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Why Can’t HDR Be Fixed
HDR is nothing short of a revolution in TV picture quality. Buy with five different and incompatible formats, the world of HDR has become an unruly collection of technologies, made even more difficult to navigate because of all of the moving parts. TVs, Blu-ray players, streaming media players, streaming services, apps, and even HDMI cables all have a role on the HDR stage, but the performance has more in common with improv than a slickly produced play. The HDR landscape is reminiscent of technological minefields that buyers, have had to contend with, i.e. Beta versus VHS, HD-DVD versus Blu-ray, Memory Stick versus SD cards versus Compact Flash?
HDR is different in two key ways: First, none of this is Sony’s fault and despite the proliferation of HDR formats, it isn’t actually a one-way street where the viewer remains forever tied to their original choice until such time as the product is sold.
Nonetheless, HDR is a rat’s nest and it’s time for the industry to get its collective act together. The players in the HDR ensemble cast, include:
The ability to future-proof a new TV is gone as there are no TV makers selling HDR models in this country that support all five flavors of HDR. LG comes closest, with support for every format but HDR10+ (not the worst format to ditch if one of them has to be ditched). HDR format (or two, or three) cannot be an add-on after purchase. Given how far TV content has come in the last 10 years, buyers have to make a bet today on which HDR format will end up dominant down the road.
There are no clear solutions. Longer term;
As of the iPhone 12 Pro, Apple now makes a product that can shoot and display HDR video in Dolby Vision. But curiously, its Dolby Vision support is backed up with HLG. Shooting HDR on the iPhone 12 Pro creates a file with two sets of HDR metadata, one for Dolby Vision and one for HLG. If your TV or phone can’t display Dolby Vision, it gets the HLG version. If it can’t do HDR at all, it gets SDR. “Not very long from now,” Jon McCormack, Apple vice president of camera software Engineering, told PetaPixel, “this weirdly cluttered space will get uncluttered.” Will Apple’s HDR gambit effectively force a new, two-format standard upon the industry? It’s certainly got the clout to do so. But given that most HDR footage shot on iPhones will be shared via YouTube, Google would need to start supporting Dolby Vision (or at least HLG) across its huge array of YouTube apps — something it has yet to do — in order to really turbocharge Apple’s strategy. If these options prove anything, it’s that HDR — as established at the outset — is a hot mess. And for the foreseeable future, it’s a mess that content viewers and technology buyers, are being left to clean up on our own.
“Don’t Give up, Don’t Ever Give Up”[1]
In a presentation at the SMPTE event 2020, Leigh Whitcomb, Architect at Imagine Communications presented the brute force conversion approach summarized by the following flow chart. He also showed a Look-up table (LUT) and a hybrid solution.
[1] North Carolina State Basketball Coach, Jim Valvano
HDR is nothing short of a revolution in TV picture quality. Buy with five different and incompatible formats, the world of HDR has become an unruly collection of technologies, made even more difficult to navigate because of all of the moving parts. TVs, Blu-ray players, streaming media players, streaming services, apps, and even HDMI cables all have a role on the HDR stage, but the performance has more in common with improv than a slickly produced play. The HDR landscape is reminiscent of technological minefields that buyers, have had to contend with, i.e. Beta versus VHS, HD-DVD versus Blu-ray, Memory Stick versus SD cards versus Compact Flash?
HDR is different in two key ways: First, none of this is Sony’s fault and despite the proliferation of HDR formats, it isn’t actually a one-way street where the viewer remains forever tied to their original choice until such time as the product is sold.
Nonetheless, HDR is a rat’s nest and it’s time for the industry to get its collective act together. The players in the HDR ensemble cast, include:
- TV manufacturer’s Sony, LG, Samsung, Vizio, TCL, Hisense, Toshiba … and many more are the companies that make HDR-capable TVs. At this point in time, there isn’t a company that doesn’t make an HDR-capable TV. TV makers occupy the top spot in the hierarchy of HDR responsibility because to a huge degree, the TV determines the relationship to HDR. Not only does the TV choice determine which of the competing five HDR formats, but even more importantly, it determines how good those HDR formats will look and all HDR TVs don’t deliver the same HDR experience.
- Streaming media device manufacturers -- Unless the HDR TV has a comprehensive set of all of the streaming apps an external streaming media device will be needed. It’s bad enough to worry about whether the device supports 4K or Dolby Atmos, but the knowing the HDR formats supported is required, including Ultra HD Blu-ray players
- TV and movie studios -- If content creators circled the wagons around a single HDR format — as they did with Blu-ray — all the HDR troubles would go away, but they haven’t
- The HDR formatters – There are too many; HDR10, HDR10+, Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG), Dolby Vision, and Advanced HDR by Technicolor. Five versions of HDR, and they all require specific support from each player. The first three in the list, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG are all open-source technologies — meaning there are no fees to use them — Dolby Vision and Advanced HDR by Technicolor are licensed formats, which makes them less of a slam-dunk in terms of adoption. Samsung and Roku are two very big players that have thus far refused to license Dolby Vision for their products. And yet, both Dolby Vision and Advanced HDR by Technicolor possess unique strengths that keep them in the running. Dolby Vision is beloved by creators, TV makers, and home viewers because of its impressive picture quality. As a so-called “dynamic” HDR format, it leaves HDR10 in the dust by offering more colors, more brightness, and the ability to respond to each individual scene’s specific composition of light and dark areas. When the Dolby Vision stars are aligned from content sourced through to a high-quality TV, nothing beats it. Advanced HDR by Technicolor hasn’t even left the starting gate. There’s no content using it, no streaming services or physical media that offer it, and only a tiny fraction of HDR-capable TVs are compatible with it. But it also happens to be the dark horse in the HDR race thanks to its unique ability to merge three different kinds of HDR technologies — static (HDR10), dynamic (HDR10+), and broadcast-friendly (HLG) — into one seamless workflow for creators and broadcasters. Oh, and it also speaks SDR, so it’s 100% backward-compatible with almost every TV on the planet.
