VESA DisplayHDR 400 vs 600 vs 1000 Explained: Brightness, Black Levels, Local Dimming, and What the Badge Means

VESA DisplayHDR is a compliance program for front-of-screen HDR performance. A certified product has passed the tests required for its tier and specification version; authorized logo use also requires the associated compliance process. That makes a genuine DisplayHDR badge more meaningful than a manufacturer simply writing “HDR” on a product page.

The tier number still is not an overall review score. DisplayHDR tests defined HDR characteristics, but it does not tell you everything about motion clarity, input latency, panel uniformity, viewing angles, coating, text rendering, overdrive tuning, fan noise, ergonomics, or how well a monitor handles every real HDR scene. Two products at the same tier can therefore differ materially outside the certification envelope.

VESA published DisplayHDR version 1.2 in May 2024 with tighter requirements for luminance, color gamut, bit depth, color accuracy, contrast and black behavior, plus new tests including black crush and subtitle luminance flicker. Older DisplayHDR 1.0 or 1.1 summaries can therefore be misleading when used as if they described the current certification criteria.

The current classic DisplayHDR family includes tiers beyond the three compared here, including 500 and 1400. DisplayHDR True Black is a separate branch optimized for emissive displays and now has its own tiers. A badge should therefore be read as the full certification name and applicable standard context—not as a bare brightness number.

Under the DisplayHDR 1.2 summary criteria, the classic 400, 600 and 1000 tiers require at least 400, 600 and 1000 cd/m² respectively in the 8% center-patch test with a 2% APL background. The full-screen flash minima are likewise 400, 600 and 1000 cd/m². Those numbers are tied to specified test patterns and should not be generalized into a promise that every HDR scene, window size or operating condition will hold the logo-tier luminance indefinitely.

Long-duration full-screen luminance separates the tiers differently: DisplayHDR 400 requires at least 320 cd/m², DisplayHDR 600 at least 350 cd/m², and DisplayHDR 1000 at least 600 cd/m² in the current summary table. This is why one “peak nits” figure cannot describe sustained bright-screen behavior. Test-window size, duration and background conditions matter.

DisplayHDR 1.2 adds stronger contrast and black-level requirements rather than treating HDR as brightness alone. VESA’s current 1D/2D local-dimming test material lists a 1D-pattern static contrast requirement of 1300:1 for DisplayHDR 400 and 8000:1 for DisplayHDR 600. DisplayHDR 1000 moves to the 2D-pattern test and requires 30,000:1.

The current summary criteria also list maximum center black luminance in the dual-corner-box test of 0.4 cd/m² for DisplayHDR 400, 0.1 cd/m² for DisplayHDR 600, and 0.05 cd/m² for DisplayHDR 1000. These are certification test limits, not a claim that every pixel or every real scene on a certified monitor always sits at that black level.

VESA’s DisplayHDR 1.2 announcement explicitly requires 2D local dimming at classic DisplayHDR 1000 and higher tiers. Its published test material separates the 400/500/600 tiers into the 1D local-dimming pattern and the 1000/1400 tiers into the 2D pattern. This is an important architectural distinction that older shorthand descriptions of “HDR400 versus HDR1000” often omit.

Certification does not state how many dimming zones a particular monitor has, nor does the tier number by itself predict blooming in every scene. Zone count, optical stack, panel native contrast, dimming algorithm, object size, viewing angle and scene composition can all affect visible halos and black behavior. Those require exact-product evidence rather than inference from the badge alone.

DisplayHDR 1.2 tightened color requirements and introduced a comprehensive color-accuracy test across 96 colors at three luminance levels. VESA states a maximum Delta-TP error of 8 for the 400, 500 and 600 tiers and 6 for the 1000 tier and above. The standard also tests color-gamut and color-luminance behavior rather than reducing HDR certification to white brightness.

The current summary requires acceptance of a 10-bit-per-channel video signal and a minimum 8-bit driver IC plus two bits of dithering across these tiers. That does not mean every certified panel is a native 10-bit panel. The distinction between signal handling, driver depth and native panel implementation matters when reading specifications.

DisplayHDR True Black was created for emissive technologies such as OLED, where extremely low black luminance changes the useful certification envelope. VESA describes True Black as a separate DisplayHDR variant rather than a replacement name for classic DisplayHDR, and its criteria use different full-screen luminance and black-level expectations.

That means DisplayHDR True Black 600 and classic DisplayHDR 600 are not two labels for the same test target. Likewise, a lower-looking True Black tier number should not be ranked against a classic LCD-oriented tier using the number alone. In July 2026 VESA added True Black 1400, reinforcing that the emissive branch continues to evolve independently.

For a buying decision, first verify that the exact model appears in VESA’s certified-product ecosystem and note the complete logo tier. Then use the current DisplayHDR criteria to understand the minimum tested HDR envelope: luminance under defined patterns, black and contrast behavior, dimming requirements, color behavior and signal/bit-depth handling.

After that, return to product-specific evidence. Independent measurements are still needed for real-scene HDR behavior, blooming, tone mapping, color accuracy outside the certification tests, response times, VRR behavior, input latency, uniformity and other monitor characteristics. DisplayHDR 600 or 1000 can establish a stronger certified HDR floor than DisplayHDR 400 in several defined tests, but the badge alone does not make one monitor universally better than another.