Amazon Prime Instant, the packaged streaming video service that’s included with Amazon Prime memberships, now officially supports 4K video streaming. Of course, you’ll need to have a 4K TV or a 4K display in order to take advantage of that content, though more and more products are shipping with displays equipped with that sharp resolution.
According to a press release issued this morning, Amazon has begun offering some limited amount of its streaming content in 4K resolution—specifically, the 4K UltraHD standard resolution of 3840×2160. The majority of the 4K content for now appears to be Amazon original series like Alpha House and Transparent, supplemented with a limited number of studio TV series (Orphan Black is mentioned specifically). Additionally, Amazon will be offering a selection of 4K movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment for free streaming to Prime members. Four movies are listed as streamable in 4K: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Funny Girl; Hitch; and Philadelphia. Amazon will be using HEVC (High Efficiency Video Encoding) for video compression.