HDR Discussion Thread

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

....Spanish are not good, to say it softly, at the technical side of audio, video and film production.

Well, the upside is that you do have La Liga.

b.t.w., your rocker handle reminds me of David Lee Roth, a nuanced factoid from back in the day about his father, a man of many talents -

Dr. Nathan Roth (father of David Lee Roth) - YouTube

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, the upside is that you do have La Liga.

b.t.w., your rocker handle reminds me of David Lee Roth, a nuanced factoid from back in the day about his father, a man of many talents -

Dr. Nathan Roth (father of David Lee Roth) - YouTube

I don't like soccer, football, fútbol or whatever you wanna call it. A couple of years ago I bought the two seasons of "Sin Identidad" on BD, a Spanish T.V. series produced by the most important Spanish Network Antena3/A3Media. Rear cover stated sound as being DTS-HD Master Audio but it had only two channels. While watching I engaged Dolby ProLogic II as the soundtrack sounded "monoish" to me. Guess what, all sound went to the center channels with just some music going to the main left and right channels. Picture is OK, not bad definition but too muted colors for my taste. Spanish T.V. series or movies are not my cup of tea and I don't think I'll be buying any Spanish production again. Actually, this was my first ever.

[DanBa]

"I have been told by Sony, Dolby Vision software upgrades for their UBP-X800/1000 4K players will be out soon."
[William Kacensky]
https://twitter.com/WKacensky/status/886279015383695360
https://twitter.com/WKacensky/status/886395202805485568
https://twitter.com/WKacensky/status/886395872749117441

[Geoff D]

Hmmm. I'd take anything a shop floor sales rep says with more than a pinch of salt. But if it IS on there then that's saved me £650 as I don't have to buy the OPPO!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

b.t.w., your rocker handle reminds me of David Lee Roth, a nuanced factoid from back in the day about his father, a man of many talents -

Dr. Nathan Roth (father of David Lee Roth) - YouTube

^ Reminds me, speaking of eye men and from there, eye charts, I always liked this slide by Fairchild, out of RIT < click on the hyperlink for more Sunday continuing visual science education

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by DanBa

"Franco-German cultural channel ARTE will be showing the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet in 4K Ultra HD HDR [HEVC HLG HDR] on three satellites.
The broadcast will take place on Thursday, July 6, at 2055 CET and is a live performance of the opera at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence."
https://twitter.com/DanielBa78/statu...39123169226752

[Show spoiler]

So looking ahead down the road, not just when one-off events are broadcast ^ in the land of the Tour de France , but when HDR programming becomes commonplace on TV channels in viewers' homes, be it whatever the country.
What are we doing about it in order to assure as pleasurable an experience as possible and who’s at the forefront of such ideas/solutions?

Katy, Manish and Andrew of BBC R&D, that’s who.

“Modelling brightness perception for high dynamic range television”
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org:80/docume...3/?reload=true

Abstract:
High dynamic range (HDR) television offers greater contrast and more immersive images than conventional television, and as such it is an important part of the overall ultra-high definition television package. Standardisation is almost complete, and the industry is already taking the first steps in HDR programme production. The extended dynamic range and brighter screens associated with HDR make sudden jumps in brightness possible. To ensure consistency between programmes and to avoid uncomfortable brightness shifts at programme junctions, some production guidelines are needed for HDR brightness, just as guidelines have been necessary for audio loudness. In order to develop production guidelines for brightness, brightness perception must be understood.

In this paper we report the results of subjective tests that measured the overall perceived brightness of a set of HDR images. We then propose ten classes of potential objective metric that relate the displayed pixel luminance levels to the overall subjective brightness level, and evaluate them using our test results as ground truth. The most effective metrics tested are the mean of the pixel luminances, the mean of the pixel luminances raised to the power of 0.82, and the 96th percentile of pixel luminances, all of which performed similarly well. The mean displayed pixel luminance is preferred, since it is the simplest to implement. The effectiveness of these simple objective metrics suggests that real-time brightness monitoring in production is a realistic goal.

