54 TVBEurope NAB 2012 Headline News High Dynamic Range TVs emerge into the NAB light goHDR By Adrian Pennington
BRITISH COMPANY goHDR is bringing High Dynamic
Range television a step closer by linking with an Italian HDR display manufacturer. Following NAB, goHDR will
move from an R&D phase into commercial exploitation. The company, a spin-off from Warwick University’s
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technology arm Warwick Ventures, is developing compression technology that will enable the huge data streams produced by HDR video cameras to be displayed on a TV screen. A prototype pipeline was demonstrated at IBC2011, but the goHDR Media Player is now showing played directly on to a commercial HDR display. “At IBC we showed a proof of concept — that it was possible to play HDR video directly on an HDR display — the first time that the full HDR pipeline from capture to display has ever been demonstrated,” explained Alan Chalmers, professor of Visualisation at WMG, University of Warwick and Innovation Director at goHDR. The HDR display at IBC was a BrightSide DR37-P prototype. BrightSide invented the HDR displays but never sold them commercially (Chalmers was on their Technical Advisory Board). BrightSide was acquired by Dolby in February 2007 — and Dolby subsequently licenced the HDR technology to Sim2.
“No one could buy a DR37-P,
but you can go out and buy a Sim2 HDR47E right now,” he said. “So, finally the public has the possibility of watching HDR video in all its glory on an HDR display — a step change in viewing experience from traditional Low Dynamic Range (LDR) footage on a typical LDR display. I am convinced in three- to-five years the vast majority of us will own HDR TVs.” At NAB it also showed the
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latest research results, including 3D-HDR. “Tone-mapped 3D- HDR video is very compelling compared to traditional 3D video,” said Chalmers. “HDR complements 3D (and indeed superHD) by ensuring there are no over- or under-exposed pixels.” After NAB goHDR will be
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moving from researching and developing novel HDR software to enable HDR video on existing ICT infrastructure — to a full commercial exploitation of its products. Chalmers added: “HDR video
is the next big step in TV imaging — similar to the change from black and white to colour TV. For the first time, viewers will be able to see scenes on TV just as they would in real life, without losing detail in the glare of bright sunlight or in deep shadow.” www.gohdr.com/products/