The next-gen ATSC 3.0 over-the-air broadcast standard and with it High Dynamic Range technology are shaping up to be big parts of next week’s CES 2018 technology trade show in Las Vegas.
On Friday, 20th Century Fox, Panasonic and Samsung Electronics, all members of HDR10+ promotional organization, jointly announced that they plan to demonstrate their dynamic-metadata HDR platform at various locations around the show, Jan. 7-12th.
Members of the group are hopeful that HDR10+ high dynamic range metadata will be selected by broadcasters for transmission along with forthcoming 4K Ultra HD signals in coming years.
The HDR10+ companies announced a new licensing and logo program for the royalty-free HDR profile, which was designed to bring dynamic metadata capabilities to the formerly static baseline HDR10 profile.
Read more about HDR10+ and ATSC 3.0 after the jump:
The companies have established a website (http://www.hdr10plus.org) where interested parties can sign up to learn more about the delivery of specifications and adoption, in addition to having products and content certified under the logo program.
Platform proponents also pointed out that Ultra HD Blu-ray metadata generation tools have been developed with third parties and will soon be available for content creators to enable the first supporting Ultra HD Blu-ray players to enter the market.
Read more on the HDR10+ CES 2018 plans after the jump:
The HDR10+ companies said the platform will soon be made available to content companies, 4K Ultra HDTVs, Blu-ray disc players/recorders and set-top box manufacturers, as well as SoC vendors.
It was developed to be open and royalty-free, requiring “only a nominal administrative fee,” unlike the rival Dolby Vision and Technology HDR profiles.
The HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision and Technicolor HDR profiles are all based on the open PQ gamma Electro Optical Transfer Function (EOTF).
Another “open” platform called Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) does not use metadata or the PQ EOTF foundation. It was developed by the BBC and Japan’s NHK for live HDR broadcasts. Both PQ and HLG will be part of the forthcoming ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.
In a coincidental, through related announcement, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) also announced on Friday that it will host a brief commemorative event at 11 a.m. (PT) on Jan. 9 in the Grand Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center “to mark delivery of the first complete set of ATSC 3.0 standards for deployment by the broadcasting industry.”
Leaders of the CTA, ATSC and National Association of Broadcasters will be on hand to celebrate the achievement.
Meanwhile, HDR10+ is said to provide “a genuinely premium HDR experience for viewers through a device certification program ensuring an accurate representation of the creative intent expressed in the content. Also, its workflow improvements for creators will encourage increased production of premium HDR content.”
The HDR10+ license program will provide interested companies with the necessary technical and testing specifications to implement HDR10+ technology in a way that both maintains high picture quality and gives each manufacturer the ability to apply dynamic tone mapping innovatively.
The accompanying certification program will ensure that HDR10+ compliant products meet good picture quality and deliver the creative intent of movie directors and cinematographers. A certified product will feature the HDR10+ logo, which signifies the product’s excellent picture quality, according to the companies.
Key aspects of the license program will include:
• Benefits for device manufacturers (e.g., TV, Ultra HD Blu-ray, OTT STB, etc.), content distribution services providers, SoC manufacturers, content publishers, and content creation tool providers.
• No per unit royalty.
• A nominal annual administration fee for device manufacturers, SoC manufacturers and content distribution service providers.
• Technical specification, test specification, HDR10+ logo/logo guide, patents from the three companies directly related to the technical specification and the test specification.
• Certification for devices will be performed by a third-party, authorized testing center.
Once the HDR10+ license program is open, the three founding companies said they will incorporate HDR10+ technologies in all future Ultra HD movie releases, selected TVs, Ultra HD Blu-ray player/recorders, and other products.
“It was important for us to create an open system that is flexible and offers a viewing experience much closer to the filmmaker’s creative intent for the film,” stated Danny Kaye, Executive Vice President of 20th Century Fox, and Fox Innovation Lab managing director. “Together with Samsung and Panasonic, we aim to standardize the licensing process making it easy for partners, including content creators, television and device manufacturers, to incorporate this technology and improve the viewing experience for all audiences.”
The companies said support for HDR10+ continues to grow. In addition, more than 25 companies from a variety of industries have expressed interest in supporting the HDR10+ platform.
Amazon Prime Video previously announced it will be the first over-the-top streaming service to deliver HDR10+ to its customers and will apply the system to “the entire Prime Video HDR library” globally.
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The Prime Video HDR10+ catalog includes hundreds of hours of content such as Prime Originals The Grand Tour, Golden Globe-nominated The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, The Tick and The Man in the High Castle plus hundreds of licensed titles.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has also said it will support HDR10+ dynamic metadata for supporting televisions and equipment.
The new HDR10+ technology optimizes picture quality for next generation displays by using dynamic tone mapping to reflect frame to frame or scene to scene variations in brightness, color saturation, and contrast, which makes for an enhanced viewing experience.
HDR10+ technology optimizes the performance of many 4K ultra-high definition TVs, enabling playback on a wide range of next generation TVs bringing user experience much closer to the original creative intent for Hollywood films.
“Samsung is committed to technological innovation across our TVs and HDR10+ represents an evolution in display quality for the best possible viewing experience,” stated Jongsuk Chu, Samsung Electronics Visual Display Business senior Vice VP. “We have also designed the HDR10+ platform to encourage future development in order to deliver further enhanced technology in the years to come.”
20th Century Fox, Panasonic and Samsung will show technical demonstrations of HDR10+ technology at CES 2018 next week.
By Greg Tarr
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