^ bolding by me.

[Penton-Man]

I notice this morning we cracked the 300,000 viewership mark.
Chapeau to all the contributors - https://forum.blu-ray.com/misc.php?d...osted&t=276605
and the silent readers.

Goin ridin now.

[gkolb]

Ha ha ha. Lurkers be lurkin'.

Guilty your honor...

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^ Reminds me, speaking of eye men and from there, eye charts, I always liked this slide by Fairchild, out of RIT < click on the hyperlink for more Sunday continuing visual science education

Perceived contrast in a mixed image will increase with a brighter image because your eyes are far more biased, so blacks will look darker. But it is only perceptual contrast, not real contrast. This is why most display technology, regardless of actual contrast performance, looks great with brighter images with only some dark spots (like the picture you show here). Your eyes help. But it has already been shown that the majority of films out there have VERY low average picture levels, so the higher sequential contrast you have, the better they will look. The industry as a whole has been HORRIBLE in this regard as most cinema projectors (the Dolby Cinema excluded) have pretty poor contrast, which is why they look dull and washed out with darker films. They've relied on contrast measurements that use patterns with a 50% average picture level (referred to as ANSI contrast) which is an extremely poor representation of actual content.

[Kris Deering]

It is also worth noting that higher contrast will make an image look sharper as our eyes perceive resolution as the difference between two objects. The higher the contrast, the more separation in two objects. This is why extremely high contrast displays (OLED) look so sharp. If you took a low contrast/high resolution display and put it next to a high contrast/low resolution display, most people would probably pick the latter. This is why the ISF ranks dynamic range as the number one item for overall image quality (despite typically identifying ANSI contrast as the best way of measuring contrast, which is wrong.

[Geoff D]

...and is also why contrast boosting was such a thing with home video transfers for quite a while there.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Perceived contrast in a mixed image will increase with a brighter image because your eyes are far more biased, so blacks will look darker. But it is only perceptual contrast, not real contrast....

Where the heck have you been?...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANgq60LfO0#t=53m41s

Yes , which is why in Dolby’s landmark scientific research submitted at the international level promoting the value of having television pictures capable of an extended dynamic range (higher brightness and deeper black levels) presented to the respective ITU Working Party (http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-gr...s/default.aspx) back in 2012 to set the foundation for what we have now, namely HDR -

the test images were specifically designed to reduce/avoid the usual perceptual conflict (bias) of the Stevens effect.

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

The industry as a whole has been HORRIBLE in this regard as most cinema projectors (the Dolby Cinema excluded) have pretty poor contrast...

This sounds like a discussion also for DarinP. If he’s still involved in the forums, tell him to join in.
Anyway, I'm told the 500 nit graded clip of The Great Wall (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2034800/) shown on the Samsung direct LED Cinema screen to invited guests had very good real contrast.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

...and

next topic up in vision science…the Hunt effect.

[ray0414]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

It is also worth noting that higher contrast will make an image look sharper as our eyes perceive resolution as the difference between two objects. The higher the contrast, the more separation in two objects. This is why extremely high contrast displays (OLED) look so sharp. If you took a low contrast/high resolution display and put it next to a high contrast/low resolution display, most people would probably pick the latter. This is why the ISF ranks dynamic range as the number one item for overall image quality (despite typically identifying ANSI contrast as the best way of measuring contrast, which is wrong.

I agree and also disagree with some of what you said. Contrast Increasing sharpness is real for sure that's why hdr is so great, the increased depth and dimension can increase perceived resolution. On the oled side tho, I've actually heard and seen the opposite, at least with the LG oleds from previous years. Digitalfernandes had the ks9800 and E6 side by side and the ks9800 was definitely sharper with almost all Content they compared. However, where the oled took a major lead in sharpness was very dark scenes. They become a little smudged on led TVs but stay very sharp on the oled (and plasma TVs too). But anything bright and the oled was not as sharp despite "infinite" contrast.

