HDR10

Overview

HDR10 (officially "HDR10 Media Profile") is an open, royalty-free standard for High-Dynamic-Range video. It was announced on August 27, 2015, by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA, then known as the Consumer Electronics Association, CEA – the renaming to CTA occurred in November 2015) and is today the most widely used HDR base standard – including mandatory support on Ultra HD Blu-ray, as well as on almost all HDR-capable TVs, streaming platforms, and monitors. The Ultra HD Blu-ray specification was finalized in 2015, with the first discs appearing in early 2016.

HDR10 is not lighting or grip equipment, but rather an image technology for cameras, post-production, and monitoring. On set, HDR10 is primarily relevant for HDR monitoring, display selection, and defining the delivery mastering workflow. Unlike Dolby Vision and HDR10+, HDR10 works with static metadata that applies to the entire content – meaning there is no scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame adjustment of tone mapping.

Technical Specifications

On-Set and Post-Production Use

For HDR productions, HDR10 provides the technical framework for mastering: The BT.2020 color space and the PQ curve define how brightness values are encoded, while the static metadata (ST 2086 and MaxCLL/MaxFALL) informs the playback device about the mastering display on which the content was created and its maximum brightness. The display uses this information for tone mapping.

• Monitoring: HDR-capable reference monitors and on-set displays are set to PQ/BT.2020 to assess HDR levels.
• Static Metadata: Since a single set of metadata applies to the entire clip, very dark and very bright scenes share the same tone mapping instructions – a known weakness compared to dynamic methods.
• Differentiation: HDR10+ extends the HDR10 framework with dynamic, scene/frame-based metadata; Dolby Vision also uses dynamic metadata and supports up to 12 bits. Both build on the same PQ foundation but are more advanced or licensed formats.