Samsung smart TV owners just got a welcome image upgrade

HDR10+ comes to the Apple TV app on Samsung Smart TVs

Samsung QN95B smart TV
(Image credit: Samsung)

One of our ongoing irritations when we rate the best TVs is that Samsung doesn't support Dolby Vision HDR: it wants everybody to use the HDR10+ format it helped create with firms including Amazon

That's a problem if, like me, you use services such as Apple TV+, which didn't support HDR10+. But Apple has made two changes that mean you can now enjoy HDR10+ on the best Samsung TVs. The first change is in the Apple TV operating system, which now supports HDR10+ on the device; and the second is in the Apple TV app on Samsung TVs, which has just been updated with HDR10+ support too. The update will be coming to Apple TV on other platforms too, but Samsung is the first to get it.

How to get HDR10+ video on your Samsung TV

If you use an Apple TV or the Apple TV app, you should see HDR10+ content in both the Apple TV+ streaming service and in iTunes movie rentals too. However, it won't apply to every title: Apple can only deliver HDR10+ if the movie producers have provided them with the film or show in that format. 

This should deliver even more content in the not too distant future: Google is working on a new video format, codenamed Project Caviar, to take on Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, and it's apparently going to be based on HDR10+. Unlike the Dolby technologies, manufacturers won't have to pay a royalty to use the new standard – and that could mean it could supplant Dolby within a few years because it's not just a Google thing: the Alliance for Open Media also includes Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Meta, Roku, Vimeo and many more.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).