Samsung has revealed a new upgraded version of its premium HDR10+ picture format that’s designed to improve the high dynamic range experience across everything from brightness and tone mapping to motion and color – with benefits targeted at gamers as well as home theatre fans. What more, this new HDR10+ Advanced format already has a big-name supporter on its books in the shape of Amazon’s Prime Video service.
With the original HDR10+ format now supported by 174 adopters, though, and available on more than 16,000 certified product models, 500 supported movie titles, more than 28,000 OTT and UCC-supported videos, as well as 16 streaming services (including Disney+ as of last week), the potential audience for the new updated HDR10+ Advanced version is clearly already substantial.
Samsung’s announcement of HDR10+ Advanced follows hot on the heels of Dolby announcing a second generation of its Dolby Vision HDR format (which Samsung TVs don’t support, of course) at the recent IFA technology show in Berlin – and in some areas the improvements introduced by HDR10+ Advanced look similar on the surface, at least, to the advances Dolby has created for Dolby Vision 2. But there are certainly a few differences along the way, too.
The original HDR10+ format, if you’re not familiar with it, enables compatible displays to deliver more dynamic, vibrant and accurate HDR pictures by adding extra scene by scene image data to the video stream. Unlike Dolby Vision 2, the upgraded HDR10+ Advanced format isn’t being created with two different ‘tiers’ of performance; all of its features are potentially available to any TV that chooses to support it. Those features include an impressive six key new enhancements to the original HDR10+ format we’ve been living with since 2018.
What’s New In HDR10+ Advanced
- HDR10+ Bright
This new feature adds extended statistical metadata to HDR10+ Advanced masters that helps displays better understand and render all the image tonality nuances a source may contain, resulting in a consistently brighter HDR experience. Samsung TVs, for instance, can then feed this enhanced information into new AI-driven algorithms that dynamically enhance brightness and color for more realistic images capable of taking advantage of the 4,000-5,000-nits of brightness and extended color gamuts (right through to 100% of the BT2020 spectrum) available with some of Samsung’s next-generation TVs.
2. Genre-based Optimization (HDR10+ Genre)
This new tool allows content creators to specify a particular genre for their content, enabling them to apply quite detailed classifications to the video feed. This extra genre-specific information can then be used by HDR10+ Advanced-capable devices to apply better optimized tone-mapping curves and picture processing.
3. Intelligent Motion Smoothing (HDR10+ Intelligent FRC)
This one enables content creators to signal to HDR10+ Advanced displays the strength of frame rate interpolation they want the display to apply to a scene. This can be managed depending on content type (sports, films, news etc) and can be set to adjust to different ambient lighting conditions. Dolby Vision 2 offers a similar creator-led motion compensation feature, but only to premium TVs via the upper of its two performance tiers.
4. Adaptive Cloud Gaming Mode (HDR10+ Intelligent Gaming)
Samsung goes further than most if not all other TV brands when it comes to catering for streamed gaming services on its TVs, even including a dedicated Game Hub screen among its smart menus. The new HDR10+ Advanced Intelligent Gaming feature is designed to improve the performance of streamed games by requiring that the tone mapping of cloud-based games adapts in real time to changes in ambient light conditions, to ensure gamers always get a consistently optimized gaming experience.
5. Detailed Local Tone-Mapping (HDR10+ Local Tone-mapping)
This part of HDR10+ Advanced breaks the image down into a far higher number of separate analysis zones than was possible before to enable more precise control of the brightness a display with local dimming deploys in specific areas of its screen. Resulting in better contrast, accuracy and image depth.
6. Advanced Color Control
This new feature of HDR10+ Advanced is potentially the most interesting one, for me, and allows content creators to deliver more precise color data to TVs so they can produce a more accurate color performance.
Samsung is focused first on bringing HDR10+ Advanced to its 2026 TVs, so we can likely expect to hear more about it at the upcoming CES in Las Vegas in January. Last week, though, I had the opportunity to see a side by side demonstration (of sorts…) of HDR10+ Advanced in action, and if what I saw there translates into finished TV sets, I’d say the new standard has the potential to deliver a substantial picture quality improvement.
I had to qualify the terms of the demonstration with “of sorts”, though, because it was only actually a simulation, showing pictures created to show a sense of the sort of difference HDR10+ Advanced is expected to make, rather than either of the TVs in the demo actually running a functioning version of the new format. Assuming Samsung wasn’t being overly optimistic with its simulation, though, I’d say we can expect HDR10+ Advanced to deliver really quite strong improvements in both average and peak brightness, substantially more vibrant and dynamic looking colors, better contrast and, in an actually particularly welcome touch, improved detailing in the darkest picture areas.
I must stress that it wouldn’t be appropriate to class the above comments about HDR10+ Advanced’s potential performance as “official” until I’m able to see a finished version of the technology running natively on a 2026 TV. But the simulated demonstration alongside the explanation of what the new features do certainly makes HDR10+ Advanced look seriously promising. Keep an eye on my Forbes channel for further updates.
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