Samsung HDR10+ Gaming coming 2022 to take on Dolby Vision Gaming

The world of high dynamic range, better known as HDR, is increasingly vast. Samsung’s version, HDR10+, which features on many of its top-end tellies (among some other brands) and adds an additional layer of dynamic metadata, is due to get an HDR10+ “Gaming extension” in 2022.

That’s an important update for the Korean brand, which is looking to take on Dolby Vision Gaming, as Samsung TVs don’t support Dolby’s HDR format. For gamers in particular this gaming extension will support variable refresh rate (VRR) and low-latency tone-mapping – all helping to make for an improved experience when hooking up that new Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5.

Variable refresh rate will allow not only the TV to sync with the dynamic frame rate of a game – up to 120Hz – but the inclusion of low-latency tone-mapping means the response time can quickly adapt to fast changes, ensuring HDR visuals that follow along with the live action.

There’s also automatic HDR calibration, which takes over the handshake between device and TV. If you’ve ever moved a console between HDMI inputs, for example, you’ll know there’s a manual HDR setup each time – where you have to dim symbols until they’re barely visible – which this feature eradicates. Not only does this simplify the process, it will ensure content looks as the creator intended.

If all that sounds familiar it’s because HGiG – that’s the HDR Gaming Interest Group – caters for much the same features, which Microsoft and Sony both back, among others. But Samsung is not part of that consortium, which is why the Korean brand needs to go its own in creating matching features for its own format.

However, with limited support for HDR10+ at present – Dolby Vision is more widely used – whether this gaming extension will gather ample support is still up for question.