HDR Discussion Thread

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Staying Salty

Dolby is speaking in a position of reality and strength. They can afford to be magnanimous.

Lol. Dolby is a business, not a community charity. And Dolby doesn't have a position of strength - their presence on disc is dwarfed by standard HDR10; Dolby's current dynamic lead could be wiped out in a matter of months it is so small. Streaming services can flip a switch and vaporize their Dolby Vision support entirely overnight. And hardware is refreshed every year plus Dolby never had the support of the largest TV manuf so any lead there can also be erased.

The fact that Dolby are already suggesting to coexist with HDR10+ means they likely see defeating HDR10+ outright as highly unlikely, and in fact may see a large risk of completely losing the dynamic metadata market to hdr10+. From Dolbys comments its clear its not only cheaper to license hdr10+, but also much cheaper to implement; studios ain't gonna spend more money for the heck of it when they don't need to, they aren't a charity either but also a business.

Coexisting is the same type of talk HD DVD was talking up with Blu-ray when HD DVD group realized they couldn't outright win. We saw how that eventually turned out. Dolby likely sees the writing on the wall and is trying to get buy in into coexisting before they completely lose the market; I wouldn't be surprised if things move very rapidly once hdr10+ is fully launched given this talk from Dolby.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Coexisting is the same type of talk HD DVD was talking up with Blu-ray when HD DVD group realized they couldn't outright win. We saw how that eventually turned out. Dolby likely sees the writing on the wall and is trying to get buy in into coexisting before they completely lose the market; I wouldn't be surprised if things move very rapidly once hdr10+ is fully launched given this talk from Dolby.

You seem to enjoy reading wayyyy to much into things.
Dolby's being polite and trying to downplay a format war. It's nothing like HD DVD since it's the superior format for one, and one pushed by multiple manufacturers. If anything HDR10+ is like HD DVD - pushed by a single manufacturer (Samsung = Toshiba), inferior specs, less software makers, less device types, "royalty free" is the new "region free", and something the industry really doesn't want or need and just confuses average customers.
Not to mention the outright misinformation and FUD.

[PaulGo]

As much as we like we are not going to settle the HDR10+ vs DV argument here. It will play out in the marketplace. We are not the typical 4K viewer. Whoever has the best PR machine and distribution channels will become dominant. Most viewers will not even notice the difference between HDR10, DV or HDR10+.

[bruceames]

They will coexist but whatever is used will mostly come down to cost. HDR10+ will obviously be dominant on the lessor titles and those from 3rd party distributors. That's why HDR10+ will be important, as otherwise we'd be seeing HDR10 instead for the vast majority of movies.

What will be interesting is to see which format dominates (if any) on the popular new releases coming out and which studios support which format (exclusively or non-exclusive).

But on the lessor titles with small print runs where it's not cost effective to use DV, HDR10+ will be much better than just HDR10.

[anthonyls]

If I was a betting man, I would totally be betting against DV right now. They might be superior (like Beta was over VHS), but HDR and HDR+ are cheaper... and that is what the public always seems to want. I am willing to bet that DV will be gone in the home consumer market place within 2 years, and will only be seen in theatrical screenings. It will make sense for Dolby to do this on an economic level. Does everyone remember the whole Dobly Digital vs. DTS debates during the DVD era? Of course DD won out due to economic reasons. DTS was superior, but the public could barely discern a difference (and quite frankly didn't care)... and thus studios went almost exclusively with DD.

As cinefiles and movie lovers, our community is rooting for DV to take hold because it is clearly better than HDR. But to the casual consumer, they don't care. Ease of use and cost is all they really care about.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by anthonyls

If I was a betting man, I would totally be betting against DV right now. They might be superior (like Beta was over VHS), but HDR and HDR+ are cheaper... and that is what the public always seems to want. I am willing to bet that DV will be gone in the home consumer market place within 2 years, and will only be seen in theatrical screenings. It will make sense for Dolby to do this on an economic level. Does everyone remember the whole Dobly Digital vs. DTS debates during the DVD era? Of course DD won out due to economic reasons. DTS was superior, but the public could barely discern a difference (and quite frankly didn't care)... and thus studios went almost exclusively with DD.

