How important is High Dynamic Range (HDR) on TVs?
In case you’re unfamiliar, HDR is a type of metadata that enables a display to show content with extended contrast and a wider range of colors compared to Standard Dynamic Range (SDR). HDR is mainly featured in 4K Blu-ray, 4K streaming and current-gen video games, with the most common format being HDR10, followed by the more advanced Dolby Vision and HDR10+.
Dolby Vision is the more popular of the two major formats (though more services are now including HDR10+ support), and is featured on some of the best TVs from brands like LG, Sony, Panasonic, Hisense, TCL and Philips. Samsung does not support Dolby Vision on its TVs, instead favoring HDR10+.
With the best 4K Blu-ray players and best streaming services supporting Dolby Vision, are you missing out when you buy a Samsung TV? Or is the handling of HDR on Samsung TVs effective enough to calm your FOMO for Dolby Vision? I got the chance to test this out by putting the LG B5 and Samsung S85F, two of 2025’s best OLED TVs, side by side.
Both these TVs use the same W-OLED panel (although the S85F does use a QD-OLED panel for its 55- and 65-inch sizes in the US). For my test, I played the same content on both TVs, with the B5 displaying in Dolby Vision and the S85F in the baseline HDR10 format. I made sure to use the same source material and near-enough the same 4K Blu-ray player, the Sony UBP-X700 and its 2025 version, the UBP-X700K, attached to each TV.
What does Dolby Vision do?
First, a quick summary of what Dolby Vision does. Unlike HDR10, which uses static metadata to tell a display how to show content based on its maximum brightness level, Dolby Vision uses dynamic metadata. This lets a compatible display adapt the picture’s brightness, color, and contrast on a scene-by-scene basis to optimize the picture.
Dolby Vision also uses 12-bit color and supports up to 10,000 nits brightness, whereas HDR10 uses 10-bit color and supports up to 4,000 nits brightness. (Dolby recently announced the arrival of Dolby Vision 2, and while we’ve only seen brief demos so far, with its focus on brightness optimization, Dolby Vision 2 is an exciting step forward.)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I started my test with a 4K stream of Star Wars: The Last Jedi on Disney+, focusing on the throne room fight scene. The LG B5 was set to Dolby Vision Cinema Home, whereas the Samsung S85F was set to HDR Movie.
During testing, it was clear that the B5 and its Dolby Vision picture had superior contrast and black depth. A shadow cast across Rey’s face from a light to the side created much stronger shadows and contrast on her face, while the S85F and its HDR10 picture delivered a brighter image, making Rey’s skin look paler.
For colors, the reds of the walls, the guards’ uniforms, and lightsabers appeared much bolder and richer on the B5. The colors looked brighter on the S85F, with highlights such as the blade of the lightsaber packing a more vivid punch. On both TVs, however, the colors felt natural and true-to-life. The B5 may have had a slight edge thanks to its greater black depth, but both TVs looked very good overall.
Playing this scene in each TV’s respective Filmmaker Mode, however, revealed how much work the S85F’s Movie mode was doing. In Filmmaker Mode, the S85F’s brightness and contrast took a hit, and while the picture didn’t look bad, the Dolby Vision picture on the B5 was more appealing.
The Batman
The Batman is a disc I often use as a ‘torture test’ for TVs, as its low overall brightness makes it a challenge for TVs to display. The 4K Blu-ray of the movie supports Dolby Vision, so I was curious to see how it fared on both screens.
With the TVs set to the dimmer Filmmaker Mode, it was clear the B5 had more accurate blacks and more powerful contrast, with a greater range between the light tones from lamps and torches and the dark surroundings in both the subway fight scene and the crime scene at Mayor Mitchell’s house. Shadows also appeared elevated on the S85F, taking on a gray hue in places. Both TVs demonstrated good shadow detail, with photos on the dark walls still visible on both screens.
Switching the TVs to their respective movie modes (Dolby Vision Cinema Home for the B5 and HDR Movie on the S85F), the S85F’s HDR tone mapping improved the picture. Contrast was stronger, and blacks looked deeper than they had previously, bringing it much more in line with the B5’s Dolby Vision picture. Still, the B5 had the superior picture of the two, showing how effective Dolby Vision was for The Batman.
Ready Player One
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Next up was Ready Player One, a movie with a blend of colorful animation and live action. Putting both TVs into Filmmaker Mode once again, the biggest difference between the two TVs was brightness. Despite having similar measured HDR brightness to the B5, the S85F appeared much duller. Colors also didn’t have the same vibrancy on the S85F, with the red headlights and gold coins during the opening race appearing far punchier on the B5.
Switching again to Movie mode, the S85F’s image was much brighter, giving colors a more vivid look and textures enhanced detail. Black depth on the B5 was still better, however, which gave textures a slightly more 3D-like quality.
Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray
For my last comparison, I used demo footage from the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray. There are various selectable HDR options for this footage, and I selected Dolby Vision 10,000 nits. This footage is an extreme example, as the highest maximum brightness you’ll generally see with real-world movies and TV is 4,000 nits.
With both TVs set to Filmmaker Mode, the results here were a mixed bag. In more colorful scenes, such as one of an orange butterfly opening its wings, the S85F’s picture was much closer to the B5. The color did appear slightly washed out on the S85F in comparison, but it was true-to-life enough, and details such as black spots on the wings and the butterfly’s body were all intact.
The most surprising and extreme example of the difference between Dolby Vision and HDR10 on the TVs was a shot of some horses in a snowy field. Not only did the white of the snow appear dull on the S85F, but details in the background of the scene, such as hillsides and houses, disappeared altogether. On the B5, the scene looked as I expected, with plenty of depth and detail.
Other scenes from the disc demonstrated a similar loss of detail on the S85F. Switching to Movie mode helped somewhat, but there ultimately wasn’t much of a difference between it and Filmmaker Mode, particularly on the shot of horses in a snowy field..
Are you missing out?
So, if you buy one of the best Samsung TVs, are you missing out? From my testing, it depends on the content. When displaying streamed Dolby Vision content, the S85F fared well with colorful scenes, really only lacking a little picture depth compared to the LG B5. With 4K Blu-ray however, the B5 looked superior, with crisper textures, stronger contrast, bolder colors, and, in the case of Ready Player One, higher brightness.
However, it was also clear from my test that picture mode is important. While Filmmaker Mode is my go-to for testing due to its accuracy, the S85F clearly benefited from the tone mapping provided in its Movie mode. This brought it more in line with the B5 and, in some instances, actually made Dolby Vision seem irrelevant. I do believe Dolby Vision support is an important feature, but the picture processing in Samsung TVs can do a good job of compensating for its absence.
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james.davidson@futurenet.com (James Davidson)
