What's the Next Big Thing in high definition? 3D? 4K? 5G? Nah. Several industry experts who've seen prototype displays suggest that high dynamic range will be the newest technology to turbo-charge video. We're talking video with pitch blacks and blinding whites.

TV screens with high dynamic range (HDR) are supposedly just two or three years from hitting the sales floors. And naturally, to see that kind of black on your flat panel, you'll also be looking at a lot of red — ink, that is. So are these screens really worth maxing out the credit card for? And what does one need to get high dynamic range, anyway?

First, a more specific definition: When it comes to images, dynamic range is the whole sweep of gradations between the very darkest and very brightest elements. You've seen a version of HDR if you’ve ever studied a high-quality Ansel Adams print. Adams, his fairly rudimentary cameras notwithstanding, had an astonishing ability to capture detail in shadow areas. What looks like black at first blush reveals subtle shades of rock or vegetation on closer inspection. Increasingly, today's photographers use HDR too, mostly by taking the same picture at different exposures, then combining the results into one image.

In the film world, Technicolor dye-transfer prints from the '50s and '60s were also known for their outstanding dynamic range.

"High dynamic range cinematography fell by the wayside decades ago," says DTS Digital Images founder and chief technology officer John Lowry, a film restorer in California who's worked on flicks ranging from Citizen Kane to almost every Bond movie. Technicolor died largely because it couldn't be duplicated fast enough to satisfy theaters' demand. And on the home display front, Lowry says, "The industry’s been focused on other things — improved resolution, mostly."

Now there are signs aplenty that HDR is about to make a comeback — and it promises to be better than ever. Just two weeks ago, Eastman Kodak announced the introduction of its Vision3 film stock, an HDR medium that reduces grain and allows for more information to be recorded in extremely light and very dark areas. Lowry finds more interest than ever for his HDR handiwork — he has developed computer algorithms that create a dynamic range in older movies that actually exceeds what was originally captured. And earlier this year, Dolby Laboratories bought a company called BrightSide that has developed a TV screen with a previously unheard-of contrast ratio of 200,000:1.

Dolby says the 37-inch LCD set, which works with LED backlighting instead of the usual cold cathode fluorescent lights (CCFLs), is able to produce whites that are ten times brighter, and blacks that are ten times darker, than what current hi-def flat panels are capable of. The secret: CCFLs are contantly on and emitting light as long as the TV itself is on, slightly washing out black areas; by, um, contrast, LEDs can turn on and off as needed, depending on the demands of each individual image — a technology Dolby has dubbed "local dimming." Samsung has already brought a set to market that operates on the same principle (its LN-T81F series, which the TV maker touts as having a contrast ratio of 500,000:1), but Dolby claims better results are possible by adding Dolby Vision, an in-set processing technology that expands a standard 8-bit video frame to 16 bits. (Dolby plans to make a major announcement about the technology at this year's CES).

Gaven Wang, a senior product manager at Dolby, calls the effect head-spinning. "It's almost real-life. Instead of looking at a flat picture, you feel like you’re watching something real through a window." (Yeah, we've heard the window analogy a million times before too, but still . . . cool!)

Lowry is equally enthused. "The introduction of HDR sets is going to be a bigger step up from today's LCDs and plasmas than when we went from standard CRTs to HDTVs. The first time I saw that BrightSide screen — oh my heavens. It was startlingly good. The image just jumped out."

Will anyone but the most diehard videophiles really care? If people were really that keen on blacker blacks, wouldn’t they have been buying plasma TVs in droves, instead of choosing the lesser quality, but considerably more popular LCDs? Wang points out that the risk of burn-in with early plasma sets — a static image left on the screen for hours that would leave a permanent ghost — steered scores of consumers toward LCD sets instead. LCD screens also tend to be brighter (if not necessarily more accurate) on the sales floor, he says, more easily winning the eye of the TV shopper. In the future, HDR TVs — which should have no burn-in issues and are considerably brighter than any set currently on the market — will win the battle for customers' attention hands-down.

Should you begin saving your pennies? Probably not, unless you’re hell-bent on being among the earliest adopters (expect Dolby’s first HDR sets to be pricey, though the company declined to give us exact figures). Richard MacKellar, BrightSide's former CEO, believes that TV manufacturers will stick to the tried and true business model of introducing a marginally better product once or twice annually.

“They could leap to an HDR display today,” says MacKellar, "but they will make more profit by gradually improving the dynamic range by a few percent each year. In ten years the dynamic range will be vastly better than it is today, and I believe screens will be able to compete with sunlight." And all the while, prices will inch down.

Yes, Christmas 2017 could be picture-perfect.