As cinefiles and movie lovers, our community is rooting for DV to take hold because it is clearly better than HDR. But to the casual consumer, they don't care. Ease of use and cost is all they really care about.

I agree HDR10/HDR10+ will win in long run and Dolby appears now to just be hoping to hang on with coexistence based on their latest statements - there seems no hope of DV outright win due to its substantial extra licensing and implementation costs with minimal tangible marketable benefit; 12bit looks nice on the spec sheet but in real world content will look no different than 10bit due to both diminishing returns and display limitations - dynamic metadata is where you see the big gains and HDR10+ does this aspect just fine.

For projector owners DV is not necessarily the better solution. DV has no projector solution available at all currently and since it's closed and locked down projector manufacturers can't do anything with it until Dolby comes up with something. At least with HDR10+ we might see projector manufacturers put together a dynamic metadata system for projectors since it's an open standard.

Finally for the general consumer hdr10+ is the better solution imo if it means its low cost translates to dynamic metadata on nearly every release. There is a pittance of DV titles compared to HDR10 and cost is likely a big part of that. With HDR10+ low cost we could start seeing dynamic metadata far more often than we do now.

[DanBa]

Blu-ray (vs) HD DVD are incompatible formats.

Consumers can just require Dolby Vision TV makers or HDR10+ TV makers to just add a piece of HDR software in order to be compatible with the other HDR format. This upgraded TV will remain the same: same panel, same electronic parts, same mechanical parts!


"HDR10" = PQ with (not always used) static metadata, or without static metadata (as specified in ATSC 3.0 and DVB UHD Phase 2)
Dolby Vision = PQ + Dolby Vision dynamic metadata
HDR10plus = PQ + HDR10plus dynamic metadata

And Perceptual Quantizer transfer function for HDR signals (PQ) is created by Dolby.


"MOVIELABS/DOLBY MEETING JUNE 19, 2013
PQ is not standardized, it is Dolby IP. Dolby said that ITU was starting a standards effort. However, PQ would be licensed and not given free of IP. Howard Lukk [Director of Standards at SMPTE] was not happy with that."
https://wikileaks.org/sony/docs/05/d...9-13.4.doc.pdf

Dolby people have changed their mind, and Dolby granted a free of charge license to its essential patent claims on ST 2084 PQ.
https://kws.smpte.org/higherlogic/ws...0Statement.pdf


Origins:
"Dolby purchased Brightside Technologies in 2007 and has developed Dolby Vision from the basic HDR technology it got from Brightside."
https://www.displaydaily.com/article...s-dolby-vision

BrightSide Technologies Inc. (formerly Sunnybrook Technologies) was a firm spun-out from the Structured Surface Physics Laboratory of the University of British Columbia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrightSide_Technologies

[DanBa]

"The royalty cost to add Dolby Vision ranges from less than $3 per TV to lower than $2 per TV."
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/465-hi...l#post47830961

A streaming 4K film is sold for much more.


Why contribute to create an artificial HDR format war? It won’t bring any benefit to consumers!

Push for universal HDR TV in the same way AVRs have universal support for audio formats (Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, ...)!

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by DanBa

"The royalty cost to add Dolby Vision ranges from less than $3 per TV to lower than $2 per TV."
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/465-hi...l#post47830961

A streaming 4K film is sold for much more.


Why contribute to create an artificial HDR format war? It won’t bring any benefit to consumers!

Push for universal HDR TV in the same way AVRs have universal support for audio formats (Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, ...)!

Multiply $3 times the millions of TVs Samsung sells over time and you have your answer.

Dolby needs Samsung more than Samsung needs Dolby, and sales of Samsung 4K TVs reflect this. Samsung continues to be the top seller. People don't seem to care much about Dolby Vision when it comes to purchasing decision time.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by anthonyls

If I was a betting man, I would totally be betting against DV right now. They might be superior (like Beta was over VHS), but HDR and HDR+ are cheaper

When Vizio and TCL make DV devices and Lionsgate has several budget UHD discs available the "cheaper" argument doesn't hold water.

