Over the past decade, a lot has changed in the world of televisions. We have seen CRTs getting replaced with LCD, then slim LED TVs. There are HD, full HD and 4K TVs in the race of winning hearts. Joining this race is HDR, a feature being considered as the future of technology of TVs.
HDR compatible TVs are becoming common these days. When most of us are still trying to grasp the idea of HDR, there are some more HDR standards already touted by TV manufacturers. It can get confusing, so let’s quickly look at the various HDR standards in the space and decide if it’s hype or substance.
The Basics - What is HDR?
HDR is a common feature on full HD and 4K TVs. Both, full HD and 4K TVs offer great picture quality compared to traditional technologies. HDR is being introduced to enhance picture quality further and make things appear livelier.
In short, HDR aims to create a realistic picture, which is closer to that seen by human eyes. This means, you see a wider range of colours and depth in contrast between lighter and darker shades. Besides just balancing colours and contrast, this technology combines dimming and adjusting brightness levels to produce pictures at the highest nit levels. Nit levels is the brightness a TV screen can produce.
The new kids on the block - HDR10 and HDR10+
HDR 10 and the HDR 10+ are two of the newer standards of HDR. HDR 10 was first announced by the Consumer Technology Association, an US based consumer electronic association, whereas HDR10+ was announced by Samsung and Amazon Video.
Both the standards help in improving picture quality, but in slightly different ways. HDR 10 standard sends static metadata to the video stream, which is encoded information on colour calibration settings required to make a picture look real.
HDR10+ works differently than HDR10. It sends dynamic metadata, which allow TVs to set up colour and brightness levels frame-by-frame. This makes the picture look realistic. HDR10 aims to produce 1000 nits of peak brightness, whereas HDR 10+ supports up to 4000 nits. In addition, both the standards support 10 bit colour depth, which is approximately 1024 shades of primary colours. HDR10 and HDR10+ are two most popular standards, shipped in mid-high end TVs.
TVs supporting HDR feature
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Dolby’s own HDR standard - Dolby Vision
Dolby Vision is another new proprietary HDR standard, introduced by Dolby Laboratories. Most of the high-end 4K and OLED TVs support this feature, in addition to HDR10. LG have started integrating this feature in most of its high-end TVs.
Like HDR10+, Dolby Vision also sends dynamic metadata to the TV. It also supports 12-bit colour depth, which is 4096 shades of primary colours. Besides this, Dolby Vision aims at reproducing 10,000 nits of peak brightness. This indicates that TVs with Dolby Vision can produce 10 times the amount of light than HDR10. Although, there are very few TVs that support 10,000 nit value. Dolby Vision is a powerful cinema technology that is slowly getting implemented in high-end TVs.
We hope this article has helped you understand about HDR standards. It can be a confusing topic that makes it difficult to understand which TV to choose. If you are looking for a HDR-compatible TV, one that supports HDR 10 or HDR10+ is perfectly fine. If you want to get the absolute best in picture quality, Dolby Vision as a technology is what you should consider. It has better specs and looks better than HDR10+, but it isn’t cheap. Really consider it, if you’re going to be watching HDR content. If you’re not, then none of the benefits we’ve been speaking about will ever be experienced.
Some of the high-end models support both, HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, whereas other players support HDR10+. A little research should be done before you pick on a TV.
