What's HDR, and what does it mean for your TV?

More and more HDR TVs appear on the market. These three letters are very important to the quality of the display, but most people mix it with resolution and other parameters, so we will explain what really lies behind this abbreviation.
The HDR's ace is hidden in a bright view and a billion-color range
HDR is a abbreviation for a high dynamic range, and would be easiest to explain it as a wider contrast to the color than usual. Of course, the whole story is much more complex, because HDR gives better pixels, in terms that bright white colors are brighter, darker colors are darker, and 10-bit panels finally display a whole billion-colors range. It is important to understand that HDR can have many shapes, just as HD defines a large set of resolutions.

The type of high dynamic range your TV can display should not be mixed with HDR photo options that have recently been added to smartphones. Both result in images that have higher contrasts of light and darkness, but the way they do it is different. With video, you still get an enhanced color and contrast, but you do not get it by combining multiple images. All this has to do with how the image is displayed on the screen, and the original content used for it.

Numerous technologies have been created to make HDR display possible on TV
On a standard screen, all below a certain brightness is displayed in the same black tint. But, the HDR screen range goes beyond that, allowing you to recognize the difference between what is really black and what is tinted. That is why it is increasingly used by movie producers and designers in Hollywood, but also in other big audio-visual centers. HDR brings the media closer to what the human eye sees, and thus creates more realistic images, from scenes blurred with sunlight, to night shots on city streets.

So, get used to see details in the shadows and the brightest details, and then realize that the standard pictures are a bit boring and washed out. The HDR has several hidden tricks compared to the standard display, and there is a new level of image dynamics. When we started from standard definition to HD, screen sizes were much smaller, and adding pixels were enough to reshape the image. Now, the screens are so big that it's not enough to add more pixels, but there are other aspects that can be improved. Here, HDR provides additional colors, better clarity in shadows, and emphasis on detail is subtle, but it significantly brings you a much more visually pleasing picture than adding pixels can do.