Difference between HDR+ and HDR?

[ali756]

What is the difference between these two modes? 

Samsung's MU 2017 models have the HDR+ mode in the picture settings menu whereas the NU 2018 models (most of them) doesn't.

[AndrewL]

Hi @ali756

HDR (High Dynamic Range) makes bright areas of the screen look even brighter, allows the TV to display new colors and significantly expands the range of the contrast ratio on-screen. HDR+ enhances High Dynamic Range (HDR) quality to its highest picture quality capacity, even if the source isn’t in HDR format. HDR+ also uncovers previously hidden images from darker content scenes, supplementing the level of brightness to express objects hidden in darker shadows. For brighter content scenes, HDR+ increases the level of contrast ratio to differentiate objects from the background, while still depicting more image details on the screen for an overall better picture

[chopples123]

HDR+ on your TV is a faux HDR effect mate, It attempts to map the current source into the native range of the panel. Invariably this leads to an unatural oversaturation of colours, also the extra brightness increases the likleyhood of other issues such as haloing.

The only way it would add extra detail to the scene would be because the TV was poorly calibrated in SDR mode. 

I would recommend leaving it off 

cheers

[LithiumFox]

Gonna be frank, I'm seeing a lot of conflicting details. 

On the one hand, it seems to add a faux HDR effect for SDR content, HOWEVER it seems to be better for actual HDR content. 

Can anyone confirm if this is the case? Comparing it to my friends Dolby Vision HDR T.V. it looks comparable with it on when playing, say, Resident Evil 2. I'm going to compare with Odyssey next since that uses actual lumens in it. I know that the Samsung gets about 900 lumens with it off compared to almost 2000 on the other TV. (Or maybe it was 100 vs 900. Mine was a smaller amount I know that).

Gonna test a bit 

[chopples123]

Hi mate

Samsungs description is "automatically provide an optimal HDR effect based on the video source"

key word being effect, ie additional processing. It is a picture processing "enhancement" nothing more.

console games do not use Dolby vision so that bit is kind of irelevent in this context.

Also alot of console games are not even HDR

this is for red dead redemption 2 go to 10 mins in 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDGIU88p-EU

as you can see its its an SDR 8 bit image placed in a HDR container. 

The Resident Evil Remake is the same

https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/comments/aexpuo/hdr_issue/

It is recommended to play these games with HDR turned off so I am not surprised it looks comparable

cheers

[ali756]

Depends on games mate, coz in some cases HDR turned off really looks better than when turned on.
Also, I've noticed, games tend to run smoother in any mode other than Game Mode.

[100pat]

HDR increases the number of shades of colour possible. So, it reduces banding (stripes) in shading giving a more smoothly graduated effect. Among other things.
There’s three main flavours of HDR:
HDR10 the vanilla version
HDR10+ which is Samsung’s enhanced version (favoured by Amazon Video)
HDR Dolby Vision which is the competing enhanced version (favoured by Netflix and Apple TV+)
It’s getting a bit like the Betamax vs VHS video-tape wars. (If you remember video-tape!)

[EspenT]

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@100pat wrote:
HDR increases the number of shades of colour possible. So, it reduces banding (stripes) in shading giving a more smoothly graduated effect. Among other things.
There’s three main flavours of HDR:
HDR10 the vanilla version
HDR10+ which is Samsung’s enhanced version (favoured by Amazon Video)
HDR Dolby Vision which is the competing enhanced version (favoured by Netflix and Apple TV+)
It’s getting a bit like the Betamax vs VHS video-tape wars. (If you remember video-tape!)

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Do not forget HLG used on the BBC iPlayer etc. 

[chopples123]

The original post related to the HDR+ setting found in Samsung TVs, the necro and subsequent posts kind of shows why Samsung removed it from the 2019 TVs. In short, consumers found it confusing.

[100pat]

Thanks, chopples123. I had completed forgotten that there *was* an actual HDR+ setting which seemed to try to emulate HDR. Sorry for going off topic.