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High Dynamic Range became a hot topic at this year's International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, as it provides an inexpensive way to improve perceived image quality, at least considering the required bitrate. Considering 4K broadcast are already using 10 bits to portrait each Red, Green, and Blue subpixel, there is no extra bandwidth required. Higher spatial and temporal resolution require upto twice the bandwidth to attain the same grade of improvement. And 3D requires changes in the production chain. So following the failed take-up of 3D, people are looking for the next improvement, for 4K and HD.
Every compression vendor was showing how its MPEG HEVC compression systems could carry High Dynamic Range signals. All emphasised they were and could work with every system, some even showing multiple HDR systems. Dolby Vision has the marketing advantage, and Hollywood access with its production technology and Dolby Cinema. Technicolor kept its technology to itsself in a closely guarded meetingroom, in a somewhat hidden hall/tent. This seems typical of Technicolor, and has become somewhat of a tradition, as two years ago I was told "we don't need the publicity, we are not like the others, we don't need a large open stand like Pace". When I enquired about the vendor's first announced 4K set-top boxes. Of course today Pace is the biggest set-top vendor in the world, and held by the same owner as the former Motorola set-top and head-end division. The only public demo across 14 halls was at the Elemental stand http://dci-forum.com/index.php?topic=441.0.
Elemental also had a constantly booked on stand meetingroom housing an HDR 10/Open HDR, following the Electro-Optical Transfer Function curve defined in SMPTE 2084 and the mastering display color volume metadata specified in ST 2086. And the Philips single stream HDR technology, that uses a 10 kilobit/s metadata stream to render the HDR signal from the transmitted SDR signal, or the otherway round if required.
At Keepixo Philippe Loussararian, business development manager at the French MPEG encoder manufacturer told me the bitrate for the demo was the same as for the regular 4K demo, a mere 10 Megabit/s.
4K SDR
Not withstanding the ViXS 4K logo in the lefthand top corner, the Philips provided content was HD not 4K. As we observed at the Cisco booth, Cisco through the old SA business is also selling MPEG compression and distribution systems. And demonstrated the Philips system, without identifying it.
Joop Talstra, Standardization Manager Philips Intellectual Property & Standards, later confirmed that Philips had graded and provide HD material not 4K. Philips own demo also used a single 3G SDI connection feeding an HD signal into the Keepixo encoder (an Elemental encoder was also present, but not demonstrated), as its 4000 nits Sim2 monitor is HD not 4K. The ViXS set-top box to decompress the HEVC signal does support 4K.
10 Megabit/s is not an extemely low rate for HD.
Keepixo showed just HDR, but Cisco provided a side-by-side view, with SDR.
The disadvantage of current 4K LCD displays, in a fairly bright to bright environment, is clear, with dark content they turn into mirrors. That's why we show primarily highlight material.
ViXS a set-top chipset vendor that has commissioned 4K HEVC set-top boxes to promote its chip sets to box makers, boxes used by all the companies showing of the Philips HDR system, had a small non-assuming cubicle booth, that directed interested people to the large conference room filled with examples of all kinds of set-top chips, and their applications.
And one of the first 10 bits 4K 60P set-top boxes, build as a development platform, used in the various Philips HDR demo's.
The large conference room included a side-by-side demo of SDR and HDR. The HDR display is a Sony X93C.
And the Philips development board that renders the HDR signal from the SDR MPEg stream and metadata:
