More useful for non-professional gamers is Pascal's support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) output. HDR is the next big thing in displays, allowing them to display a far greater range of colours, as much as 75 percent of the visible spectrum, as well up to 1,000 nits of brightness. It's rather impressive, and the 1080 supports the full array of HDR features: 12-bit colour, BT.2020 wide colour gamut, SMPTE 2084 (Perceptual Quantization), and HDMI 2.0b 10/12b for 4K HDR.
Plus, there's hardware 4K60 10/12bit HEVC, as well as 4K60 10bit encoding, allowing the 1080 to stream 4K HDR video to a Shield Android TV. That's important, because right now, there aren't any HDR PC monitors available besides an extremely expensive Sony model designed for filmmakers. Still, the 1080's 4K and HDR chops mean it's one of the few devices to be certified for Microsoft's PlayReady 3.0 (SL3000) standard, allowing users to finally play back 4K Netflix streams on PC (it's been limited to certain TVs and set top boxes so far) when it launches later this year.