HDR

HDR expands the range between the darkest and brightest parts of an image, so a sunlit window and a shadowed corner can both show real detail in the same frame instead of one washing out. This makes scenes look closer to what the eye sees in real life, with punchier highlights like explosions or reflections and shadow detail that does not crush to solid black.

The three common formats are HDR10, a baseline standard supported almost everywhere, HDR10+, which adds scene-by-scene brightness data, and Dolby Vision, which does the same with a different, widely licensed system. A display needs enough peak brightness and good local dimming to actually show the benefit. Without that, HDR content can look dimmer or flatter than standard dynamic range video on the same screen.

A common mistake is buying a budget display advertised as HDR compatible without checking its peak brightness, since simply accepting an HDR signal is not the same as rendering it well. Another is leaving a TV or projector in a generic picture mode that ignores HDR metadata, which mutes the intended contrast the format is built to deliver.