Samsung and Amazon Unveil New HDR Standard

Samsung and Amazon have teamed up to develop an improved high dynamic range (HDR) standard that it hopes will rival Dolby Vision (and, of course, help the pair from paying royalties for using Dolby’s standard). The new standard, HDR10+, is a revision of the current HDR10 standard as certified by the UHD Alliance, and, like Dolby Vision, uses dynamic metadata to help adjust brightness and contrast in real time, optimised on a frame-by-frame basis, an improvement on HDR10’s fixed metadata, which tended to overly darken bright scenes.

“As an advanced HDR10 technology, HDR10+ offers an unparalleled HDR viewing experience — vivid picture, better contrast and accurate colors — that brings HDR video to life,” Kyoungwon Lim, Vice President of Visual Display Division at Samsung Electronics, said. “We’re excited to work with world-class industry partners, including Amazon Video, to bring more amazing HDR content directly to our 2017 UHD TVs, including our QLED TV lineup.”

Samsung’s 2016 UHD TVs will also get HDR10+ support through a firmware update during the second half of 2017. Since the HDR10+ dynamic metadata needs to be included within a video file before it can be decoded, the new standard relies upon content creators adopting it. The collaboration with Amazon, though, will mean that there will be plenty of HDR10+-compatible content available through Amazon Prime Video very soon.

“Together with Samsung, we are excited to offer customers an enhanced viewing experience on a broad range of devices,” Greg Hart, Vice President of Amazon Video, worldwide, said. “At Amazon, we are constantly innovating on behalf of customers and are thrilled to be the first streaming service provider to work with Samsung to make HDR10+ available on Prime Video globally later this year.”