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FEATURE


HDR47E Sim2 monitor: the first commercial HDR-branded set


Broadcast TECH


include specialist displays, such as Dolby’s Professional Reference Monitor, and the first commercial HDR branded set, HDR47E, from Italy’s Sim2. Many TVs, including ones from


Sharp and Toshiba, feature local dimming, which provides a form of HDR, turning select LEDs on and off, depending on the source material, to improve black levels and contrast ratios. Sony has licensed local dim- ming HDR display patents from Dolby for addition to its Bravia range of LCDs with LED backlight technol- ogy. All of this convinces Chalmers that “in three to five years, the major- ity of us will own HDR televisions”. The widespread adoption of HDR


A traditional camera can’t capture the details of the person and the details outside the window. HDR video can.” HDR could even benefit live


sports, for example, by enabling golf balls to be clearly tracked from tee, where it may be dark, through the sky. Or consider nature documenta- ries. “If David Attenborough sees a rare frog, he doesn’t have to wait for the lighting crew,” suggests Chalm- ers. “With HDR video, if he can see it, so can the camera.”


Stills photography HDR imaging has been available for stills photographers for more than a decade and was used recently by Double Negative to capture lighting environments and record 3D data for the VFX production of Disney feature John Carter. Tone-mapped HDR video sequences have also been assembled from multiple stills, and even generated from a pair of DLSRs in which different parts of the dynamic range in a single scene were split using a mirror then combined in post. The technique hasn’t been possible for professional video mainly because of the vast amount of data generated. At 20 f-stops, each of the colour channels (red, green, blue) would use 32 bits of information. That’s 96 bits per pixel for single frames of


38 | Broadcast TECH | May/June 2012


‘More stops improves your chance of being able to grade


consistently’ Simon Robinson, The Foundry


24MB in size or 42GB per minute – and only at HD resolution. “This data stream is simply unmanageable,” says Chalmers, who believes the key is to compress data for preservation along the entire workflow and subsequent delivery of the full dynamic range at the display. GoHDR has developed a compres- sion technology that it says does just that, compressing HDR video up to 150 times. To prove its results, it commissioned German high-preci- sion camera maker SpheronVR to make an HDR video camera capable of shooting 20 f-stops at 30 frames a second in HD 1920 x 1080. Demonstrated at various trade shows over the past six months, the venture is now attempting to license the technology to camera and dis- play manufacturers. Provided com- pression is used, the impact on post- production is reckoned to be minimal. Indeed, HDR is already common in computer animations and computer games production. “Most post-production software


today can deal with 16-bit or floating point arithmetic to handle larger dynamic ranges,” says Robinson. The final link in the chain is the


display, without which all the advan- tages of HDR content are rendered redundant. LED displays with a wide dynamic range are proliferat- ing, albeit with little fanfare. These


requires common interface stand- ards – which do not currently exist. There are, however, isolated pockets of endeavour across Europe, and a co-ordinated approach under the European Co-operation in Science and Technology (COST) framework. It has initiated a project, chaired by Chalmers and including researchers and practitioners from 22 countries, aimed at defining a standard for HDR video and establishing Europe as the world leader in the field. The technology also has implica-


tions for 3D. By delivering more accurate lighting, HDR can provide two important depth cues to enhance glasses-free 3D production and display. “Aerial, or atmospheric, perspective in a real scene is the scattering of light by the atmos- phere,” explains Chalmers. “This results in objects that are further away from the viewer appearing to have a lower contrast with their background and less saturated col- ours. The other depth cue is the manner in which light interacts with objects, including its reflective prop- erties and the shadows it casts. We’ve evolved to use these cues to help us judge distance. HDR gives the accurate lighting that allows a ‘natural’ view of a scene.” Chalmers predicts that “2013 will


be the year HDR comes into the open and gets the recognition it deserves”.


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