HDR specifically enables a broader range of colors and brightness offering new ways to control the viewing experience much more succinctly on screen. This means the contrast between the darkest darks and the brightest whites delivers a more lifelike, vibrant image. The greater nuance in bright and dark shades helps preserve detail, so the experience is far more immersive, engaging and life-like for consumers.
 

“For consumers, HDR absolutely provides a point of differentiation. When it comes to HDR, seeing really is believing. Once consumers experience HDR, it is very difficult for them to go back to standard dynamic range. Today, more and more consumers are hungry for premium in-home entertainment experiences, and HDR is increasingly seen by consumers as integral to meeting their growing expectations,” said Mitchell.

A Technically Elegant and Cost-Effective Path to HDR

The key question on the minds of the entertainment technology ecosystem — across the spectrum of content production, distribution and consumption — is how to manage the transition from today’s complex environment to an all-HDR future in a creatively faithful, technically viable and economically rational manner.

“It is important to understand the available content and the devices content providers and developers want to target. For studios with large libraries of material, ensuring that an HDR grade is available on all of the content in their portfolios can be incredibly costly and time-consuming if it is not approached in a strategic manner,” explained Mitchell. 

Another critical factor to consider while conducting these conversions is the ability to preserve the creative intent of the content. This is always important when dealing with content libraries. But it is also critical as the business models for digital entertainment distribution evolve. 

“For instance, if the conversions from SDR to HDR are being performed in the context of advertising supported delivery environments, it is critical to take into account the intent of brands or advertisers who may play a role in the financing or the budgeting of that content,” he cautioned. 

Putting Advanced HDR by Technicolor into Context

Advanced HDR by Technicolor, which features a unique intelligent tone management (ITM) toolset, enables high quality, dynamic, and real-time expansion of standard dynamic range to high dynamic range that preserves that creative and brand intent. 

“Known as the SL-HDR format in the technical and standards-setting communities, Advanced HDR by Technicolor provides broadcasters and distributors with a single inventory distribution format to serve both SDR and HDR devices without any creative compromises. It saves infrastructure and delivery costs along the way,” said Mitchell. 

The single stream production and distribution features of Advanced HDR by Technicolor make it a cost-effective solution for ensuring that the highest quality productions maintain their integrity across today’s heterogeneous SDR/HDR environment. 

“During HPA we are planning to have conversations with streamers, advertisers — really anybody that is using streaming technology — to help people understand where Advanced HDR by Technicolor can be put into place to enhance the services they offer and the value they deliver to consumers around the world. It’s really important for leaders in the creative community to understand that HDR is an entertainment technology that will elevate value delivered to consumers in a cost-effective manner,” concluded Mitchell. 

Here is what he had to say:

Q:  What role are emerging technologies like HDR playing in delivering enhanced experiences in the image and picture quality in live broadcasts, theatrical releases, episodic content…and even video games? 

Nick Mitchell: High dynamic range — and many of the immersive formats we’re seeing emerge in the industry — amplify the creative palette. This ultimately results in a more immersive and impactful experience. 

HDR specifically enables a broader range of colors and brightness offering new ways to control the viewing experience much more succinctly on screen. This means the contrast between the darkest darks and the brightest whites delivers a more lifelike, vibrant image. The greater nuance in bright and dark shades helps preserve detail, so the experience is far more immersive, engaging and life-like for consumers. 

Q: Does the introduction of high dynamic range provide any points of differentiation for content owners and consumers? 

Mitchell: For consumers, it absolutely provides a point of differentiation. When it comes to HDR, seeing really is believing. Once consumers have experienced HDR, it is very difficult for them to go back to standard dynamic range. Today, more and more consumers are hungry for premium in-home entertainment experiences, and HDR is increasingly seen by consumers as integral to meeting their growing expectations.

This is now recognized by most content owners, which is why it is imperative that we give consumers as many opportunities to see high dynamic range and really understand its value within the premium entertainment space.

Q: What do streaming service providers and other content distributors need to consider as they explore their options in deploying HDR in either the streaming or even the broadcast entertainment environment? 

Mitchell: It is important to understand the available content and the devices content providers and developers want to target. For studios with large libraries of material, ensuring that an HDR grade is available on all of the content in their portfolios can be incredibly costly and time-consuming if it is not approached in a strategic manner. 

Another critical factor to consider while conducting these conversions is the ability to preserve the creative intent of the content. If the conversions from SDR to HDR are being performed in the context of advertising supported delivery environments, it is also critical to take into account the intent of any brands or advertisers who may play a role in the financing or the budgeting of that content. 

