HDR and SDR Content Management and Optimization Strategies for Streaming Service Providers

Dec. 16, 2021— 2022 is shaping up to be a very big year for NextGen TV as the adoption of Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) version 3.0 and rapidly maturing video technologies like high dynamic range (HDR) gather momentum. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) recently increased their estimate of televisions sold with ATSC 3.0 capability in 2021 from 800,000 to more than 2 million units. That is a huge increase. It indicates that there is now a ready market for consumers to receive the advanced services included in the standard.

The ATSC 3.0 Standard defines the official specifications and criteria necessary for effective implementation and interoperability of Advanced Terrestrial Broadcast Systems. Since its announcement at the 2018 CES, it has taken the broadcast and consumer electronics sectors by storm despite a global pandemic. It continues to change the way the world experiences entertainment and broadcast.

“ATSC 3.0 can deliver more pixels at higher quality for ultra high definition (UHD), 4K, and HDR screens. This is a significant upgrade for customers with large screens,” says Alan Stein, vice president of technology at InterDigital, in a podcast interview for journalists.

In addition, ATSC 3.0 offers personalization, interactivity, and broadcaster applications, while also supporting mobile delivery. The latter is a hot topic among ATSC members working to address the possibility of cell phones receiving ATSC 3.0 signals. It is an ATSC application being actively explored in countries like India—where infrastructure limitations have triggered interest in creative ways of delivering high-quality video to consumers in a scalable, cost-effective manner. It also illustrates the international appeal of the standard. The most significant developments, however, are currently taking place in the United States.

ATSC 3.0 and HDR Have Captured the Market’s Attention

“About 40% of the US public today is served by a minimum of one ATSC 3.0 signal and related services. By the end of 2021, we expect that number to top 50%,” says Mark Aitken, senior vice president of technology for Sinclair Broadcast Group and president of ONE media.

“HDR is one of the features that most visibly improves the consumption of over-the-air (OTA) and over-the-top (OTT) content. It greatly enhances the viewing experience, especially for things like live sports,” says Stein.

Sony recently revealed that all their television products for the second half of 2021 would be ATSC 3.0 enabled, supporting next-generation features, including HDR, UVoice, and a variety of other capabilities that enhance the viewing experience for the American public.

“Companies like Sony—and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon—are utilizing HDR to enhance viewer experience for as much of the market as possible. The broadcast industry is responding rapidly. For those that embrace HDR early, it is a clear way to establish differentiation, which is critical with fierce competition,” explains Aitken.

Broadcast, he added, remains one of the most ubiquitously available technologies in the market, which is why it has been so essential to develop standards that can evolve to deliver experiences that consumers across the nation expect and increase demand. It ensures that the needs of all segments of the market are met—even as we move forward as quickly as possible to keep up with improvements in technology.

Blurring the Lines Between OTT and OTA

ATSC 3.0 is providing an opportunity for over-the-air broadcasters to play in the digital space and become online content providers. HDR is thriving in the OTT arena, and broadcasters are quickly gaining ground with ATSC 3.0 and Advanced HDR by Technicolor.

“One area in which broadcasters consistently enjoy a competitive advantage over OTT providers is in the delivery of live sports programming. It is also a category of content that takes full advantage of HDR technology. HDR was on full display this year during the exceptional U.S. Open tennis championship broadcast over Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Tennis Channel,” says AItken.

“The Tennis Channel, which is brought to consumers through the Bally Sports Regional Networks in 23 markets, will be using Advanced HDR by Technicolor for both our streaming and over-the-air broadcast services in 2022,” he adds.

The U.S. Open showcased how ATSC 3.0 and Advanced HDR, by Technicolor are dramatically narrowing the competitive gap between over-the-air and streaming service providers. Moreover, the integration of emerging technologies enabled by the new internet protocol (IP) friendly standard provides an important bridge for broadcasters to move into the rapidly evolving streaming market.

“It is an important milestone. We’re now seeing broadcast apps that embrace and extend the best ideas from OTT services while still having the scale and channel change speed that consumers like about traditional television. This allows broadcasters to play to their strengths, highlighting the absence of latency and unreliability that you sometimes get with some streaming applications and devices,” says Stein.

