HDR10+ Technologies, a joint venture between 20th Century Fox, Panasonic Corporation and Samsung Electronics, has announced the first certified products and adopters of the HDR10+ licence programme. Panasonic and Samsung are also among the first to announce that firmware has been deployed to select 2018 television models enabling support of HDR10+ for consumers.
An upgraded version of HDR10, HDR10+ adds dynamic metadata to each frame. The HDR10+ licence programme and logo ensure that compliant products meet its standards for picture quality, including display mode, peak luminance level and stability, transfer function, white point tracking performance and colour gamut coverage.
The metadata processing certification qualifies carriage and accuracy of metadata over interfaces, while the display management performance certification qualifies tone-mapping based on HDR10+ metadata such as shadow preservation.
In addition, the Ultra HD Blu-ray player certification qualifies the processing and accuracy of HDR10+ metadata carriage over the HDMI interface.
Depending on the category of adopter, certification can be obtained by self-certification or through an authorised testing centre. Adopter categories include UHD Blu-ray player manufacturers, OTT set-top box manufacturers or service, display manufacturers, SoC vendors, content companies and tool vendors.
HDR10+ Technologies is actively partnering with companies throughout the media ecosystem and more than 80 companies have already applied or completed the licence programme. It is available to content companies; display, Blu-ray disc players and STB manufacturers; and SoC vendors. Companies pay an administrative fee but the licence is royalty-free.
20th Century Fox has committed to incorporating HDR10+ in its upcoming new release slate. The studio is currently exploring several titles for release in the marketplace and plans to announce availability in the coming weeks.
Companies can learn more about the HDR10+ license and logo programme, including final specifications and adopter agreements here.
Analyst Comment
Given that Panasonic and Samsung established the group and Samsung drove the development of the technology, it is little surprise that they are the first. The news that there are 80 companies involved in certification is more illuminating. For those that have not been following the development, HDR10+ is a non-proprietary method for dynamic metadata processing for HDR that is intended to offer an alternative to Dolby Vision which is, of course, proprietary. Key to which wins is in which of the systems is most widely adopted by content providers. Dolby had a head start and a good brand for visual quality as well as a good story about quality, but in the end, a royalty free, ‘good enough’ system is bound to be compelling and I don’t see that the level of content support for Dolby Vision is really strong enough. I have seen comparisons of HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision and if you are very picky and know what to look for, you can see the difference. However, for most viewers, HDR10+ will be very good and certainly ‘good enough’. (BR)
