VESA has expanded its DisplayHDR certification program for PC monitors with a new 'True Black 600' tier. Asus OLED laptops are the first devices to carry the logo.

True black, true HDR
'DisplayHDR True Black 600', which is now the highest tier, can only be met by OLED and other self-emitting display technologies capable of displaying the high contrast ratio necessary for High Dynamic Range – or HDR.

The 'True Black 600' tier sits on top of the two previous True Black tiers that again sit on top of the traditional DisplayHDR tiers, which should be ignored.

- "VESA continues to update our DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black standards with substantially tighter performance metrics to reflect new developments in HDR technology. A case in point is our new True Black 600 performance level, which is an important milestone in the DisplayHDR logo and specification program," said Roland Wooster, chairman of VESA's DisplayHDR.

DisplayHDR was created by VESA with the goal of "specifying HDR quality for LCD and emissive displays". It is not an HDR format or a standard but rather a set of specifications that PC monitors can be evaluated up against.

DisplayHDR for PC monitors can be compared to the 'Ultra HD Premium' certification program for TVs that – like DisplayHDR – aimed too low and allowed even edge-lit LCD TVs to pass certification. 'Ultra HD Premium' has since been abandoned and mostly forgotten.

The first PC monitors to be certified to the new 'True Black 600' tier are three Asus laptops; Vivobook Pro 14, Vivobook Pro 14X and Vivobook 15. A full list of certified products is available here.

Here is a chart of the requirements specified under each DisplayHDR tier.