Samsung Electronics and Amazon announced their own take on the HDR10 standard for High Dynamic Range (HDR) video.
For more information visit: www.samsung.com
Unedited press release follows:
Samsung and Amazon Video Deliver Next Generation HDR Video Experience With Updated Open Standard HDR10+
HDR10+ delivers an optimized, high-quality HDR experience to consumers; Amazon Video is the first streaming video service that will implement HDR10+ technology to deliver a new source of high-quality digital video to Prime Video customers around the globe
April 19, 2017— LAS VEGAS — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Amazon Video today announced the introduction of HDR10+, an updated open standard that leverages dynamic metadata to produce enhanced contrast and colors on an expanded range of televisions.
HDR10+ elevates the HDR10 open standard with the addition of Dynamic Tone Mapping. The current HDR10 standard utilizes static metadata that does not change during playback despite scene specific brightness levels. As a result, image quality may not be optimal in some scenes. For example, when a movie’s overall color scheme is very bright but has a few scenes filmed in relatively dim lighting, those scenes will appear significantly darker than what was originally envisioned by the director.
HDR10+ incorporates dynamic metadata that allows a high dynamic range (HDR) TV to adjust brightness levels on a scene-by-scene or even frame-by-frame basis. With the ability to display outstanding contrast with detailed highlights and a richer range of colors, HDR10+ produces images that are much closer to the director’s intent.
All of Samsung’s 2017 UHD TVs, including its premium QLED TV lineup, support HDR10+. In the second half of this year, Samsung’s 2016 UHD TVs will gain HDR10+ support through a firmware update.
“As an advanced HDR10 technology, HDR10+ offers an unparalleled HDR viewing experience — vivid picture, better contrast and accurate colors — that brings HDR video to life,” said Kyoungwon Lim, Vice President of Visual Display Division at Samsung Electronics. “We’re excited to work with world-class industry partners, including Amazon Video, to bring more amazing HDR content directly to our 2017 UHD TVs, including our QLED TV lineup.”
“Together with Samsung, we are excited to offer customers an enhanced viewing experience on a broad range of devices,” said Greg Hart, Vice President of Amazon Video, worldwide. “At Amazon, we are constantly innovating on behalf of customers and are thrilled to be the first streaming service provider to work with Samsung to make HDR10+ available on Prime Video globally later this year.”
The launch of the HDR10+ content continues Samsung’s and Amazon Video’s leadership in the HDR space. With the move to HDR 10+, Amazon Video is the first streaming service provider to begin development of the standard for its audiences. In May 2015, Samsung and Amazon Video brought HDR to the market using the HDR10 open standard, the first in the field. This bold and innovative advancement laid the groundwork for several HDR launches. From Hollywood film studios to global TV manufacturers, HDR10 is the most broadly used HDR standard today.
Samsung has also partnered with other industry leaders to deliver the best HDR10+ content viewing experience by establishing an HDR10+ ecosystem. Previously, Samsung collaborated with Colorfront to improve HDR10+ workflows for creative post-production mastering by using Colorfront’s Transkoder. Samsung also partnered with MulticoreWare to complete the integration of HDR10+ support in the x265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), which is available for free under an open source license, and is used by many popular commercial encoding system providers including Telestream, Haivision, and Rohde and Schwarz.
About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com.
About Amazon Video
Amazon Video is a premium on-demand entertainment service that offers customers the greatest choice in what to watch, and how to watch it. Prime Video offers thousands of movies and TV shows, including popular licensed content plus critically-acclaimed and award-winning Amazon Original Series and Movies from Amazon Studios like Transparent, The Man in the High Castle, Love & Friendship and kids series Tumble Leaf, available for unlimited streaming as part of an Amazon Prime membership. Prime Video is also now available to customers in more than 200 countries and territories around the globe at www.primevideo.com.