In other words, an advertiser may not be thrilled with the unintentional impression a standard dynamic range ad makes when placed within an HDR offering because the contrast is pretty dramatic. Not many brands and advertisers are making HDR ads, so this is a valid concern. 

Q:  Nick, you’re associated with Advanced HDR by Technicolor – a solution that has received quite a bit of interest of late. How can Advanced HDR by Technicolor provide content owners and production teams, including playback distributors, with an efficient path to success when delivering high dynamic range to the viewing public?

Mitchell: Advanced HDR by Technicolor, which features a unique intelligent tone management (ITM) toolset, enables incredibly high quality, dynamic, and real-time expansion of standard dynamic range to high dynamic range that preserves that creative and brand intent. 

Known as the SL-HDR format in the technical and standards-setting communities, Advanced HDR by Technicolor provides broadcasters and distributors with a single inventory distribution format to serve both SDR and HDR devices without compromises, saving infrastructure and delivery costs along the way. By using the dynamic meta-data capabilities that are included in the solution, a single stream can deliver both SDR and HDR without compromising the artistic intent of the content creators or producers.

This makes Advanced HDR by Technicolor a key part of a strategic approach to ensuring that the highest quality productions maintain their integrity across today’s heterogeneous environment — which consists of SDR and HDR TVs and other devices in the market.

I think it’s really important for leaders in the creative community to understand that HDR is one of those elements of entertainment technology that will help the industry drive an increase in higher-value impression customers. 

Q: As the creative and technology community gathers at the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) conference in Palm Springs, What is your message to them? 

Mitchell: Over the past few years we have seen the broadcast segment of the entertainment industry make tremendous progress in enhancing the content that is experienced by consumers. A lot of work has been done globally by groups such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) to integrate SL-HDR formats into next-generation protocols that will enhance the viewing experience of broadcast content. 

Now we’re focusing on the streaming and app delivery side of things. During HPA we are planning to have conversations with streamers, advertisers — really anybody that is using streaming technology — to help people understand where Advanced HDR by Technicolor can be put into place to enhance the services they offer and the value they deliver to consumers around the world. 

In the white paper, he asserts that artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and tone mapping technologies have reached a state of maturity that allows complex ecosystems to support the most stringent “live-production” requirements for simultaneously managing HDR and SDR content while meeting the business and performance needs of all stakeholders in the community. This includes advertisers and brand managers who are extremely sensitive to the fidelity of their commercial messages and marks.

The Case for Single-Workflow Round-trip SDR-HDR-SDR

Continued progress toward the deployment and consumer adoption of HDR devices — including large-screen TVs, tablets and mobile phones — is putting mounting market pressure on the industry to produce, convert and deliver content that provides enhanced visual experiences to capable devices.

As often happens when new technologies — and elevated standards of performance — are introduced, the industry is caught between two worlds. Consequently, complex ecosystems made up of content creators, distributors and consumer electronics distributors are struggling with how to support the large, established presence of SDR during the transition to HDR.

One option to support the transition is to launch separate content development, distribution and consumption workflows. This, however, is not an attractive path forward, given the costs and technical complexities associated with maintaining multiple operations. It is a challenge that grows exponentially as different links in the value chain participate in the process.

Touzé argues that a better alternative is to develop a single production process that dynamically integrates and automates HDR and SDR workflows by applying machine learning and tone mapping technologies.

While single-stream strategies for HDR-SDR management have been discussed in the industry for years, concerns have been expressed about the ability to ensure the fidelity and integrity of SDR streams that are converted to HDR and then brought back to SDR.

“One of the things really needed in production environments that support SDR and HDR is a high-quality and high-performance round-trip feature,” says Touzé.

For various reasons, he explains, live production teams increasingly need the flexibility to work with HDR and SDR source content. This is because there can be a mix of HDR and SDR cameras capturing live feeds.

“The same is true for commercial advertisements, which must be integrated into live feeds. Given the sensitivity of these communities to the appearance of their content, it is critical that the SDR feed at distribution looks exactly the same as the source SDR content. You want to preserve the artistic intent of the original content. This white paper demonstrates how currently available dynamic solutions can effectively convert SDR to HDR and back to SDR — also known as round-trip — without compromising the integrity of the original SDR content.”

These capabilities, he concludes, are all currently available in the Advanced HDR by Technicolor suite of solutions for the single-stream management of HDR and SDR workflows in live-and post-production environments.