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by DanBa

"I have been told by Sony, Dolby Vision software upgrades for their UBP-X800/1000 4K players will be out soon."
[William Kacensky]
https://twitter.com/WKacensky/status/886279015383695360
https://twitter.com/WKacensky/status/886395202805485568
https://twitter.com/WKacensky/status/886395872749117441

Sony source at Best Buy ! GTFO !

I had one of those tell me all 4K UHD discs were mastered at 10,000 nits.

I couldn't persuade him differently, even though I cited the display info on my then new OPPO 203 telling me masters were 1000 or 4000 depending on the studio involved.

If it pans out, lucky for you all.
But I'm thinking this isn't even 50/50, more like 01/99.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Where the heck have you been?...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANgq60LfO0#t=53m41s

Yes , which is why in Dolby’s landmark scientific research submitted at the international level promoting the value of having television pictures capable of an extended dynamic range (higher brightness and deeper black levels) presented to the respective ITU Working Party (http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-gr...s/default.aspx) back in 2012 to set the foundation for what we have now, namely HDR -

the test images were specifically designed to reduce/avoid the usual perceptual conflict (bias) of the Stevens effect.

This sounds like a discussion also for DarinP. If he’s still involved in the forums, tell him to join in.
Anyway, I'm told the 500 nit graded clip of The Great Wall (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2034800/) shown on the Samsung direct LED Cinema screen to invited guests had very good real contrast.

I've been around, just haven't been posting in here much. Definitely a discussion for Darin, who is still in the trenches trying to fight the contrast naysayers. He was just over this last week to look at one of the new DLP "4K" projectors I just got in for review. Evidently they haven't learned anything about contrast and its benefits to image quality in all the years since their heyday in high end home theater as their new chips have the worst contrast performance I've seen from DLP in this segment. Instead they decided to focus on the area they had the least amount of issue with, sharpness, and decided to ignore the area they were so far behind in and actually make it worse.

Looking forward to seeing what the cinema screen stuff looks like. I hope they have a demo at CEDIA this year.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by gkolb

Sony source at Best Buy ! GTFO !

I had one of those tell me all 4K UHD discs were mastered at 10,000 nits.

I couldn't persuade him differently, even though I cited the display info on my then new OPPO 203 telling me masters were 1000 or 4000 depending on the studio involved.

If it pans out, lucky for you all.
But I'm thinking this isn't even 50/50, more like 01/99.

Well, anything that uses ST 2084 as the HDR EOTF is using a BT.2020 10,000-nit container by default, so in one kinda half-baked aspect he's right. Where he's wrong is as you say: most content put inside that container is mastered to 1000 or 4000 nits, certain things aside (try the 7669 Sony nit ramp and see what that says it's been mastered at).

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

...and is also why contrast boosting was such a thing with home video transfers for quite a while there.

Except that people would say certain video transfers were "contrast boosted" when in fact it was an inaccurate gamma level.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Except that people would say certain video transfers were "contrast boosted" when in fact it was an inaccurate gamma level.

This is an interesting comment mainly because there wasn't really a "standard" per se for gamma until more recently with 1886. And even with that I've heard that different authoring houses still use different gammas. So some content is 2.2, some 2.4 and some are 1886. It would be great if discs all had metadata that would tell you exactly what the encode was done at so you could make sure your monitor is setup for this condition.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Except that people would say certain video transfers were "contrast boosted" when in fact it was an inaccurate gamma level.

Come on man, the variations in gamma are what they are but just look at how blown out to shit the highlights are in most of those mid-90s to early-'00s HD transfers, and there ain't no gamma that can fix 'em. It definitely IS an issue at the mastering end, especially with reference to most optical shots which really should be printed down with a much higher gamma e.g. the garbage mattes in the Star Warses, but when it comes to them highlights that's a whole 'nuther deal.

But w/ref to Kris' comment I've also heard that gamma is all over the place when it comes to mastering and that in itself is almost like a proto-HDR 'flying blind' kinda deal in relation to how the display should best handle x content. How ever did we survive?