In the modern world of television, perhaps nothing is more important than resolution and visual clarity! A good TV resolution can help to make images look much more real, and thus far more satisfying.
There have been all kinds of fantastic strides in TV technology that have helped to make our favourite content look all the more realistic. But trying to make sense of all of these technologies can be a challenge unto itself! For instance, when looking through assorted TV models, you might wonder what the difference between HDR10 and Dolby Vision is. Both promise to improve the visual experience of your telly, but how exactly do they do that?
Want to finally find some solid answers to these questions? Then you’ve come to the right page! In this guide, our Reliant tech experts will take you through the key differences between these TV technologies. So you can understand their benefits for yourself!
What Is HDR10?
HDR10 is essentially an upgraded version of the standard HDR format. If you’ve never heard of HDR before, don’t worry. It’s quite simple. Essentially, HDR is a premium video format that carries more detailed information about your content. This information allows the TV to enhance the available colours and brightness levels. With more available colours and more brightness levels, contrast is improved. You’ll be able to notice every single detail. This improves the overall realism of an image!
HDR10 is an upgraded version of standard HDR. It enhances the range of colours and brightness levels even more. Essentially, this allows images to look even more realistic than before!
HDR10 is a video format that contains even more detailed information on your content. Content that is played in HDR10 looks far closer to the real thing, thanks to enhanced colour.
Of course, in order to use HDR10, you will need to make sure that your TV supports the HDR10 format!
Pros
- More colours and brightness levels allow for richer detail and contrast.
- Compatible with most modern TVs.
Cons
- Has largely been usurped by HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.
- HDR10 is a static format. Meaning it cannot adjust to suit the needs of the content.
What Is Dolby Vision?
Dolby Vision, as the name suggests, is a premium video format introduced by Dolby Laboratories. Despite its exclusivity to certain TV models, Dolby Vision has largely usurped the HDR10 format. Not only does it offer more colours, at around 68 billion, but it also offers a greater range of brightness levels, up to around 10,000 nits!
As we hinted at earlier, only certain TV models are compatible with the Dolby Vision format. This means that while it might be visually superior to HDR10, it’s not currently quite as popular.
Pros
- Introduces even more colours and brightness levels.
- Largely considered to be the best HDR format.
Cons
- Only compatible with certain TV models and pieces of content!
- Even some of the top TVs are still incapable of displaying all of the unique colours that Dolby Vision can recreate.
What’s The Difference Between HDR10 And Dolby Vision?
So far, we’ve seen that the major difference between HDR10 and Dolby Vision is the number of colours and brightness levels they can produce. Dolby Vision stands out because of its greater number of colours and brightness levels. However, one of the key ways the two differ is in how they deliver information to your TV.
HDR10 uses static metadata to send a video signal to your TV. Essentially, this means that all of the visual data for your content is pre-coded to ensure the best visual fidelity. Dolby Vision, on the other hand, uses dynamic metadata. The dynamic nature of this metadata allows a TV to adjust colour and brightness levels on a frame-by-frame basis. This means that when you watch a darker scene in a movie, the TV’s brightness will automatically adjust to produce less light. This prevents light bleed, and enhances contrast massively!
HDR10 still looks totally fantastic, but its limits may mean that you have to continually adjust your TV’s brightness to suit different types of content. Dolby Vision, on the other hand, leverages dynamic metadata so that the brightness is always totally perfect for every image!
What Is HDR10+?
HDR10+ is a premium video format that offers a few improvements over standard HDR10. Chief amongst these improvements is dynamic metadata. Dynamic metadata allows the TV brightness to adjust with the content, to enhance contrast and clarity.
The key difference between HDR10+ and Dolby Vision is that Dolby Vision has a much wider colour gamut, and can even produce much higher brightness levels. However, Dolby Vision is only supported by a small number of TV models. So, despite being largely usurped, HDR10+ is still a popular video format!
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s The Difference Between HDR10 And Dolby Vision?
HDR10 and Dolby Vision are both premium video formats, but they both encode video data differently. HDR10 uses static metadata that accounts for the entirety of a piece of content. This ensures the content looks consistent throughout the viewing experience. Dolby Vision uses dynamic metadata, which accounts for each individual frame of footage. While both video formats look great, Dolby Vision can dynamically adjust the screen brightness to suit each frame!
Which Is Better HDR10 Or Dolby Vision?
Dolby Vision does have a slight edge over HDR10 because of its use of dynamic metadata. Dynamic metadata allows a Dolby Vision-compatible display to adjust its brightness levels based on each frame of footage. This means that when the scene moves from a bright environment to a darker environment, the screen brightness will reduce, to avoid ruining the contrast!
