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from the all-the-better-for-you-to-see-it-with dept.
VESA has announced the first version of its DisplayHDR specification, which defines standards that displays must meet to be certified by VESA as enabling the use of high dynamic range (HDR). Three tiers are defined: DisplayHDR-400 (low-end), DisplayHDR-600 (mid-range), and DisplayHDR-1000 (high-end). The number is the minimum peak luminance (in nits) that the display must be able to output:
The core of the DisplayHDR standard is a performance test suite specification and associated performance tiers. The three tiers have performance criteria related to HDR attributes such as luminance, color gamut, bit depth, and rise time, corresponding to new trademarked DisplayHDR logos. Initially aiming at LCD laptop displays and PC desktop monitors, DisplayHDR permits self-certification by VESA members, as well as end-user testing, for which VESA is also developing a publicly available automated test tool.
[...] In terms of the first two luminance tests, the minimum 400, 600, and 1000 nit (cd/m2) requirements give the respective DisplayHDR tiers their namesake. At the base level is DisplayHDR-400, which for AnandTech-level enthusiasts is likely to come off as a bit disappointing/unaggressive. To the credit of the VESA, the standard tightens things up over budget LCD monitors and laptops; in particular it requires much higher luminance levels and true 8bpc color support (6+2 is explicitly disallowed). This is coupled with the previously mandatory support for HDR10, and black-to-white response time requirements. However it does not require any "advanced" features,such as the DCI-P3 color space – instead allowing 95% of sRGB – and both the max and min brightness requirements are still quite tame for HDR. Based on the VESA's guidance, it sounds like this is primarily aimed at laptops, where displays are historically power-limited and anything better than global dimming is unlikely to be used.
Moving things up a notch are DisplayHDR-600 and 1000. These two standards are quite similar outside of their maximum luminance, and both are much closer to the requirements many would expect for an HDR specification. In particular, these two tiers require 10-bit color (8-bit native + 2-bit dithering permitted), much lower minimum black levels, as well as having color gamut coverage a minimum of 99% Rec. 709 and 90% DCI-P3. Gamut-wise, VESA mentioned that minimum coverage was essentially tolerance metrics by another name. Of particular note here, while the VESA does not require local dimming for any of the DisplayHDR standards, they note that they don't believe these tiers to be achievable without local dimming, at least not with current LCD technology.
Also at Tom's Hardware.
Related: Samsung and Amazon Announce HDR10+ Standard for High Dynamic Range Video
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 13 2017, @01:00AM (2 children)
In the mean time thousands of users are defrauded by TVs that can be proven in court to meet the standards because they pass the test suite, but do not perform in real life. Simply because the test suite is published in advance.
And its OK because you think no one will notice, and even if they do, this doesn't matter at all anyway. So why publish a standard?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @01:22AM (1 child)
I don't agree with your premise that the standard won't be respected. VESA will probably sue if the manufacturer lies.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 13 2017, @04:42AM
It's the age old problem of buyer beware. Manufacturers always want to reduce costs and boost apparent performance and value, and one sure fire way to do that is fake it and cheat any way they can. Some will get stupidly blatant about it and be quickly caught, but most of the time, they're striving to keep the cheating as secret and undetectable as possible. To have standards that can be trusted, claims have to be checked. And to do that we need parties who have an interest in and the ability to do honest and thorough checks. Can't expect substandard product to be obviously substandard, not when there are so many subtle ways to cheat a little. There's just no way around this necessity.
VESA will have someone check, you can be sure of that. Just too risky not to. They know they have to, know that cheaters will cheat if not watched. If they don't odds are someone else eventually notices something doesn't seem quite right, checks, and finds out and it goes public. Then VESA's reputation would be badly damaged, and the damage might be irreversible.