Advanced HDR by Technicolor incorporates tone mapping tools that are dynamic, AI/ML-driven and tunable to provide perfect round-trip performance that can be objectively proven.

“It is a ‘no compromise’ outcome that should remove any concerns or objections to adopting workflows that integrate and optimize all HDR-SDR content creation and conversion activities,” concludes Touzé.

“Even during trial stages, service providers are looking for ways to integrate HDR into emerging deployments of set-top boxes and other customer premises equipment (CPE),” said Arthuis.

As a result, while interest in HDR has not yet taken European markets by storm, momentum is rapidly building. This is being driven by better coordination among key players in different parts of the industry, according to InterDigital’s Allie.

“What HDR has needed most is better alignment across the full ecosystem – which includes device manufacturers, distributors and content owners. Each of these groups are now seeing the new market opportunities — and requirements — for acquiring and implementing the proper tools to deliver HDR viewing experiences to viewers in Europe,” observed Allie.

Challenges of Delivering SDR and HDR Content

HDR is creating new opportunities to deliver tangible improvements to the viewing experience. However, bringing these experiences to market has called for the industry to go through a learning curve. As service providers and broadcasters consider the benefits of HDR, there are technical considerations that require attention to effectively leverage HDR solutions, according to Ateme’s Raulet.

“As it pertains to broadcast, things can become complicated when ensuring HDR technology is compatible with the wide range of equipment that broadcasters or service providers use in workflows. The initial version of the HEVC codecs — especially those that have already been deployed to market — have required some updates to be interoperable with HDR. This technical challenge varies from region to region in Europe. That said, network service providers and broadcasters can overcome this challenge through relatively minor adjustments. The most recent HEVC codecs — those that are entering the market now — need no adjustments to work with HDR content, said Raulet.

Roundtable attendee, Buland Iqbal with Pakistan’s Metro1 News shared how his news station attempted to utilize both SDR and HDR content in their transmission operations. What he discovered is that the archiving and storage of content in both formats has proved complicated and expensive.

“That,” explained Allie, “is why with Advanced HDR by Technicolor solutions, we have invested in not only creating a single-stream solution that supports both SDR and HDR formats, but also in ensuring that an effective ’round-trip’ capability is available to ensure that SDR conversions to HDR can be returned to their original state with complete fidelity to the original format. The ability to seamlessly convert SDR to HDR — and back again — is critical in supporting broadcasters and operators in today’s hybrid market. Until the entire market shifts to HDR, simultaneously supporting SDR in a seamless, technically effective and cost-efficient manner is critical.”

The complexities and cost realities of upgrading content archives or storage of HDR content requires automated tools that have the ability to tune streams according to specific broadcasters’ specifications. This is especially important when it comes to live production — such as news and sports coverage, noted Cobalt Digital’s Noronha.

“The amount of SDR content — prior to conversion to HDR — that live broadcasters must deal with at the ingest point is tremendous. The application of Advanced HDR by Technicolor solutions solves this issue by enabling broadcasters to handle SDR content during live production by adding metadata to upconvert the SDR into HDR. This necessary step introduces critical information to enable – in a single stream – a broadcaster to deliver HDR content while retaining the quality of the SDR content,” explained Noronha.

FAST Channels Offer Mix of Old and New Content

Paul Erickson, of Erickson Strategy Insights, asked about the role of HDR in the over-the-top (OTT) streaming environment, where the market is seeing a significant rise in free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels rolling out a mixture of legacy content – often in SDR – and new HDR content.

“The technology is all there to take SDR content — including advertisements — and upconvert them to HDR in real-time through a single stream,” said Noronha. “Advanced HDR by Technicolor technology manages the complexity and allows the signal to deliver content to consumers based on what their devices are capable of displaying. If the end user has a device that is capable of displaying HDR, it will understand the metadata for the enhanced viewing experience. Otherwise, the viewer will receive a perfectly good SDR image.”

Arthuis, from BBright, concurred.

“Often a broadcaster has high-quality HDR content, but the advertisements are in various SDR formats. This is a typical use case for broadcasters to upconvert specific SDR advertisements to HDR on the fly so that viewers can enjoy a consistent, high-quality experience,” he said.

Live Sports Requires Intelligent Solutions for HDR

Live out-door sporting events represent one of the major points of interest driving network service providers and broadcasters to explore deployment of HDR technologies in European markets. Changing lighting conditions during these events represents a major challenge for broadcast producers

“This is why you need systems to be automated in an intelligent manner. It is not feasible to rely on production staff and manual processes,” states Noronha. “Artificial intelligence and machine learning technology make it possible to automate these critical operational tasks. That is exactly what Advanced HDR by Technicolor solutions and Cobalt Digital bring to the table for European broadcasters of live sports.”

