HDR10 vs Dolby Vision vs HDR10+, Explained

The short answer

HDR (high dynamic range) video carries brighter highlights, deeper shadows and more color than standard video. A TV needs instructions to map that range onto its own screen, and the three main formats differ in how those instructions arrive:

• HDR10: one set of instructions for the whole movie or show. Every HDR TV supports it.
• HDR10+: instructions that change scene by scene or frame by frame. Open and royalty free.
• Dolby Vision: also scene by scene or frame by frame, with up to 12-bit color. Licensed from Dolby.

The format only matters when the TV, the player or app, and the content all support it. Otherwise the picture falls back to a format they share, such as HDR10.

Of the 1,062 TVs listed on Wiki Shopping on October 27, 2026, 125 list Dolby Vision.

HDR10 vs HDR10+ vs Dolby Vision compared

HDR10 was announced in 2015 by what is now the Consumer Technology Association. It carries 10-bit color and uses the PQ curve (SMPTE ST 2084) and the wide Rec. 2020 color space. Dolby Vision came first, in 2014, and allows up to 12-bit color. Dolby Vision uses the same PQ curve and supports content graded for up to 10,000 nits of brightness, far more than most TVs can show, which is why tone mapping matters.

Why dynamic metadata helps

With static metadata, the TV gets one brightness range for the whole film. A dark cave scene and a bright beach scene are mapped with the same settings, so one of them may look too dim or lose highlight detail. Dynamic metadata tells the TV how to handle each scene, which helps most on TVs that cannot reach the brightness the content was graded for.

The HDR10+ group says its format is fully backward compatible: an HDR10 TV plays HDR10+ content using only the static part. Some Dolby Vision profiles also carry an HDR10 base layer for the same reason.

Gaming and room light

HDR10+ Gaming brings the scene by scene approach to games; the HDR10+ group lists certain Samsung TVs and some PC monitors as certified. HDR10+ Adaptive uses a light sensor to adjust the picture to the room. Dolby's current page promotes Dolby Vision 2, which it says adjusts the picture to the content and the viewing environment without setup.

Which format should you look for?

• Every HDR TV plays HDR10, so it is the baseline.
• Dolby Vision matters if the streaming services or discs you watch offer it. On Wiki Shopping, 64 listings are large Dolby Vision TVs.
• HDR10+ matters if your services or games offer it. Some TVs support both dynamic formats.

The format is only one part of the HDR picture; the screen itself matters too. See OLED vs QLED vs LED for how screens differ.

How we count

Counts are the Wiki Shopping filter pages for TVs, read from our database on October 27, 2026. A TV counts when its store listing states the feature or resolution. TVs that do not state Dolby Vision may still support it, and the counts change as listings are added or removed.

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Sources

1. en.wikipedia.org: HDR10
2. hdr10plus.org
3. en.wikipedia.org: Dolby Vision
4. dolby.com: dolby vision