HDR10+ Technologies, LLC announced the start of the new licensing and logo certification program for HDR10+ technology.

HDR10+ is the royalty-free, open standard dynamic metadata platform for High Dynamic Range (HDR), which optimizes picture quality for 4K Ultra HD displays.

The HDR10+ technology optimizes picture quality for 4K Ultra HD displays by using dynamic tone mapping to reflect frame to frame or scene to scene variations in brightness, color saturation, and contrast.

For those altrady heard HDR10, it is the mandatory version of High Dynamic Range and is used on all HDR streaming services, downloads and Ultra HD Blu-rays. HDR10 is used by all the content providers and manufacturers that support high dynamic range. However despite being mandatory, HDR10 does have its limitations because it uses static metadata. This means that HDR10 content has a single set of information (metadata) that relates to the entire film, specifically the black level and the peak brightness that define the gamma curve. These two numbers apply to the entire film but, the actual brightness changes from scene to scene, which can result in a sub-optimal HDR experience. The solution to this problem is to use Dynamic Metadata.

HDR10+ is an open source and royalty-free dynamic metadata platform that has been jointly developed by Samsung, Panasonic and 20th Century Fox. HDR10+ allows content creators to produce HDR content with the full benefits of dynamic metadata, thus enabling TVs to adjust the tone mapping gamma curve on a scene-by-scene basis.

At the moment the main supporters of HDR10+ are Samsung, Panasonic and 20th Century Fox, who have formed the HDR10+ Technologies, LLC partnership to develop and promote HDR10+ through a certification and logo programme.

HDR10+ is not currently part of the specifications for 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray but Samsung have proposed to the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) that it be added.

The HDR10+ license and logo certification is available to companies that meet HDR10+ technical and testing specifications. The annual adminitration fee for the HDR10+ license program is ranging from $2,500 to $10,000.

The HDR10+ certification program qualifies the compliance based on different device categories and their technical performance to ensure that HDR10+ compliant products meet high standards for picture quality.

The HDR10+ logo signifies a product's certification. The royalty-free adoption of HDR10+ for content production, distribution and consumption has already gained momentum with over 40 supporting companies.