HDR10+ Royalty-free dynamic-metadata HDR format

What HDR10+ is

HDR10+ is an enhancement to HDR10 that carries dynamic metadata describing the statistical "fingerprint" of each scene or frame, so an HDR display can apply a scene-optimized tone-mapping curve instead of HDR10's single static curve applied uniformly across an entire title. The base video essence is unchanged — HDR10+ is additive metadata that HDR10-only displays simply ignore.

The format was announced on 20 April 2017 by Samsung Electronics and Amazon Video as an open dynamic-metadata HDR standard. On 28 August 2017 at IFA in Berlin, Samsung, Panasonic, and 20th Century Fox formalized the technology by founding the HDR10+ Technologies, LLC joint venture. The formal license and logo certification program launched on 20 June 2018, and Amazon Video began streaming HDR10+ on 13 December 2017.

HDR10+ Technologies, LLC administers the license and certification program, publishes the technical and test specifications, and licenses the certified logo. Certification testing is performed by third-party Authorized Test Centers, not by HDR10+ Technologies directly.

Metadata and signal characteristics

HDR10+ inherits the HDR10 base profile: PQ EOTF (SMPTE ST 2084), 10-bit minimum (up to 16-bit), BT.2020 color primaries, 4:2:0 chroma sub-sampling for compressed video, resolution-agnostic up to 8K, and a peak linearized pixel value of 10,000 cd/m² for each R/G/B color channel. Mastering Display Color Volume metadata is required; MaxCLL and MaxFALL are optional.

The dynamic metadata itself signals scene characteristics on a per-scene or per-frame basis: the binned statistics of all pixel values in the scene — a histogram-like "fingerprint" showing how bright or dark important details are — and, optionally, a guided reference tone curve unique to that scene with up to one knee-point that preserves shadow detail by leaving anything below the knee untouched.

The metadata is encoded as ITU-T T.35 user data, which lets it ride inside HEVC, AV1, and VP9 (via WebM) bitstreams alongside HDR10 static metadata. For streaming and OTT delivery it is carried as an HDR10+ SEI message; for HDMI delivery to a TV or projector it travels in a dedicated HDR10+ Vendor-Specific InfoFrame (VSIF). Because the metadata is optional ITU-T T.35, an HDR10-only display simply ignores it and falls back to HDR10. The metadata syntax is codified as SMPTE ST 2094-40, "Dynamic Metadata for Color Volume Transform — Application #4," one of four application profiles in the ST 2094 family.

Royalty model, devices, and streaming

HDR10+ is royalty-free at the device level — there is no per-unit payment to use the format. Adopters pay only a nominal annual administrative fee to HDR10+ Technologies, LLC and run their devices through a third-party Authorized Test Center for certification. This is the format's core differentiator from Dolby Vision, which charges per-device licensing fees.

On the TV side, HDR10+ is supported by Samsung (the format's lead sponsor; HDR10+ across the entire QLED, Neo QLED, and OLED lineup), Panasonic (co-founder), Hisense, TCL, Vizio, Philips/TP Vision, and Roku TV. The two major holdouts are LG and Sony, both of which prioritize Dolby Vision; LG has never shipped HDR10+ on its OLEDs.

For streaming, HDR10+ is delivered by Amazon Prime Video (the original launch partner, since 13 December 2017), Apple TV+ and the Apple TV app on smart TVs (added October 2022 via tvOS 16), Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Netflix, YouTube, Google Play Movies, Rakuten TV, and several regional services. Apple TV+ originals and iTunes movie titles stream in HDR10+ alongside their Dolby Vision masters.

Apple's hardware support is narrower than its app support: Apple added HDR10+ to the third-generation Apple TV 4K (launched November 2022). Apple Support confirms that "HDR10+ is a supported format only on Apple TV 4K (3rd generation)" — earlier Apple TV 4K hardware from 2017 and 2021 ships only HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

HDR10+ Adaptive, Gaming, and Advanced

HDR10+ Adaptive, announced by Samsung in early 2021 for its Neo QLED line, uses the TV's built-in ambient-light sensor to feed real-time room brightness data into the HDR10+ tone-mapping engine, so the picture is re-optimized for the actual viewing environment rather than the dark mastering room. It is the HDR10+ ecosystem's direct response to Dolby Vision IQ, and it is designed to operate inside Filmmaker Mode so it can adapt the picture without overriding the director's creative intent. Amazon Prime Video was the launch content partner.

HDR10+ Gaming is a 2022 certification profile aimed at console and PC gaming, layered on top of base HDR10+. It mandates source-side handshakes that auto-set both game and display to the HDR10+ Gaming mode without a manual HDR calibration screen, preserves variable refresh rate, and is engineered for low-latency game-mode pipelines. Implementation is free to game developers, and Samsung's lineup support began in 2022 on Odyssey monitors and Q70-series-and-above 120 Hz TVs. The first shipping HDR10+ Gaming title was Nexon's The First Descendant.

HDR10+ Advanced is the next-generation HDR10+ metadata revision unveiled by HDR10+ Technologies, LLC on 10 December 2025. It adds local (region-of-image) tone-mapping precision, finer color-control metadata, per-scene motion-smoothing control that addresses visible judder without forcing a one-size-fits-all setting, and genre-based optimization cues that let displays tailor processing to the type of material. It arrives on top of an installed base of more than 170 adopters across nearly 20,000 certified devices, with announced supporters including MediaTek, Panasonic, Roku, Samsung, TP Vision, and Amazon Prime Video.