HDR10+ is the open, royalty-free version of dynamic-metadata HDR — championed by Samsung, Amazon Prime Video and a coalition of partners. It does roughly the same thing as dolby-vision: adds per-scene (or per-frame) instructions on top of the basic HDR10 signal so a TV can tone-map each scene optimally instead of using one strategy for the whole film. The difference is licensing: where Dolby Vision charges device makers per-unit royalties, HDR10+ is free to implement.
The format was created in 2017 by Samsung, 20th Century Fox and Panasonic as a direct response to Dolby Vision's licensing costs. Since then it's been adopted by a long list of TV makers (Samsung, Panasonic, Hisense, TCL, Philips) and a smaller list of streaming services (Amazon Prime Video is the strongest backer; Apple TV+, Disney+ and even Netflix have added selective support since 2024). The major holdouts are LG, Sony and Vizio, which favour Dolby Vision.
For a streaming product in 2026, the tactical picture: HDR10+ delivers visual quality comparable to Dolby Vision (most viewers cannot tell them apart in side-by-side comparisons), at zero licensing cost. The downside is fragmented device support — a viewer on an LG OLED won't get the HDR10+ metadata, just the underlying HDR10. The pragmatic answer for most services is: ship Dolby Vision as the premium delivery layer where possible, ship HDR10+ as an additional rendition for the Samsung/Amazon ecosystem, and always fall back to baseline HDR10 for compatibility. HDR10+ Advanced, announced in late 2025, brings further refinements but isn't yet broadly deployed.
