HDR support for Windows

[LinDen]

Firefox managed to bring HDR to Macs in 100.0 version. Now it's time for Windows!

It'd be awesome to watch and work on HDR images and videos using Firefox in 2022. Windows is the most popular OS, why not bring HDR here too?
More monitors and devices running on Windows support HDR, so there is an increase in demand of HDR support in Firefox.

The only option for Windows users is either to switch to another browser or to download and use a dedicated app from Microsoft Store.

[itskaren]

Hi, all.

I'm jumping in to add some more clarity since my comment from last September. And hi to those of you who've recently joined this chain!

I'll be upfront before I dive in: you may not like this news, but I want to be transparent on our process thus far.

Technical Avenues. We've been looking into HDR video support on Firefox for our Windows users- you deserve video streaming experiences that are as high-fidelity as can be. Unfortunately, it is technically more complex to set up HDR support on Windows than it was on macOS. Please know that we are exploring several different avenues we can take to get HDR video to you, but setting up support will take time. We are also working with partners to see if we can at least deliver some workarounds for this.

Meaningful Streaming Experience. Another piece of the puzzle is that even if we were to support HDR on Windows tomorrow, you'd be able to watch HDR content on YouTube, but you wouldn't be able to get 4K or HDR on sites like Netflix. You get more HDR video capabilities on Edge or Safari on some of the most popular video streaming sites because Microsoft and Apple respectively have more secure content decryption software to process your favorite (copyrighted) movies and shows. This is entirely independent of HDR video support we're looking into right now--rest assured that we're currently working to bridge that specific content gap. Another factor is video codec support, and we're also working on improving this in Firefox and with our partners. All of these factors combined, yes, we want you to get HDR capabilities for video, AND we want you to have those viewing options for the streaming sites we all enjoy today.

To wrap this up for now, none of us are saying that supporting HDR technology (for both video and image) isn't valuable. The number of higher-spec devices that can support HDR will only grow among our users, and we want to take that into account. Yet while we would love to deliver this to you as fast as we can, we are limited in the resources we can deploy, and we have to maintain Firefox as an overall browser as well as a media player. So now, it's more of a question of "How?" and "When?" at this time, and we are asking ourselves both.

Thank you again.

[IngrownMink4]

@LinDen This is what I was referring to on Instagram. Safari and Edge have always enjoyed good support for DRM content and never had this problem. They also had an advantage with other proprietary technologies like h265 or Dolby Audio, which could not be easily implemented in Firefox. The situation also reminds me of when Mozilla had to turn to Oracle so they could use h264 (via OpenH264) because they could not afford the licenses. Let's hope Mozilla engineers can come up with a solution soon 🤞

P.S. Thanks for the update on this @itskaren 

[zerocool42]

Thanks for the update @itskaren, please continue to keep us updated when you can and there is something new to share. I understand what you are saying, but I still wish it was higher priority. 

I refuse to use any other browser as my main browser so I really hope you get this working 🙂

Even without HDR you are still the best browser IMO, but you can still be better!

[MaxG]

If that's the case @itskaren, you could at least give us temporary youtube-only HDR support...

[itskaren]

@IngrownMink4and @zerocool42, thank you for your support 😊

Please keep your fingers crossed - we'd love to send improvements your way as soon as we can.

[ardarlol]

That’s good to know that developers working on HDR in Firefox

[Jayo1177]

This needs to happen yesterday, you guys need this as much as we do!

[MaxG]

I'm done with this, bye bye Firefox, hello Brave 👋

[MaxG]

I'm done with this, bye bye Firefox 👋

[AnunnakiRamb0]

It's April and we don't have any updates, after more than 10 years I'm thinking about abandoning Firefox, it's a shame the browser won't support HDR in 2024.

[Stray]

With the release of RTX HDR, firefox really need to get around to supporting HDR. Because of firefox lack of HDR implementation I have had to switch back to Brave to consume my youtube videos.

[FirefoxHDR]

Lacking HDR support makes Firefox a dull boy.

[ArkDragon]

So not a solution but a band-aid you can you if you have an Nvidia GPU is to enable the RTX HDR feature. This see seems to be piggy backing off of the RTX VSR feature and will convert SDR content to HDR. To do this make these values true in the about:config page:

gfx.webrender.overlay-vp-auto-hdr

gfx.webrender.overlay-vp-super-resolution

gfx.webrender.super-resolution.nvidia

And as long as you have the VSR and HDR feature enabled in the Nvidia control panel it should work (and you can check if they are active in the same location of the control pannel). They are found under "Video" > "Adjust Video Image Settings" in the " RTX video enchantment section"

[snappums]

Have tried what @ArkDragon has suggested above as a stopgap, but the Nvidia Control Panel does not seem to report VSR or HDR as Active like other browsers do.

[ArkDragon]

@snappumsYou can try enabling these options to see if that helps:

gfx.webrender.dcomp-video-hw-overlay-win-force-enabled

gfx.webrender.dcomp-video-sw-overlay-win-force-enabled

I can confirm on my PC the Nvidia control panel does report the enchantment is active, For VSR you may need to be in full screen the activation logic seems to look at the actual veiwport size of the video rather then the raw video resolution, but the HDR should be active regardless of size.