- My new TV has HDR
What does that mean?
So if you've been shopping
for a television recently
particularly a 4k television
you've probably seen the letters HDR.
So what do those mean?
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.
Ultimately it means
trying to represent colors
in a more realistic, lifelike way.
Something that traditional televisions
weren't always the best at.
With cameras and photography
HDR is really referring to
trying to get a camera to
behave the way our eyes do.
Our irises can expand and
contract as light levels change.
But cameras can't do that.
You set a settings and you take a picture.
You can change the setting
and take another picture
but you're kinda stuck with what you get.
HDR technology takes a series of pictures
at different luminosity levels
and then combines them
all into a mashup image.
Now with displays like this
we're really looking at
something called Nits.
Nits is a unit of measurement.
It's a measurement of luminosity
which in itself is the brightness level
from a source of light.
So, when you are shopping for a TV
you are literally nit picking.
Anyway, luminosity relates
to two different concepts.
Contrast, which is the difference between
your brightest whites and
your darkest black colors
on a television screen.
And color representation.
The greater the number,
the greater the range.
The better color representation you'll get
the more vibrant the images are.
In fact people have said the
jump from 1080 resolution
to a 4K resolution wasn't
really that noticeable
until HDR technology started
to get rolled into it.
There are a couple of
things you need to know
before you go out and buy your 4K HDR set.
One is that content is somewhat limited.
You can get certain Amazon
shows that have HDR content
and Sony is rolling out
some content in HDR.
But it's not everywhere and
it's not magically going to turn
your old television shows
into spectacular displays.
Another thing to remember is that
there are a lot of companies
working on HDR right now.
So there's some competing
standards at play here.
But this is the future of high resolution.
I'm sorry, ultra high resolution displays.
So when you are looking
for that next television
look for those three letters
and then tell somebody
hey, I know what that means.
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