ASUS today introduced the ProArt PA27AC monitor that meets displayHDR 400 standards. This 27-inch monitor features an IPS display panel with WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) native resolution, and covers 100% of the sRGB color-space with its 8bpc color depth. The monitor meets VESA's displayHDR 400 standard, with a peak luminescence of 400 nits, 8bpc image quality, and standard dynamic mega contrast dimming. The PA27AC also offers support for AMD FreeSync technology. Other vital specs include 60 Hz refresh-rate, and 5 ms (GTG) response time. The monitor takes input from DisplayPort 1.2a (needed for FreeSync), HDMI 2.0, and HDMI 1.4. The DisplayPort interface is USB type-C, and supports Thunderbolt 3 daisy-chaining (one port in, one out). The company didn't reveal pricing.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced it has defined the display industry's first fully open standard specifying high dynamic range (HDR) quality, including luminance, color gamut, bit depth and rise time, through the release of a test specification. The new VESA High-Performance Monitor and Display Compliance Test Specification (DisplayHDR) initially addresses the needs of laptop displays and PC desktop monitors that use liquid crystal display (LCD) panels.

The first release of the specification, DisplayHDR version 1.0, establishes three distinct levels of HDR system performance to facilitate adoption of HDR throughout the PC market. HDR provides better contrast and color accuracy as well as more vibrant colors compared to Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) displays, and is gaining interest for a wide range of applications, including movie viewing, gaming, and creation of photo and video content.

Philips is now the second company to announce a mass-market 8K monitor with the 328P8K. It boasts of a 31.5" IPS panel with a mind-boggling 7680 x 4320 resolution, and delivers on the professional space with 100% AdobeRGB/SRGB color space support. Since availability of these panels is still scarce, this is likely the same panel that Dell is using on their own 8K UltraSharp UP3218K monitor.

Philips is boasting of something they are calling HDR 400 support in this monitor, due to its brightness being set at 400 nits. This would be enough for AMD's baseline luminance requirements for FreeSync 2 HDR, but stands a far cry behind the HDR10 standard with its 1,000 nit peak brightness target (not to speak about Dolby Vision's 4,000 peak brightness target). Contrast ratio should stand at 1300:1, with a 60 Hz refresh ratio. Connectors-wise, the new Philips 328P8K 8K UHD Monitor boasts of 2x DisplayPort 1.3 (needed for display of the resolution, and in a bid to avoid using DP 1.4 with Display Stream Compression 1.2 and ensure a flawless and accurate image quality) and features a USB hub with USB type-A and type-C ports. Expect this panel to come in at a pretty penny, most likely in the same ballpark as Dell's offering, which now costs less than $4,000. Expect Philips' take on 8K to be available for purchase around Q1 2018.