Does everyone remember the whole Dobly Digital vs. DTS debates during the DVD era? Of course DD won out due to economic reasons. DTS was superior, but the public could barely discern a difference (and quite frankly didn't care)... and thus studios went almost exclusively with DD.

The superior codec is transparent at lower bitrates. DTS was not superior. It also was more difficult to decode - hence most devices being bitstream only.

As cinefiles and movie lovers, our community is rooting for DV to take hold because it is clearly better than HDR. But to the casual consumer, they don't care. Ease of use and cost is all they really care about.

All of Paramount's releases of late have been DV. Warner has put DV on its most successful theatrical releases of late 2017. Lionsgate is putting it on almost every release. While Universal is tepid and Disney has yet to launch, only Fox is the lone studio not supporting it.
Meanwhile more authoring suites have been announced and it looks like it may be added to ATSC 3.0 - this is the early days of the format. It's not mature and can only grow from here.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Multiply $3 times the millions of TVs Samsung sells over time and you have your answer.

How many of those are 4K or support HDR of any kind?
Samsung sells a lot of 32" TVs installed in kids bedrooms and kitchens.
Meanwhile go to Costco or Walmart of BestBuy and you will see many 4K TVs of many brands being sold. I know more people with Vizios and Sonys than Samsung 4K sets.

[DanBa]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Multiply $3 times the millions of TVs Samsung sells over time and you have your answer.

Normally, consumers have to pay these royalty costs.

And again, a 4K film is sold for much more.

Dolby audio's royalty costs have so far posed no problem.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by DanBa

Normally, consumers have to pay these royalty costs.

And again, a 4K film is sold for much more.

Dolby audio's royalty costs have so far posed no problem.

Why would Samsung pay more, raise prices, and get Dolby involved in their TV making when buyers mostly don't care about Dolby Vision? Samsung remains #1 4k TV seller by far without it.

Outside of this forum people largely don't care about Dolby Vision. If they did Samsung wouldn't be blowing away the competition in sales as they are.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Why would Samsung pay more, raise prices, and get Dolby involved in their TV making when buyers mostly don't care about Dolby Vision? Samsung remains #1 4k TV seller by far without it.

Outside of this forum people largely don't care about Dolby Vision. If they did Samsung wouldn't be blowing away the competition in sales as they are.

Why does Samsung license Dolby Digital, DTS, HEVC, MPEG2, MPEG4, and numerous other mandatory and optional standards?

Why did the industry go as a whole with HEVC instead of "open source and freely licensed" VP9?

Why does nearly every Blu-ray disc have lossless audio when most buyers don't care about it?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Why does Samsung license Dolby Digital, DTS, HEVC, MPEG2, MPEG4, and numerous other mandatory and optional standards?

Why did the industry go as a whole with HEVC instead of "open source and freely licensed" VP9?

Why does nearly every Blu-ray disc have lossless audio when most buyers don't care about it?

Not sure but given Samsungs dominance in 4k TV sales it looks like its HDR10+ / avoid DV strategy is working well.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Not sure but given Samsungs dominance in 4k TV sales it looks like its HDR10+ / avoid DV strategy is working well.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-...tronics/172659


That's how you spell "TCL" (a DV supporter)?

[JoeDeM]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Not sure but given Samsungs dominance in 4k TV sales it looks like its HDR10+ / avoid DV strategy is working well.

Their dominance, has nothing to do with HDR10+ or DV, most people who buy their displays don't even know what HDR10+ or DV is.

[PaulGo]

The lesser known brands put on DV to enhance their image. OLED needs DV or something similar because of the limited NITS of OLED.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by JoeDeM

Their dominance, has nothing to do with HDR10+ or DV, most people who buy their displays don't even know what HDR10+ or DV is.

Exactly they don't care. So why should Samsung?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-...tronics/172659


That's how you spell "TCL" (a DV supporter)?

So how are TCL's overall sales with Dolby Vision doing compared to Samsung's overall sales without Dolby Vision?

You can ask this question for any TV manufacturer supporting Dolby Vision and the answer in every case is bad news for Dolby Vision. It's pretty clear the general public doesn't really care much about Dolby Vision when buying a 4k TV.