When it comes to HDR, there are two competing standards – HDR10 and Dolby Vision. The latter has historically been the more technologically advanced of the two, with support for 12-bit color depth and dynamic tone mapping.
But now an improved HDR10 standard, HDR10+ is on the rise, and Amazon Prime Instant Video has just announced that it will be supporting Samsung’s new format.
Dynamic tone mapping is a process by which contrast and brightness information can be changed on a scene-by-scene basis within a movie. This avoids problems such as a dark scene in a bright movie not looking quite right because the overall movie’s brightness has been optimized for lighter scenes.
Coming soon to a Samsung TV near you
HDR10+ is an open standard developed by Samsung, and is currently available on all of Samsung’s 2017 televisions (such as the recently reviewed Samsung Q9F) and will be coming to its 2016 range via a firmware update later this year.
HDR10+ should not be confused with HDR+, the technology that allows SDR content to be upscaled to HDR, and which works surprisingly well.
It’s not yet clear whether HDR10+ can grow to become the dominant HDR format, but Samsung has already seen success with the HDR10 format, also introduced through a partnership with Amazon, and which has grown to be the dominant HDR format.
- Check out our full guide to HDR for everything you need to know about the new standard
