SMPTE: ‘Interest in HDR exploding’
October 27, 2015
By Chris Forrester
Movie industry professional membership association SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) used its Annual Technical Conference (SMPTE 2015) to publish its High Dynamic Range report which encompasses the work of some 170 top experts in the field.
“HDR is a rapidly emerging and much-debated technology with the capacity to make a greater impact on viewer experience than can higher-resolution formats,” said Alan Lambshead, VP/standards for SMPTE. “Recognising the remarkable potential of HDR and the media industry’s growing interest in this technology, SMPTE created an HDR ecosystem study group and — within just 12 months — delivered a valuable consensus report on implementation of HDR and the creation of efficient HDR workflows.”
The SMPTE SG report on the HDR ecosystem provides consensus guidance on HDR terms and definitions and presents detailed and useful information on HDR technologies that, up to this point, has not been readily available to the media industry. The report acknowledges that although HDR technologies, both proprietary and standardised, are available today and already can be implemented for non-real-time workflows, challenges remain in live or real-time applications. It further recognises that implementation of HDR will be complex and affect many systems in a professional media workflow. The report catalogues HDR technologies, examines issues in both live and non-live HDR workflows, and describes the role of HDR metadata. Finally, it recommends industry harmonisation regarding HDR technologies and parameters, stressing the importance of standardising new technologies related to HDR and of updating current standards to enable HDR.
“Interest in HDR has begun to explode, and this report on the HDR ecosystem has been eagerly anticipated by engineers and technologists across the media industry,” said Thomas Bause Mason, SMPTE Technical Committee (TC) 10E SG on HDR Ecosystem chair. “We are confident that this timely SMPTE publication will answer many of the questions that emerge as HDR is discussed and implemented.”