The Week Four Thursday Night Football game on Fox between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers was supposed to be exciting beyond the game—which came down to a goal line stand in the final minute—as it was meant to be the debut of the NFL in 4K HDR. But Fox’s gameplan failed for a variety of reasons, allowing for only a limited audience to experience the game in the hi-res format.
As pointed out by both The Verge and Forbes, one of the key issues was formatting. Fox said that the game would be available in HDR on Apple TV and Roku devices, but the live broadcast for the game supported the HLG HDR standard, while streaming devices like Apple TV and Roku support the HDR10 standard, making it incompatible.
The 4K and HDR broadcast was available on DirecTV, Altice Optimum and Fios, and response from viewers was positive about the quality of the image.
Other issues with fans watching the game revolved around networks dropping the coverage. Fox officially blacked out on Dish last Thursday prior to the game over a carriage fee dispute, while Comcast removed the 4K HDR stream from its cable lineup for a still unspecified reason.
For more information, read the full articles from The Verge and Forbes.
