Samsung announced that it will support HDR10+ for Netflix movies and shows on 2025 Samsung Neo QLED, OLED and Lifestyle TVs, as well as 2024 and 2025 monitor models. Future TVs will have support as well.
There are three major HDR formats when it comes to video: HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. All three expand the dynamic range by adding metadata, but HDR10 does it for the whole movie, while HDR10+ and Dolby Vision can adjust the metadata on a scene-by-scene basis (even frame-by-frame).
Last week, a post on the Netflix TechBlog went into more details on the differences between HDR10 and HDR10+. It can have quite an effect, here’s an example:
Screen grabs from AV1 video: HDR10 • HDR10+
Note that only the Netflix Premium plan (the 4K one) offers HDR content.
HDR10+ is a royalty-free format (Dolby Vision requires a license) that was created by Samsung and Amazon Video. Naturally, HDR10+ is supported on Amazon Prime Video, as well as YouTube and Google Play Movies & TV.
Samsung notes that HDR10+ is also supported on UHD Blu-ray discs from major studios, in case you still use physical media. Perhaps more relevant is that you can record HDR10+ videos with your phone.
Samsung aside, Netflix has enabled HDR10+ streaming for all Premium subscribers whose devices support the format and use AV1. HDR10+ accounts for “50% of all eligible viewing hours”, reports Netflix. The streaming service plans to offer HDR10+ for all HDR titles by the end of this year.
Note that Netflix only accepts Dolby Vision masters from studios and it converts those to HDR10+. Both formats are available to stream, which one you get depends on what your device supports.