- Streaming services --Streaming services like Netflix, Vudu, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ all sit in the middle of this fight, Imagine: All these services want is to be massively popular with audiences (and their subscription dollars). It’s hard enough to do that when a new competitor seems to emerge out of nowhere every 60 days. But tack on to that mission the need to build apps that not only support as many smart TVs, smartphones, streaming devices, and tablets as possible but to also ensure that titles are available in SD, HD, 4K, HDR10, Dolby Vision, stereo, 5.1 Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos … yeah, we’re pretty sure these companies would prefer if there were just one HDR format, too. Amazon Prime Video has done more than any other to play nice in the HDR world. It supports HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision for most of its HDR titles, and as a contribution to the industry, in some ways, it just perpetuates the problem.
- Start mass production at its Gen 10.5 (11) fab-- With ATSC 3.0 (a.k.a NextGen TV) rapidly gaining steam in the U.S., TV will soon be broadcast in HDR. The only problem is that it will be in the HLG format, which means that within the next few years, there’s going to be a three-way tie between HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HLG for the title of most popular HDR format.
The ability to future-proof a new TV is gone as there are no TV makers selling HDR models in this country that support all five flavors of HDR. LG comes closest, with support for every format but HDR10+ (not the worst format to ditch if one of them has to be ditched). HDR format (or two, or three) cannot be an add-on after purchase. Given how far TV content has come in the last 10 years, buyers have to make a bet today on which HDR format will end up dominant down the road.
- Even restricted to the present, the options are far from ideal. For example, Dolby Vision is arguably the best, but the viewer needs to a ensure the source provides Dolby Vision content.
- If it turns out the TV’s preinstalled apps provides access to a streaming service that includes Dolby Vision titles, great, until there is a desire to switch to a service that doesn’t have an app for the TV, which then requires external streaming devices. Roku, which has more streaming apps than any other platform, doesn’t make a Dolby Vision-compatible device. Apple’s Apple TV 4K (is a great but pricey box), Nvidia’s Shield TV (also pricey, and uses Android TV, which has fewer apps), or Amazon Fire TV which has plenty of apps, but not everyone is delighted with its user interface.
- Finally, the Dolby Vision-capable box had better be connected via a proper premium high-speed HDMI cable, or the screen will have black as Dolby Vision is very picky about cables). Sticking with HDR10, will lock out of some HDR content: Some studios only release UHD Blu-rays in one format. Some titles on streaming services can be Dolby Vision-only. If a studio doesn’t produce a movie in a specific HDR format, there’s nothing that Netflix or anyone else can do about it.
There are no clear solutions. Longer term;
- The obvious answer is that all TV makers bite the bullet and support all HDR formats.
- The next obvious answer is that all movie studios and TV production houses make room for all of the HDR formats in their workflows. Just like record labels create studio masters and then export songs in a variety of formats like MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc., video creators must likewise adapt to a multiformat HDR world.
- Netflix could choose to play the role of sheriff. It has (for the moment) kingmaker status in the streaming world. If it mandated that all HDR content must be delivered to its servers in all five HDR flavors, it’s hard to see many studios refusing. Given Amazon’s leadership in this area, there’s certainly a precedent for it.
- The least appealing answer is to push the production community to adopt a single HDR format as the standard. Which format should that be? If it’s HDR10 or HLG, creators and movie fans will both see red at being denied the higher quality associated with Dolby Vision or HDR10+. If it’s Dolby Vision, HDR10, or HDR10+, the content will be incompatible with the new broadcast standard, HLG.
As of the iPhone 12 Pro, Apple now makes a product that can shoot and display HDR video in Dolby Vision. But curiously, its Dolby Vision support is backed up with HLG. Shooting HDR on the iPhone 12 Pro creates a file with two sets of HDR metadata, one for Dolby Vision and one for HLG. If your TV or phone can’t display Dolby Vision, it gets the HLG version. If it can’t do HDR at all, it gets SDR. “Not very long from now,” Jon McCormack, Apple vice president of camera software Engineering, told PetaPixel, “this weirdly cluttered space will get uncluttered.” Will Apple’s HDR gambit effectively force a new, two-format standard upon the industry? It’s certainly got the clout to do so. But given that most HDR footage shot on iPhones will be shared via YouTube, Google would need to start supporting Dolby Vision (or at least HLG) across its huge array of YouTube apps — something it has yet to do — in order to really turbocharge Apple’s strategy. If these options prove anything, it’s that HDR — as established at the outset — is a hot mess. And for the foreseeable future, it’s a mess that content viewers and technology buyers, are being left to clean up on our own.
“Don’t Give up, Don’t Ever Give Up”[1]
In a presentation at the SMPTE event 2020, Leigh Whitcomb, Architect at Imagine Communications presented the brute force conversion approach summarized by the following flow chart. He also showed a Look-up table (LUT) and a hybrid solution.
[1] North Carolina State Basketball Coach, Jim Valvano
Figure 1: HDR Conversion Flow Chart
Source: Leigh Whitcomb, Architect at Imagine Communications
One should never underestimate what can be done with a 5nm chip!
One should never underestimate what can be done with a 5nm chip!
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