As the HDR standards war continues to heat up, Samsung's new HDR10+ has found a powerful new ally in Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, as reported by Forbes.
Warner Bros. and the HDR10+ Alliance have confirmed that the film studio is now officially throwing its support behind the latest high dynamic range format, joining 20th Century Fox, Amazon Prime Video, Panasonic and, of course, Samsung.
"With HDR10+ dynamic metadata, WB can continue to more accurately bring the filmmakers’ vision of our 2018 releases and our vast catalog of over seventy-five 4K HDR titles to the home across a broad range of HDR10+ capable TVs," said Jim Wuthrich, President of the Americas and Global Strategy at Warner Bros.
HDR10+ differs to regular HDR10 in that it uses dynamic metadata to adjust brightness on a scene-by-scene basis, something that competing format Dolby Vision is also able to do.
While Dolby Vision has a technical advantage in that it provides 12-bit colour, HDR10+ does not force TV and Blu-ray/4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player manufacturers to pay royalties. Instead, Samsung will charge an annual administrative fee, which makes HDR10+ more of an open standard.
What this could mean for you
Though just speculation at this point, industry-wide adoption of the HDR10+ standard could mean cheaper TVs, players and movies in the long run, as manufacturers and home entertainment distributors would not have to the pay royalties they're currently paying to Dolby.
Alternatively, perhaps nothing will change, aside from the addition of HDR10+ as a supported format for people who own devices that can play it. We'll find out in due course.
It would also mean a new feature or logo to look out for those who want to future-proof their next 4K TV purchase. (Well, until the next advanced HDR format arrives...)
Amazon Prime Video is already streaming content in HDR10+, while Netflix is reportedly open to supporting the standard in the future.
Those old enough to remember the great HD DVD/Blu-ray war of the early '00s will recall that Warner Bros. initially sat on the fence in that competition, with its eventual decision to side with Blu-ray effectively putting an end to the HD DVD format entirely. Could the same thing happen to the Dolby Vision format? Only time will tell.
