HDR10
HDR10 is an open standard for high dynamic range video, which lets a screen show a wider range of brightness and more colours than normal video.
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HDR10 is an open standard for high dynamic range, or HDR, video. It was announced by the Consumer Technology Association in 2015, and many brands support it. Normal video squeezes the picture into a narrow range of brightness. HDR10 lets bright parts of a scene look brighter and dark parts stay dark, with more steps of colour in between.
How it works
HDR10 uses 10 bits for each colour, which gives over a billion colours, against about 16 million for normal 8-bit video. It also carries a wide colour range called Rec.2020. The video includes a small set of numbers, called static metadata, that tells the screen the brightest and darkest levels in the whole film. The screen uses these numbers to adjust the picture as best it can.
What it does not promise
- The label does not set a minimum brightness. A screen can accept HDR10 video and still be too dim to show much difference.
- It does not make normal video look like HDR. The video itself must be made in HDR10.
- Static metadata means one set of numbers for the whole film. Formats such as HDR10+ and Dolby Vision send new numbers scene by scene, which is a different standard.