Amazon is bringing a sack load of high dynamic range 10+ (HRD10+) videos to its Prime Video service, just in time for Christmas.
If you live in the US and have a compatible high-end Samsung QLED or 4K Smart TV, then come December 13 you’ll have access to a wave of HDR10+ content.
Adding to the slightly confusing world of HDR standards, namely between the Dolby Vision and HDR10 standards, HDR10+ developed primarily by Samsung uses dynamic metadata in digital content to tweak brightness boundaries of a picture on a frame-by-frame basis, unlike the static HDR10 which sets the boundaries for the entire length of a video or movie.
The idea is that HDR10+ will yield punchier and more dynamic colours without making a picture loo unrealistic. It’s essentially a step-up from HDR which itself is an improvement on standard dynamic range.
With the Amazon partnership, HDR10+ support will be added to the likes of The Grand Tour and The Man in the High Castle, with plenty more shows scheduled to get the treatment in the future, according to Yonhap News.
Unfortunately, there’s no word on whether the HDR10+ treatment will extend over to the UK, though we suspect that will be the case on December 13 or a little later.
For people without the latest 2017 Samsung TV, it’s worth noting that some older Samsung 4K TVs from 2016 have an HDR+ mode which can upmix standard dynamic range content into having a form of HDR. The effect can work well on Amazon Prime Video content, so while you may not get the full HDR10+ experience, there’s still the option to get a taste of HDR without splashing the cash on a new high-end TV.
Related: Best 4K TVs of 2017
Is HDR worth the TV upgrade? Have your say on Twitter or Facebook.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
