- Samsung reveals next-generation HDR10+ Adaptive HDR, available in 2026
- Shares many similarities with the new Dolby Vision 2 features
- Amazon Prime Video will support it, but only simulations have been shown so far
Samsung has revealed HDR10+ Advanced, its next-generation HDR format that will compete with Dolby Vision 2 to deliver even better images on the best TVs of the future.
It includes some upgrades that directly match what Dolby Vision 2 offers, but also some unique features of its own, such as new Dolby tools, which are intended to improve image quality for the newer technology that has become more common since current HDR formats were conceived.
There are six key areas of upgrade in HDR10+ Advanced, as reported by regular TechRadar contributor John Archer in Forbes:
- HDR10+ Bright
- Genre HDR10+
- HDR10+ Smart FRC
- HDR10+ smart games
- HDR10+ Local Tone Mapping
- Advanced color control
HDR10+ Bright
HDR10+ Bright is the equivalent of Dolby Vision 2’s ‘two-way tone mapping’, and is a technology that makes HDR look more accurate and rich on today’s super-bright TVs, and particularly the mini-RGB LED TVs of the future, according to our friends at What Hi-Fi?, who saw a mock demo of what this feature is expected to look like.
This is the problem that HDR10+ Bright aims to solve: most movies today are mastered for a maximum brightness of 1000 nits in their home version. When TVs are lower than 1000 nits bright (as the best OLED TVs were until a few years ago, and as many cheap TVs are today), Dolby Vision and HDR10+ “tone map” the different brightness levels of the HDR images, so the image still looks accurate, just with a more limited range of brightness and darkness than the original mastered version.
But what if a TV’s brightness is above 1,000 nits, as many of today’s best mini-LED TVs are, including Samsung’s? Well, that was more of a Wild West. That also requires tone mapping, but in the other direction, so the dynamic range is expanded rather than compressed. Whether or not this is still accurate depends on the TV’s processing, but HDR10+ Bright aims to add some consistent precision for brighter TVs.
Samsung plans to launch its new ‘Micro RGB’ TVs in 2026, which we had a preview of, which should offer really high brightness and richer colors, so this technology seems tailor-made for it.
Genre HDR10+
This promises to apply specific image enhancements depending on the type of thing you’re looking at; I suppose this means that dark crime dramas will have an emphasis on retaining details in the shadows, while sports will care less about contrast and more about light, vibrant color tones.
HDR10+ Smart FRC
This is the equivalent of Dolby Vision 2’s Authentic Motion feature that I saw in action earlier this year. The idea here is that instead of motion smoothing simply being on or off at different intensity levels, creators can tell the TV (using data embedded in the video) how strong the motion smoothing should be, and it can be changed on a shot-by-shot basis.
Therefore, a quiet dramatic film should require very little motion smoothing, keeping everything looking natural overall. However, if there is suddenly a panning shot across a landscape, which is the sort of thing that is likely to cause a lot of visible judder in a film, then motion smoothing may increase for a short period, so the film always looks as if it were intended for movie theaters (where lower brightness and projection technology means judder is usually not visible).
Interestingly, it appears this can also be adjusted depending on lighting conditions – judder is less visible on darker screens, so if you’re watching in a dark room with the brightness not as high, the system may not use as strong an anti-aliasing setting.
HDR10+ smart games
This is a new system for adapting real-time tone mapping based on ambient lighting to maintain detail in an image, but specifically in a way that works well for cloud gaming services, as long as the cloud gaming service supports HDR10+ Advanced. It could mean better visibility in very dark areas of the screen, for example, which is always useful when gaming.
What cloud gaming services will support it? That remains to be seen, but Nvidia has supported the current HDR10+ gaming standard, so there’s a good chance GeForce Now will be on board.
HDR10+ local tone mapping
This apparently means that TVs can analyze the image in a much more precise way to determine the best way to apply local backlight dimming on a mini-LED TV, potentially meaning better contrast and less brightness from light to dark areas, depending on the physical capabilities of the TV.
Advanced color control
This one is a little vague, but certainly intriguing. According to Forbes, this means creators can send “more accurate color data to TVs so they can produce more accurate color performance.” I don’t know exactly what that will mean, but if it’s the color equivalent of tone mapping – meaning TVs can modify the way they handle colors based on their own capabilities, making sure what you’re seeing is what the creator intended – then that could be very interesting.
When is HDR10+ Advanced coming and who will support it?
So far, we know that Samsung plans to bring the technology to its future TVs and that Amazon Prime Video will support it on its streaming platform.
Samsung is apparently focusing on bringing HDR10+ Advanced to its 2026 TVs, which will likely be announced at CES 2026 and launch in the spring. I don’t have information yet on other TV manufacturers, or whether current Samsung TVs could be updated to support it, but I’ll try to find out more.
It’s a bit surprising, though, that Samsung has only shown people mock images of what it’s expected to look like until now – when I saw Dolby Vision 2, I was told that the technology was actually running on real TVs with real images, and that was a few months ago.
That worries me a little about whether HDR10+ Advanced will meet this expected deadline… but on the other hand, what good will it do for Dolby Vision 2 to be first if there is no content? Right now, it only has Canal+ on board publicly, so if HDR10+ Advanced has big Prime Video shows ready from the start, it has an advantage.
I suspect this means that CES 2026, the Consumer Electronics Show, held annually in Las Vegas in January, will be a real battle of HDR formats, in addition to being a big battle of RGB-backlit TVs.
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