Google has quietly added support for Android’s new Ultra HDR image format in Google Messages when sending messages over RCS. Images in this format, when sent over RCS, will maintain their metadata and will be displayed correctly on the receiving device.
This addition was first noticed by The SpAndroid due to the inclusion of the flag bugle.support_ultra_hdr within the application APK. The authors of the blog post confirmed through crowdsourced tests that the feature does indeed work on Google Pixel 8 devices when sending images over RCS.
The Ultra HDR image format is a recent inclusion in Android 14. This format is essentially a variation of the venerable JPEG and works by encoding a logarithmic series gain map image in the metadata. When such an image is displayed on a device that can read this metadata and has an HDR display, the image is displayed in a wider dynamic range with brighter brightness and greater shadow detail. When displayed on a device with no metadata support, the base JPEG image is displayed in standard dynamic range.
Google added support for this feature in September ahead of the launch of Pixel 8. The Pixel 8 devices are the first Android devices to capture images in this format, and while the older Pixel devices can’t capture it, they can still capture and display these images as intended.
Although this feature is now built into Android, we haven’t seen wider adoption. OnePlus and Oppo have a version of this feature that they built into their version of Android called ProXDR, and the metadata of these devices is not compatible with the Ultra HDR supporting devices like the Pixel phones (and vice versa). Of course, Apple has a feature similar to this since the iPhone X and also uses its own unique metadata that is not compatible with others.
To make this technology relevant, companies will have to come together and decide on a single format, at least in the Android world, as Apple is unlikely to adopt Google’s standard when it has its own, even if it has support for RCS promises.