Advanced HDR by Technicolor’s Impact on Broadcast

According to Stein, Advanced HDR by Technicolor is the only industry solution that enables a standard dynamic range (SDR)—a non-HDR signal—and an HDR signal to be simultaneously delivered in one bitstream. It is an economically efficient and technically effective solution because it sidesteps the need for broadcasters to use two channels to bring both HDR and SDR services to consumers. This backward compatibility is critical because of the widespread presence of legacy SDR televisions and set-top boxes that remain in the market today.

From a production perspective, Advanced HDR by Technicolor also supports the ability for broadcasters to use HDR cameras—which bring higher quality into live production—and integrate those inputs with SDR cameras into a single distribution workflow in a way that automatically adjusts to the capabilities of the receiving device, regardless of whether they are HDR or SDR capable.

“If you’ve got a television set that was manufactured in the last three years, and it’s 4K HDR-capable, you can connect your gateway or set-top box, and you’ve got glorious eye-popping HDR television. It also maximizes the experience of SDR-only devices. Either way, we want people to see the difference,” concludes Aitken.

Dec. 01, 2021—Broadcasters, streaming service providers, and Smart TV manufacturers alike are re-positioning themselves to address evolving customer expectations in North America for higher quality video experiences. A broader discussion surrounding viewing standards has emerged to integrate emerging technologies, improve ease of customer use, and ensure compatibility and interoperability with new and legacy services.

These were among the conclusions of a virtual media roundtable discussion hosted by Advanced HDR by Technicolor, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Cobalt Digital, Cinnafilm, Hisense, and MediaTek.

Over a dozen industry leaders, analysts, and journalists from leading media outlets covering the broadcasting, content streaming, consumer electronics, and production community gathered to explore:

• • The state of ATSC 3.0 and the role high dynamic range (HDR) technology is playing in meeting consumer expectations for viewing quality;
  • How advanced technologies are influencing the broadcast community in the United States; and
  • The importance of establishing integrated ecosystems to deploy HDR services and solutions that enhances all content — including legacy standard dynamic range (SDR) content.

Advanced Picture Quality is Rapidly Penetrating the U.S. Market

The alphabet soup of HDR formats and standards (PQ, HDR10, HLG, etc.) has created marketplace confusion over how to deliver high-quality content and functions to consumers. However, according to Mark Aitken, senior vice president, advanced technology, and president ONE media 3.0 with the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a maturing technology landscape has triggered a massive uptick in sales of next-generation smart and connected televisions (SmartTVs and CTVs).

It bodes well for HDR adoption because the prevailing market trends are not only enhancing viewing experiences of live productions but also upgrading legacy content libraries.

“HDR rollouts are moving at a breakneck pace, on track to cover 50% of the U.S. public by the end of 2021. The exceptional video quality enabled by HDR is elevating experiences more than any resolution enhancements. The industry is rapidly concluding that HDR will have to be on the table to effectively grab consumers’ attention and engage them in a meaningful way,” he said.

This shift, he added, is reflected by the fact that the North American Broadcaster Association (NABA) recently proclaimed HDR10 as the unified emission format of choice for its members and explicitly mentioned SL-HDR1 (the technical term for Advanced HDR by Technicolor) as a conveyance vehicle for implementation.

“It resolves the debate of Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) frame rate versus PQ in terms of over-the-air signal formats,” Aitken adds. “Advanced HDR by Technicolor provides the opportunity to address the new generation of TV sets. This opens the door to the industry exceeding initial target penetration rates by 150% or more for ATSC 3.0 next-generation TV set deployment in the US.”

Similar expectations are set for 2022, approaching 70% coverage in the U.S. by the second half of the year.

Upgrading Legacy Content Key to Driving Adoption

As the distribution ecosystem supporting ATSC 3.0 and HDR matures, it will be critical to ensure that content captured and stored in SDR can be experienced in an enhanced state.

“When consumers see TVs that are on display in brick-and-mortars with images shot in HDR, they expect to have the same experience when they view content coming through their set-top box,” said Ernie Sanchez, co-founder of Cinnafilm, a global leader in innovative video optimization solutions for television, film, and multi-media delivery.

