What Is the Ultra HD Premium Logo?

The UHD Alliance (UHDA) is a group of the world’s leading consumer electronics manufacturers, television studios, technology companies and content distributors that are working together to create a set of consumer-focused performance standards for tech products.

Consumers who are looking to experience their media content in the most realistic way possible need look no further than the Ultra HD Premium and Mobile HDR Premium logos. Each of these logos signifies different things to the consumer. Today, we’re going to focus on the Ultra HD Premium. What does it mean, and why should you trust it? Let’s take a closer look.

The Ultra HD Premium logo was designed by the UHD Alliance to show consumers which products will best help them experience premium television content. More specifically, the Ultra HD Premium logo was designed to create an industry-wide consensus on the standards that constitute 4K Ultra HD–from the screen resolution, to content and display distribution. That means that if you only use products with the Ultra HD Premium logo then you are guaranteed the best 4K experience available on the market today.

So, what are these standards? First, we’ll talk about the technical requirements, then we’ll dive into what those requirements actually mean. To earn the Ultra HD premium logo devices and content must meet or exceed 4K resolution, support at least 10-bit color depth, BT.2020 color space representation and have some form of HDR. Either HDR 10 or Dolby Vision HDR are both accepted.

That means that when you watch 4K content on a device with the Ultra HD Premium logo, you are going to experience content with the most realistic color spectrum available. HDR essentially ensures that you can see high contrast images more easily.

Imagine you’re watching a movie that utilizes a lot of low light screens. With HDR those blacks are going to be darker, making the days of squinting to try to see what’s happening during a dimly lit scene a thing of the past.

The BT.2020 color space representation and 10-bit color depth means that the product offers an expansive color range. How expansive? Roughly a billion colors. This means that viewers have access to an unprecedented gamut of colors–ensuring that you get to see exactly the color that the director intended you to.

The Ultra HD Premium logo isn’t all about video however, UHDA is focused on helping consumers create the ultimate media experience, which means audio too! The Ultra HD Premium logo also recommends next-generation audio, which they define as Dolby Atmos or DTS:X. What that translates too is a truly immersive audio experience for the listener. Whether you have surround sound, or a sound bar you’ll hear everything as it was intended.

It’s important to remember that the Ultra HD Premium logo is not actually a set of standards that the entire audiovisual industry has to adhere to, rather it’s more of a recommendation system from the UHDA.  Consumers can feel confident purchasing any product with an Ultra HD Premium logo because they’ll know that the product conforms to the strict standards that the UHDA supports. If you want the most immersive media experience that’s as close as possible to what the creator intended, then you need to keep an eye out for the Ultra HD Premium logo when shopping for equipment.