March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com


“The whole HDR/high colour bit depth discussion is evolving rapidly and there are still technical problems to be overcome on the display side” —John Schuermann, Folded Space


Gomila: “If you knew you could display this greater range, would you play differently with the lighting when filming?”


explains Vlaicu. “The idea of enhancing the signal itself was really just an idea at the time. Since then, we have built the technology and IP to turn this into a reality. The way we see this panning out now is that the combination of better performing displays in the form of local dimming LCD or OLED along with Dolby Vision signals that carry higher dynamic range and a wider colour gamut will enable a far superior imaging performance.”


maximum peak luminance at any time. “Where content or areas of content have been clipped when represented in LDR Technicolor has some algorithms that can compensate and bring detail from brighter zones for example. “Lost information is difficult to recover so we are going to be seeing a variety of quality depending on these algorithms,” says Gomila. Technicolor will also licence


a version of its technology to perform dynamic range expansion at the receiver, in set-top boxes or the TV. As with Dolby Vision, the enhancement can be applied to images of any resolution. She calls for a consistent


measure of what constitutes HDR to be agreed and is contributing to standardisation activities on HEVC extensions for HDR and wide Colour Gamut in MPEG, ITU-T and applications standard committees such as DVB and ATSC 3.0.


“The industry, including


standards bodies like MPEG, need to set up a continuous scale and define a point below which we can term LDR (low dynamic range) and above which is HDR,” says Gomila. “There may even be intermediate range, but there should be a single agreed definition to avoid market confusion.” She suggests that from


capture to grade creatives need


to learn about how new artistic effects can be conveyed with HDR images. “If you knew you could display this greater range, the question is would you play differently with the lighting when filming? This has implications for productions being shot going forward.”


The genesis


TVBEurope 25 The Workflow “The whole


HDR/high colour bit depth discussion is


of Dolby’s technology came from IP acquired from Brightstar in 2007. The Canadian wireless technology specialist had developed the concept of local dimming in which TVs are dynamically lit by individual LEDs arrayed behind the screen, rather than by way of a single backlight. Brightstar developed a means


evolving rapidly and there are still


backward compatible 8-bit Blu- ray disc. Newer displays and Blu-ray players with the decoding algorithm can then restore a 12-bit equivalent of the original image. Folded Space is licensing the technology to software partners for free “to stimulate HDR content production,” it says, while charging a modest fee for it to player and display vendors. “We are working with several CE manufacturers and major film studios to develop a 12-to- 8-back-to12-bit demo, but of course the current limitation is the lack of a high bit depth display to show it on or even good 12-bit video content to run through the process,” says Schuermann. “These are challenges we are working on with several CE


technical problems to be overcome on the display side” John Schuermann, Folded Space


of creating a HDR version of regular content by extrapolating information needed to create the locally dimmed image within the TV. The idea didn’t take off because it required TV sets to become wider to accommodate the LEDs at a time when the trend was toward ever thinner units (although LED edge-lit displays which light up the panel equally are now common). “When we acquired Brightside, the existing IP revolved mostly around the concept of direct LED local dimming for LCD displays,”


Folded Space Technicolor and Dolby are not alone in developing this area. Video processing company Folded Space, subsidiary to anamorphic lens maker Panamorph, is marketing what it terms deep colour content encoding. “DCE is an extremely


efficient process requiring very little additional bandwidth or processing power to deliver true 12-bit equivalent colour to compatible displays,” notes business development director John Schuermann. The company’s algorithms


process original content with 12-bits and encode information about the colour detail into a


companies and film studios, most under NDA at this point.” He adds: “The


whole HDR/high colour bit depth discussion is evolving


rapidly and there are still technical problems to be


overcome on the display side. This is where Dolby is focusing part of their efforts, as a major component of what they are doing is encouraging the development of higher brightness, high bit depth displays. We have simply been focusing on the efficient delivery of high bitrate content. “It is our understanding that


Dolby’s delivery system will be proprietary and include at least two data streams that will need to be remuxed at the display. Our technology is fully compatible with current and future Blu-ray standards and can be adapted to other high-quality delivery methods such as downloads (although probably not realtime streaming, as the massive compression could adversely affect our process).”


NEWS INBRIEF


Phabrix increases innovation at BVE


At BVE, PHABRIX announced several new enhancements and innovations across its Sx handheld and Rx rack mount test and measurement instruments. PHABRIX has started shipping its new handheld TAG, capable of testing most broadcast infrastructures. The TAG comes complete as an analyser/monitor with support for SD and HD formats. A software option can be purchased to add 3G, a generator or optical support. The TAG has an audio toolset including full support for metadata, levels and logging of Dolby E, D and D Plus. PHABRIX also previewed its new V9 upgrade due for release end of March 2014. www.phabrix.com


Front Porch Digital and thePlatform offer new cloud services


Front Porch Digital has signed an agreement with video publishing company thePlatform, to offer cloud- based video publishing services to Front Porch Digital customers. The company will integrate thePlatform’s mpx video publishing system into its LYNXSM cloud-based CSM for managing media assets. This will allow LYNX users to more easily monetise assets and build new revenue streams, the company claims. www.fpdigital.com www.theplatform.com


eyevis acquires IPTV specialist Teracue eyevis has acquired IPTV systems manufacturer Teracue AG at Odelzhausen near Munich. The Reutlingen-based eyevis GmbH is taking over all brands, names and patent rights, as well as staff and management of Teracue, and is transferring them into the new Teracue eyevis GmbH.


The first joint products of the merger were presented at this year’s ISE in February along with eyevis’ eyeCON MetaWall 2.0 solution. www.eyevis.co.uk www.teracus.com


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