HDR Special Report: SMPTE Standards Director: No HDR Format War, Yet
By Chris Tribbey
The Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) is featuring a series of one-on-one interviews with stakeholders in high dynamic range, or HDR. Today, Howard Lukk, standards director for the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) offers his thoughts on the standards behind the technology.
MESA
: SMPTE has already made some gains on the HDR standards front. What’s the latest?
Lukk
: SMPTE has published two standards relating to HDR. SMPTE Standard (ST)-2084 which codifies Dolby Perceptual Quantizer (PQ) transfer function. (Electrical Optical Transfer Function – EOTF to be specific). Along with that ST-2086 which defines static metadata for HDR.
These are standards targeted for the mastering of content at the end of the post-production workflow. This allows for any equipment down the line to understand the nature of the HDR content if they support those standards. There is also another standard in the works, not yet published for dynamic metadata which would aid in a transition world where equipment needs to support standard dynamic range (SDR) content and HDR content. This is where things get complicated at the moment.
SMPTE also plans to publish a Study Group (SG) Report on HDR in the second half of the year, which will serve to educate and highlight issues when is comes to standardization for the content mastering and broadcast ecosystem.
MESA
: It seems like we’ve got Dolby Vision, Technicolor and others offering different standards. Are we looking at yet another format war, or is there room for everyone in the ecosystem?
Lukk
: So when it comes to a broadcast world and consumer physical distribution (such as Blu-ray) there are many more steps in the process such as compression, possible encryption, transmission, network distribution, physical distribution and home interfaces of which SMPTE does not standardize. When you add the complication of supporting a dual-system (SDR and HDR) this is where manufacturers and vendors split. This is always natural when you look at the patent implications for the consumer world vs. the professional world. At latest count we have four proponents in this arena: Technicolor, Samsung, Phillips and Dolby.
It would always be best if there were only a single system, however someone would need to get all these proponents to agree. Is it a format war? I would say not at this time. Generally, I consider a format war when the content owners start taking sides, and that has not seemed to have happen yet. The discussion at the moment is can metadata solve this issue and let all systems interplay? Perhaps after a while the best system will win out and we will have one.
MESA
: We’ve got the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) assuring HDR will be available for UHD Blu-ray products when those hit the market, and we’ve got streaming services like Amazon and Netflix working on HDR for streaming. For both physical and digital delivery, can consumers count on a seamless HDR experience?
Lukk
: The over-the-top (OTT) segment, such as Amazon and Netflix, can run proprietary systems as long as the Smart TV’s devices support them. So, they can run forward fast. BDA has to have agreements from multiple manufactures to build units so they have to settle on a specification and get cable systems and television manufacturers to support the system. If we can align these standards (most out of SMPTE’s scope), and get the first generation devices built well and interchanging then it could be seamless. I would expect it to be similar to the early releases of Blu-ray and Smart TV’s.
MESA
: Fox has thrown its weight behind HDR with its films, and we’ve already seen more than one consumer electronics manufacturer show its support for HDR. But does the industry have enough support on both sides, content and hardware, to make this a compelling offering for consumers?
Lukk
: My personal opinion, is that if this is done correctly it can be really compelling, I have seen it and it is a far bigger change than going from HD to UHD. When you add HDR with wide color gamut (WCG) and 4K it is a huge leap from our current systems.
There is enough support on both sides now to make this happen. With major content creators like Fox and Disney getting behind it and manufactures willing to support it we now have both sides of the ecosystem. now it is a matter of getting the connecting parts to work. It will not be here overnight however. It will take some time to work out all the details so some folks will be first and other folks will wade in later when equipment is more stable and possibly in its second generation.
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