Tested with pdf viewers which depend on libpoppler:
zathura, apvlv, evince, epdfview, okular

If a pdf has a full-page background picture it takes about 10-15 sec
to open the pdf but the background will not be rendered at all.
It only works with okular.

With pdf viewers that do not depend on libpoppler like llpp, mupdf it
flawlessly works.

Exmaple file:
http://literaturlatenight.de/test.pdf