Since Movistar+ began producing highly recognized original content, one of the poorest aspects of the experience was always the image quality that provided the application available for Smart TVs.
I remember looking forward to the premiere of ‘La peste’, one of its star productions, only to end up totally disappointed when I was able to “enjoy” it. The reality is that, without a decoder, all I received at my house the weekend of its release was an amalgamation of pixels with little definition in the many twilight scenes present in the series.
The Movistar+ app was very far from its contents
The disappointment was very great. The good part is that, since then, image quality has been improving at a good pace, the progress being tangible when seeing recent titles such as ‘Riot Gear’ or ‘The Unit’ (season two). The bad part is that it wasn’t enough. Yes, to catch up with the competitors in the queue, but not to compete face to face with platforms with which Telefónica must be up to the technological level.
Things changed with its new application for Smart TV, launched in the last months of 2022. After years of waiting, it was finally updated to be able to serve content in 4K HDR and Dolby 5.1 (until then, without using a decoder) the maximum quality was 1080p with stereo sound). I have finally been able to test the changes and it is better than I expected.
An unexpected leap forward for Movistar+
This month I subscribed to Movistar+ Lite again, without much hope of finding the possibility of being able to watch content in 4K and 5.1 sound, because a couple of months ago they didn’t come out. “It will be limited to Movistar+ customers who also have a decoder,” I thought. Nothing could be further from the truth. There have been notable changes.
When opening the Movistar+ application, which otherwise is still quite archaic and slow when compared to Netflix, Disney+ or HBO Max, the operator already offers us content in 4K HDR in Lite.
At the moment, there is no mention of formats with dynamic metadata like Dolby Vision or HDR10+, but coming from where we come from, HDR10 is more than enough to gain a richer and more realistic color palette, added to the fact that we quadrupled the resolution with the step from 1080p to 4K. The surprise came from the sound part. The service has not only received 5.1 multi-channel sound, but also Dolby Atmos, as indicated in some titles and in the selection of audios during playback.
The image and sound quality in 4K titles is on par with the competition. The general operation of the application is still far behind
Speaking of image quality, the leap is gigantic. Movistar+ has gone from delivering an image with a bit rate of approximately 8 Mbps in the “old” H.264/AVC codec to do it with an image with 20 Mbps, with HEVC/H.265 codec and with HDR10 (with BT.2020 color palette). Except for the lack of Dolby Vision, it is finally up to the big ones.
Coming from so low the jump on a large panel is brutalwith a finally modern compression that, without being perfect (like none in streaming) no longer has anything to envy from the rest.
The 5.1 sound is also greatly appreciated, but I have to say that in my sound bar has not received Dolby Atmos audio on all titles neither playing from the application of my LG Smart TV with webOS nor playing from the Fire TV Stick 4K Max application, despite the fact that both show the Dolby Atmos logos.
In ‘Riot Control’, for example, Dolby Atmos has been activated, but in ‘Sorry for the inconvenience’ it has notdespite indicating that the series has a clue of this type.
As for the catalog, it must be said that it is still quite limited. But at the same time, Movistar+ is updating series that already have their time, something that, for example, HBO Max is not doing beyond its star bet, ‘Game of Thrones’.
Images | Antonio Saban
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