As it currently stands, there are two major high dynamic range (HDR) technologies: HDR10 and Dolby Vision. While many TV manufacturers support both, some like Samsung and Panasonic have left out support for Dolby Vision. TVs from both manufacturers still display HDR just fine, but Dolby Vision offers a few things that HDR10 doesn’t, including per-frame metadata. Now, TVs from both Samsung and Panasonic are catching up in a big way, thanks to a firmware update that brings a new HDR technology called HDR10+.
As the name implies, HDR10+ builds on HDR10 by adding dynamic metadata to each frame, which lets the TV adapt the picture on a per-frame basis, making for an even more life-like picture. Among other things, this fixes a potential problem with standard HDR10 where night scenes can end up looking too dark. Dolby Vision still has some advantages — it supports 12-bit color while HDR10+ only supports 10-bit, for example — but HDR10+ also has the advantage of being royalty free, while Dolby Vision is not.
This shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise. In June, HDR10+ Technologies, a joint venture put together by Samsung, Panasonic, and 20th Century Fox, announced a certification program for HDR10+. While it wasn’t announced that Samsung and Panasonic would bring the technology to their TVs so soon, it was an easy assumption considering both companies’ stake in HDR10+.
As for 20th Century Fox, the company has commited to support the technology in its upcoming releases, and will have more to say about that, including titles being released that will feature HDR10+, in the coming weeks. This wouldn’t be the first content to make use of HDR10+ though. In the tail end of 2017, Amazon added support for HDR10+ to more than 100 titles, including The Grand Tour, The Tick, and The Man in the High Castle.
While they might be the biggest names currently associated with HDR10+, the three mentioned above are hardly the only companies planning to support the HDR technology. A full list of companies adopting the new technology is available via the HDR10+ website, and while many of them produce tools for content providers, this could entice more companies to support the technology.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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