Samsung’s 2022 televisions and monitors will support its recently unveiled HDR10+ Gaming standard, the company announced. That means they’ll deliver a variety of features for gamers like variable refresh rates (VRR) at up to 120Hz and automatic HDR color correction on a game-by-game basis.
So what exactly does HDR10+ mean?
HDR10+ is a process that adds more dynamic range (ratio of light and dark) to the incoming image to mimic what the human eye can see. From the viewer’s perspective, this results in an image that is brighter and has a wider range of color and deeper tones than conventional HDR process. Whereas the current HDR10 standard uses static metadata, HRD10+ uses dynamic metadata to create even greater contrast and colors that are closer to reality, providing an enhanced viewing experience. By using this dynamic metadata that is encoded in the HDR10+ signal, HDR10+ can adjust resulting brightness levels of a tone mapped HDR signal based on a scene-by-scene, creating an image that is much closer to the filmmaker’s intent.
Prior to the new HDR10+ standard, static tone mapping was used, which adopts only one fixed tone-mapping curve for all the content. For example, when some scenes of a movie are bright and some scenes were filmed in relatively dim lighting, those dark scenes will be appeared significantly dimmer than director’s original intention as a consequence of a static tone mapping. With dynamic tone mapping, however, different curves are applied from scene to scene, which preserves the original creative intent of the filmmaker in terms of colors and brightness. This implies that HDR10+ makes it possible to realize more accurate expression in shadows, more detail in bright areas, and more accurate color rendering that eliminates washing out in HDR TVs.
HDR functions have been applied to a number of products in recent years, including TVs, smartphones and cameras. In the years to come, as an open standard, HDR10+ will become the industry standard and be incorporated into even more devices. There are numerous other benefits to HDR10+ that will hasten the adoption of this new standard across digital devices. Unlike many competitors, it is royalty free, so TV manufacturers can adopt it at no cost. It also has system flexibility, meaning it can allow a variety of users, from movie studios and filmmakers to television and device manufacturers, to incorporate this technology and improve the viewing experience for audiences.
This new standard, developed by HDR10+ Technologies, LLC, gives game developers the tools they need to provide gamers with a compelling and consistent HDR gaming experience without the need for manual calibration across a variety of display technologies for various input sources, including consoles, PCs and more.
Samsung’s 2022 TV and gaming monitor lineup will support the HDR10+ GAMING standard by allowing automated HDR calibration that provides stunning picture quality to meet game developers’ demand. This translates into one of the most responsive and accurate gaming experiences available to date.
The standard will be used by Samsung’s 2022 Neo QLED lineup with the Q70 TV series and above, along with gaming monitors, the company said. It didn’t mention any models, but it showed a wide-screen gaming display (below) and what could be a 2022 Neo QLED TV with very slim bezels.
HDR10+ Gaming slipped under the radar when it was first announced, but it appears to be a move to counter Dolby Vision HDR for gaming found on Xbox Series X/S consoles. It provides a “consistent HDR gaming experience without the need for manual calibration across a variety of display technologies for various input sources, including consoles, PCs and more,” Samsung said.
The idea with HDR10+ Gaming is that you won’t need to use any manual settings, as the game engine itself automatically optimizes color calibration in real-time. It’s designed to deliver details in dark shadows and highlights, while configuring the display to a “true reference mode” so colors are displayed as intended by the developer. It also supports VRR at up to 120Hz along with tone mapping that won’t add any extra latency to the gaming signal.
As with HDR10+, however, the challenge for Samsung is getting developers to adopt the standard for games. Dolby Vision gaming is already available or is coming to over 100 games on Xbox Series X/S, so Samsung has some catching up to do. It did say that “several companies, including Saber Interactive, are expected to showcase their HDR10+ Gaming titles” at CES 2022.
Samsung could make some headway with PC gaming, however, as Dolby Vision is only available on a handful of PC titles. To help pave the way for HDR10+ PC games, Samsung said that NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series, RTX 20 Series and GTX 16 Series GPUs will support HDR10+ with drivers “scheduled for release in 2022.”
