When TVs first came out, the movie theater’s began to panic
that no one would ever leave the house again. So to fight this off, new
technologies like “Technicolor” and
“Panavision” widescreen picture formats came into
being. The idea was that movie theater’s had the latest “technologies” that
made them superior to staying home and watching a TV — today
we would call these “features” that
change the way the picture plays on the TV screen. And which are so great to
have on the new TVs now available.
Today getting a good picture on the TV is taken for granted — and
as a result new technologies (or “features”) that can make a
big difference in image quality are not given the attention they deserve. Case
in point: Technicolor and its HDR and SDR compatibility solution.
WHAT IS HDR?
Lets start with what HDR — high dynamic range — is
all about. While its value for watching a TV picture hasn’t
received the attention it deserves as yet, those using still photography,
especially on smartphones
like the iPhone, have seen what it can do. Basically it takes multiple pictures
all at the same time, both under- and over-exposing the same image. This is
then combined to take advantage of the extreme light and darkness of the image.
Taking a picture in the normal fashion when the image has deep blacks and white
whites causes the image to give up on trying to capture the entire range of the
spectrum (the “dynamic range”) and instead go for an average which
just doesn’t cut it (highlights can get washed out and black areas lose
all detail and render as black holes).
WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
For TVs, HDR means a more colorful picture because the
contrast level between light and dark can be more intense (without the
negatives of “washing” out detail as otherwise would be the
case). In a real sense it makes the “reality” of
what is being watched on the TV screen come as close as possible to how your
eye and brain react to “seeing” in
the real world: the colors looks like they should, the highlights and dark
areas have depth and the color is vibrant. You’re not putting up
with watching anymore.
Of course for HDR to be effective it needs to have a strong and
high resolution image for that TV screen. That’s why HDR’s
time has come — because we now have 4K TVs that can provide a quality picture that is
so close to reality. In addition, an organic LED TV (OLED) is also well-suited for HDR
use; this is due to OLED’s ability to render a perfect,
absolute black.
The last step, you’d think, would be for there to be
content to watch on TVs that have HDR capabilities built-in, but there’s
actually a step in front of that which is just as important. And it’s
where Technicolor comes back to the forefront for TVs.
Technicolor has described a single layer solution for HDR that is
compatible with the already accepted standards of MPEG HEVC, while being
backwardly compatible so as to not let out legacy SDR (standard dynamic range)
imaging. What this means in “real-speak” is
that coding and delivery of HDR content can be sent in a single stream which
means less bandwidth requirements (as opposed to having to use multiple
streams). This should please and soothe the angst of broadcasters, streaming
services, etc., who are looking to add HDR content but have to consider the $$ — because
storage and delivery of the HDR content is now being done through a single file
that will also play on the legacy (i.e., old-school) TVs along with the new
TVs.
According to Technicolor, one of the big factors of this is that
their solution doesn’t require the consumer adopting
HDR-compatible devices or it’s no-go (think: CDs required getting a
new player because the cassette player couldn’t handle discs, but
this isn’t that).
Technicolor is having the “big boys” (i.e., the Motion Picture Experts Group [MPEG]) view their solution as a standard to adopt. Testing is underway and if Technicolor has its way, consumers will be able to enjoy the benefits of HDR soon and on more screens.
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