Sky TV has apparently ‘confirmed’ that its long-awaited HDR update is not expected to arrive until late 2020 at the earliest.
The apparent confirmation of the delay came from a Sky employee and community manager called “Kei+M” on the Sky Community website forum, and was first spotted by Forbes’ columnist John Archer.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's unlikely that the UK will be seeing HDR until late next year at the earliest,” Kei+M said. “We've pushed it back whilst we work on other priorities."
That Sky believes it has “other priorities” to work on raises some eyebrows, because HDR has emerged as one of the most important TV features in the eyes of many, and some say it’s even more important than 4K resolution as far as ensuring the best possible picture. Companies including Dolby and Samsung deliver HDR content through a variety of formats, including Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Moreover, most of Sky’s rivals, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and BT Sport, offer support for HDR.
Kei+M didn’t share much light on what those “other priorities” might be, but in recent weeks the company has launched a redesigned Sky Go app and a new Sky Q box while promising to boost investment in its own programming via Sky Studios.
Those developments suggest that Sky might be prioritizing maintaining the advantage over its rivals in terms content. What with Sky Movies, Sky Sports and various other channels, most would agree that Sky is unrivaled in terms of the scope of its content.
In any case, what we do know is that Sky won’t be adding support for HDR anytime soon. Whether or not that’s because Sky doesn’t see the feature as being critical, or it simply can’t get the technology to work right, remains to be seen.