“The problem is that the vast majority of content in libraries today was filmed in SDR. This can be jarring to viewers who are left to wrestle with inconsistent experiences. It can leave many customers disappointed,” he said.

This, however, is changing.

The rollout of ATSC 3.0 opens the door for cable companies, broadcasters, and other content library owners to leverage solutions like Advanced HDR by Technicolor to upconvert movies and episodic programming so that they can be re-experienced in an enhanced format that is consistent with consumer expectations.

“There are millions of SDR content hours in English caches alone. This is content that can be rapid — and cost-effectively — repurposed for the HDR ecosystem,” said Sanchez.

“Many technology solutions for conversion are manual. With Advanced HDR by Technicolor’s Intelligent Tone Management (ITM), automated upconversion often delivers better results than having professional colorists manually go scene by scene. It makes it possible to upconvert large libraries of video content quickly and in a high-quality manner, which will be very important to content owners that want to keep up with market demand,” he added.

An abundant supply of HDR content—or SDR content that can be rapidly upconverted to HDR—will play an important role in driving demand for next-generation TVs offered by companies like Hisense.

“Ensuring that consumers understand that there is a lot of content that can be experienced in HDR will be key. Current communications about HDR — which tend to focus on technical specifications and formats — can be very confusing to users. It is important to have a message that resonates with consumers who want to improve their viewing experiences at home with their next television purchase. I think that we’re heading in the right direction, which is why we are working with Advanced HDR by Technicolor,” said Niko Savovic, senior manager in research and development of laboratory operations Hisense.

Automation and AI/ML

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) are playing a critical role in providing seamless backward and forward compatibility to deliver seamless consumption for customers without manual intervention.

The artists and scientists behind the development of Advanced HDR by Technicolor leaned into AI capabilities to create automated conversion tools, according to Alan Stein, vice president of technology at InterDigital, a technology research and development company that provides wireless and video technologies for mobile devices, networks, and services worldwide.

“Scientists at Technicolor spent years developing effective machine learning algorithms. The presets offered within Advanced HDR by Technicolor was developed with significant input from Technicolor colorists so that HDR content that is up to Hollywood standards is delivered to consumers,” he says.

Automatic upconversion will also be important for categories of content that surround live broadcasts, feature films, or episodic programming. Certain categories of commercials, for instance, are rarely filmed in HDR.

“Any consumer viewing experience that is interrupted by a down-converted ad will inevitably question the abilities of their device or service provider,” said Tony Bozzini, head of business development with Advanced HDR by Technicolor.

The good news is that a robust end-to-end AI/ML ecosystem is rapidly evolving to support the capture, production, distribution, and consumption of HDR content.

“That is why we are integrating Advanced HDR by Technicolor into our technologies to support the broadcast of live sports,” said Dr. Ciro Noronha, executive vice president of engineering at Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of award-winning edge devices that help live video production and master control client’s transition to IP, 4K, HDR, the cloud, and beyond.

“These are extremely dynamic environments in which lighting conditions change as the day goes on. Moreover, the action is captured by a range of cameras — including HDR and SDR equipment. Advanced automation technologies play a significant role in managing the complexity of available formats, including different forms of capturing content. It all has to be rationalized and optimized in real-time,” said Noronha.

The same dynamic is at play on the receiving side of the equation.

“As a leading system on a chip (SoC) provider for 95 percent of all TV brands, MediaTek has been diligently working to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to provide enhanced picture quality. Mediatek is currently deploying AI-based solutions such as Picture Quality enhancement and Super Resolution technologies which intelligently upscale high definition content to UHD/4K while improving contrast and sharpness. Next-generation TVs will be equipped with multiple high-performance AI processors to enhance the visual and audio experience of viewers,” said Alfred Chan, vice president of the TV business unit for MediaTek, a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that provides chips for high-definition television and other devices, including handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers.

“AI and machine learning will be critical to enabling TVs to detect the content format and automate viewing settings that can learn and adjust to the preferences and desires of viewers to optimize their experience,” he concludes.