Disney+: Special right of termination for premium customers after removal of 4K
Because 4K is missing on some devices and HDR has been completely switched off, some Disney+ customers are allowed to terminate their subscription early.
(Image: Shutterstock.com/Ivan Marc)
Disney is drawing consequences from the loss of features in Disney+: Anyone with a premium subscription can now terminate it early in Germany without financial disadvantages. The reason is the restrictions on 4K and HDR, which were triggered by the patent dispute with the patent exploiter InterDigital. Disney is informing subscribers about this in an email that heise online has obtained.
The special right of termination is valid for 30 days from receipt of the email notification. According to the email, customers do not need to provide a reason. The subscription ends as soon as Disney has processed the request. The company will refund the prepaid, unused portion of the billing period on a pro-rata basis.
This primarily benefits customers with an annual subscription: The premium subscription costs 160 euros per year. Those who have recently booked and are now annoyed by the lack of image quality can get a large part of the high amount paid back. For monthly subscribers, it's about the remaining days of the current billing period, as they can cancel their subscription for the following month anyway.
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4K not on all devices
The offer is only valid for premium subscribers, as they are the only ones directly affected by the missing features: 4K streaming and HDR are features for which premium users pay extra compared to other subscribers. The two standard packages only offer Full HD streaming with SDR content anyway.
At least 4K streaming has been restored by Disney on some devices after its removal. According to the email, these include Android TV devices, including selected models from Google, Philips, and Sony, as well as Amazon's Fire TV, LG TVs from 2020 onwards, and Sky Glass and Sky Stream. The list is explicitly not exhaustive. More devices are expected to be added in the future. HDR is still completely missing.
Dispute with InterDigital
The reason for the change is a patent dispute. On July 23, InterDigital obtained an injunction against Disney from the Düsseldorf local chamber of the Unified Patent Court, which concerns HEVC encoding. A few days later, 4K and HDR completely disappeared from the German offering. Tests by heise online indicate that Disney is now streaming in 4K resolution using VP9 instead of the disputed HEVC codec.
The dispute has been going on for some time: In November last year, the Munich Regional Court ruled that Disney+ infringes InterDigital's rights when streaming videos with dynamic HDR images. At the beginning of the year, Disney accordingly removed Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and 3D content from the German offering, before the standard format HDR10 followed.
(dahe)
