Up until now, there has been many different standards for HDR and they all vary in consistency. VESA, a non-profit standards organizer, wants to make the standards for HDR equipment more consistent and have developed their certified DisplayHDR standards. Their standards’ main focus is it to make PC screens more consistently marketed by setting the baseline levels for HDR on monitors. This hopefully will give monitor shoppers a better idea of the specs of a screen they are purchasing.

VESA’s created three tiers that are meant to only classify LCDs at this time. The tiers are DisplayHDR 400, DisplayHDR 600, and DisplayHDR 1000. All of the levels are required to support the HDR10 standard, but there’s obviously different criteria that separate the tier levels.

For a monitor to comply with the DisplayHDR 400 standard, the display needs to support global dimming and be able to reach a peak luminance of 400 cd/m2. This standard isn’t very hard for a monitor to achieve really; a peak luminance of 400 cd/m2 is pretty much the bare minimum you can have to be able to benefit from HDR.

A display meeting the DisplayHDR 600 standard has to have a peak luminance of 600 cd/m2, offer true 10-bit image processing, and require improved black levels and 99 percent BT.709 color accuracy.

To get the most advanced standard, the DisplayHDR 1000, the peak luminance needs to be even higher, clocking in at 1000 cd/m2and the screen needs support for local dimming.

VESA also says that they expect to see more tiers being added as the technology in the industry improves. And though VESA’s standards are only for LCD monitors, there’s a good chance they will expand out to OLED displays and others.

You can expect to see products being DisplayHDR certified starting at CES this January that we hope will give us all better insight into the specs the HDR monitors on the market. You can learn more on VESA's official site.