VESA this morning is taking the wraps off of the next iteration of its DisplayHDR monitor certification standard, DisplayHDR 1.2. Designed to raise the bar on display quality, the updated DisplayHDR conformance test suite imposes new luminance, color gamut, and color accuracy requirements that extend across the entire spectrum of DisplayHDR tiers – including the entry-level DisplayHDR 400 tier. With vendors able to begin certifying displays for the new standard immediately, the display technology group is aiming to address the advancements in the display technology market over the last several years, while enticing display manufacturers to make use of them to deliver better desktop and laptop displays than before.
Altogether, the DisplayHDR 1.2 is easily the biggest update to the standard since it launched in 2017, and in many respects the first significant overhaul to the standard since that time as well. DisplayHDR 1.2 doesn’t add any new tiers to the standard (e.g. 1400), instead it’s all about increasing and/or tightening the specifications at each of its tier levels. In short, the VESA is raising the bar for displays to reach DisplayHDR compliance, requiring a higher level of performance and testing for more corner cases that trip up lesser displays.
All of these changes are coming, in turn, after over half a decade of technology improvements in the display space. Whereas even the original DisplayHDR 400 requirements represented a modestly premium display in 2017, nowadays even sub-$200 displays can hit those relatively loose requirements as panels and backlighting solutions have improved. And even at the high-end of things, full array local dimming (FALD) displays have gone from hundreds of zones to thousands. All of which has finally pushed VESA’s member companies into allowing higher standards going forward.
