HDR10 is the most common and popular type of HDR, since it's an open standard and is used by a range of streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, and more. Also free to use for manufacturers so it can be decoded by any HDR TV and streamed by any HDR streamer.
HDR10 uses something called “static metadata.” This means that there’s one HDR look for the entire movie or show. This is certainly better than SDR content, but it doesn’t allow for a really bright or dark scene to look its absolute best within the same movie. The advantage of that is that it takes up less bandwidth than a format like Dolby Vision which can send metadata frame-by-frame.
HDR10+
- Championed by Samsung
- Not widely supported
- Dynamic metadata
- Potentially better image than HDR10
As you probably figured from the name, HDR10+ is like HDR10… but plus. The plus in this case is dynamic metadata, improving on HDR10’s static. This means that on a per-scene or even per-image basis, the content can provide the TV with all the information it needs to look its absolute best. The only problem is that it’s a Samsung format.
Although there are many TV manufacturers producing HDR10+ compatible TVs, content and other devices are not as prevalent. The intention is for it to become more popular over time and more competitive with Dolby Vision.
Dolby Vision
- Widely supported
- Potentially the best image quality of all the formats
- Less content than stock HDR10
Dolby Vision is a format developed by Dolby Labs. Since it’s a propriety format, Dolby Labs licenses it, which means that companies have to pay Dolby to use it.
Dolby Vision offers a number of clear advantages over other HDR formats, making a big push for HDR. It supports 12-bit color, and a theoretical maximum brightness of a hefty 10,000 nits, so it's more future proof than other HDR standards.
HLG
- From BBC and NHK
- Free to use
- Broadcast friendly
HLG, or Hybrid Log-Gamma, was created by Britain’s BBC and Japan’s NHK. Unlike the formats we’ve discussed so far, it’s actually backward-compatible with SDR TVs. HLG is likely better than SDR, but perhaps not quite the picture quality of the other HDR formats, since it can’t do much to the black levels of an image so you won’t really get much better detail in shadows and night scenes. HLG is still in its infancy, and as a result, there isn’t much HLG content out the there.