Dumb Questions from a Dummy. HDR?? Old Plasma TVs??

[Rambozo]

Okie doke, so here goes.

I understand that there is this newfangled thing called HDR for TVs now. I guess it's just a specification regarding contrast/dynamic range of television sets. I also read that it's a widened color range sent through HDMI (greater than 8 bit color channels??) So all these new TVs have to simply have the capabilities to display the colors, and get the colors to the screen, right?

Now I always thought that this was the benefit of the old Plasma displays, which I have. I guess what I'm asking is, what's different and where do the old plasmas fit? So the Plasma displays themselves have a pretty wide dynamic range and contrast, but can that extra data get to the panel? I have a hard time finding that info. Let's assume though, that somehow this extended color range, or at least part of it, can get to the panel. What's the downside if the display doesn't fully support it? Will it simply not display it all?

I ask this simply because the PS4 just got that HDR update, and the checkbox was there to click. So now my PS4 is on automatic.

Any information I find on the internet is simply "Plasma is great" and "Plasma is dead", but there is no elaboration as to whether this new data can be pumped to and displayed, at least to some degree on a Plasma screen.

Were Plasma displays limited by the content streamed to them?

Any help would be helpful.

 

[Falck]

It's all in the capabilities

AFAIK: You need the correct HW (HDMI port and speed, panel etc.)) and processing in the set to get any effect at all. It's not all in the dynamic range per say, but also how much cd (candela/brightness) the panel is capable of (and also 10-bit coloring, BILLIONS of colors!...). So a plasma wouldn't fulfill the spec requirements for HDR because of the limited brightness they can produce.

So no, your "old" plasma wouldn't manage to get anything out of an HDR signal.

http://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id=1435052975

 

[metroidfox]

Your TV cannot use HDR for two reasons:
1) it needs to be able to interpret one of the two HDR standards
2) one of the reasons plasma was discontinued was because it was not viable to do HDR with them

 

[Trunks0]

Plasma would have been able to handle the dark end of the contrast range needed for HDR, but no way it could handle the bright side. I doubt colour range would have been an issue given how Plasma works,

To be fair, LCD can't handle the dark end of HDR. At least, not without help from local dimming. The only tech to really handle it correctly, is OLED.