The TV industry is presently going through a turmoil with fresh format battles brewing over HDR or High Dynamic Range technology, which experts deem essential for making a 4K TV look even better. As usual, there are issues related to intellectual property rights. First, let us understand what 4K is about and why should people care about 4K and HDR.
Recently, the UHD Alliance has announced a set of new specifications for Ultra High Definition Premium along with a logo for products and services that comply with the specifications. The UHD Alliance is an industry group consisting of 35 member companies. The group has recommended enhanced performance metrics related to resolution, black levels, high dynamic range, wide color gamut, and peak luminance.
With the new specifications, there is ample clarity about the definition of Ultra High Definition or Premium UHD, which the panel makers were after. According to Myra Moore, the president of Digital Tech Consulting, with the clarity in the definition of Premium Ultra HD, consumers can differentiate and upgrade their TVs to what they think is necessary.
For example, while HDR is about expanding the range between the darkest and the brightest images a TV display can produce, Ultra High Definition Premium goes even further. Premium UHD specifies high dynamic range, content master and display, and distribution, along with color palette, color bit depth and image resolution. The Alliance has adopted HDR 10 from SMPTE as a baseline for HDR.
So far, four companies have developed their own technology and intellectual property rights for achieving the HDR format – the BBC, Philips, Technicolor, and Dolby. Now, the battle is about which technology will finally be added to Ultra High Definition TV. For the past one year, proposals from the four companies are under review.
Over the years, both consumers and filmmakers have been showing tepid interest in 4KTV, usually defined as TV with resolution higher than 3840×2160 pixels. For example, Walt Disney Studios and Hollywood feel that merely adding more pixels will do little to change the marketplace over to a new format. In their opinion, more contrast and dynamic range is necessary to make consumers take to the new format.
With 4K UHD, although there are more pixels, you are unable to see the extra pixels unless very close to the screen. Added resolution does not mean much unless there is more contrast as well.
At present, the contention is about maintaining backward compatibility with SDR or Standard Dynamic Range TV displays. What this means is no matter what TV consumers use, they will be able to see content. With backward compatibility, as proposed by Philips and Technicolor, distributors will be sending only one signal to their consumers. That signal will contain an SDR signal layer and other parameters to reconstruct the HDR from the SDR video stream. As the unique signal is part of the MPEG stream, no change is necessary for the transmission infrastructure.
Dolby is offering three different packages with various characteristics, one of which uses less bandwidth and could be less expensive to implement. The UHD Alliance is yet to complete an official HDR format, which means the battle over HDR is hardly over.
