[opendtv] Re: HDR upconversion
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2016 11:11:21 -0400
On Jun 12, 2016, at 1:19 AM, Jeroen Stessen <jeroen.stessen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Bert wrote:
Yes, that's what I was thinking too. In principle, we could change the TV
transmission standards entirely, and HDMI etc., e.g. as ATSC 3.0 is doing
anyway, always transmit using the HDR mapping, and then impose the HDR -> SDR
conversion on any SDR receiver individually. That would be a major hassle,
for the installed base, except in special cases like ATSC 3.0, which provide
the timely opportunity.
Jeroen added:
This is also what I meant when I wrote that there seems to be no good reason
to drop the backward compatibility. With our proposed system, the result
after MPEG encoding-decoding is at least as good as the straight way. Now it
boils down to selecting a suitable tone mapping function for each scene. This
is not too hard, as we will be happy to demonstrate, even on live content.
I think it is important to consider several realities here.
We are now two decades into the HD transition, yet SDTV is still commonplace,
especially in Europe and developing nations.
4/8K, HDR and an expanded color gamut are of particular interest to the
creative community that produces entertainment programming, to the photographic
community, and to the general computing community, particularly Internet
developers who may benefit from enhanced image quality for e-commerce
applications.
The reality is, as we predicted in the early '90s, a wide range of imaging
systems will coexist in our digital world. It is far from clear that HDR will
play any significant role in OTA broadcasting, although in time this may become
desirable. Thus the notion of simulcasting and backward compatibility may not
be relevant, even for ATSC 3.0.
I would note the graphic I posted several days ago about the three tier pricing
system that Netflix is now introducing: one stream in SD; two streams in SD and
HD; four streams in SD, HD and HDR. Clearly Netflix is not going to simulcast;
their servers will deliver a stream optimized for the device they are
connecting to.
I would also note the reality that creating the metadata for HDR tone mapping
is a labor intensive task, requiring the skills of a colorist or other
technician. Jeroen notes that this can even be done with live programming;
perhaps this task can be added (automated) as part of the camera shading
process still employed in the TV industry.
I recall seeing HD demos at NAB in the early '80s. It took more than two
decades for this technology to reach the mass market, and HD is still not
widely available in many parts of the world.
I remember seeing UHDTV demos at NAB more than a decade ago; 4K acquisition is
now commonplace as is 4K display in theaters. But 4K consumer TVs are still
expensive, and most lack support for HDR and wide color gamuts; it could take
the rest of this decade for the dust to settle around the standards and
significant commercial deployments to begin.
The 9.7" MacBook Pro is the first "prosumer" device to offer an extended color
gamut display. I expect that we will see HDR and extended color gamuts appear
first in the tools we use to create content.
Regards
Craig
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