have access to HDR-capable devices. Any device will be able to download HDR HEVC files so they can share and transfer the videos to other platforms, as well.
For more information on Vimeo's HDR support, check out the company's blog post here. Vimeo is available for free on the iOS App Store [Direct Link] and tvOS App Store.