Advanced HDR by Technicolor solutions, he explained leverage ML algorithms to conduct frame by frame analysis to add dynamic metadata. This provides the production, distribution and consumption equipment with the information necessary for upconversion to HDR.

“This is the intelligence that allows broadcasters to adapt the content into high-quality HDR,” says Allie. “Meanwhile, the production team still has the ability to tune the HDR images and expand on the automated stream. But the automated capabilities of Advanced HDR by Technicolor solutions allow this to take place with the speed and flexibility that is needed to support today’s live production environments.”

This, explained Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Aitken, is why HDR in general, and Advanced HDR by Technicolor in particular, makes economic — and competitive — sense for broadcasters.

“For broadcasters who put the customer experience at the top of the list, delivering the best visual image is an essential priority. It is what is driving Sinclair Broadcasting Group to ensure that stations implementing ATSC 3.0 do so with Advanced HDR by Technicolor, which is part of the standard,” said Aitken.

It is an analysis that is music to the ears of broadcasters that are banking on an audience to “be there” as next-generation ATSC 3.0 TV stations that support HDR are turned on. 

“Consumers worldwide are becoming more aware of the viewing experience that HDR delivers, and they are becoming more discriminating,” said Mark Aitken, senior vice president of Sinclair Broadcast Group and vice president of One Media. 

“This increases demand for HDR content and consumer electronics that can display HDR. Sinclair has always believed that next-generation TVs with HDR capability would be the TV standard, as a result, we have committed to standardizing the process for including both SDR to HDR signals through Advanced HDR by Technicolor. We are currently delivering HDR content through 28 stations across the United States,” said Aitken. 

If We Build it They Will Come 

Sinclair Broadcast Group has indeed been setting the pace for the rest of the broadcast industry in terms of both quality and quantity of deployments. Sinclair will have 40 stations lit up in HDR by the end of 2022 by harnessing the new intelligent capabilities of ATSC 3.0 and Advanced HDR by Technicolor, according to Tony Bozzini, head of business development for the Advanced HDR by Technicolor solution. It is a suite of HDR production, distribution and display solutions that leverages machine learning (ML) technology to maximize image quality and enhance the consumer viewing experience. It is a single stream solution for delivering the highest quality SDR and HDR content.  

“Sinclair is delivering various forms of content from live sporting events to broadcast news in HDR and ensuring that viewers — regardless of whether their TVs support SDR or HDR — receive the very best viewing experience possible,” said Bozzini. 

This is what makes forward and backward compatibility so essential. Sports in general and outdoor field sports — like soccer, tennis, football and baseball — figure to be big beneficiaries of Advanced HDR by Technicolor in the months and years to come because it extends the benefits of backward compatibility all the way to the production process.  

“One of the challenges facing the broadcast of outdoor sporting events revolves around lighting changes and shadow shifts throughout a broadcast,” said Ryan Wallenberg, vice president of engineering at Cobalt Digital — a company that designs and manufactures 12G/6G/3G/HD/SD conversion, throwdown, and multiviewer technology for the production and broadcast television environment.  

“Historically, this has been a huge challenge in the overall picture quality presented to consumers. However, Advanced HDR by Technicolor, which has been incorporated into Cobalt equipment, has machine learning capabilities that automatically senses changes in light quality and then makes adjustments to deliver seamless and consistent HDR images,” said Wallenberg. 

The ability to support live HDR production while simultaneously generating SDR content in a single workflow is emerging as a critical technical and economic consideration for adoption across the ecosystem.  

“If you look at the production side of live sports, there is a lot of money tied to previous generations of production trucks and camera investments,” explained Aitken. “Converting all of these to HDR would be incredibly expensive and require two separate workstreams to deliver HDR to viewers with newer TVs and SDR to viewers with legacy TVs. Advanced HDR by Technicolor addresses and simplifies the complexity of broadcasting live sporting events and gives us the best of both worlds,” he said.   

The ability to simultaneously support HDR and SDR is also a major economic factor for the consumer electronics segment of the ecosystem.   

“There is a big push for manufacturers to develop lower price point consumer devices,” said Alfred Chan, vice president of the TV business unit and smart home business group of MediaTek — the leading manufacturer of systems-on-chips (SoC) that supplies 95 percent of TV brands around the world.   

“They, along with content developers and broadcast groups like Sinclair, are looking to incorporate technologies like Advanced HDR by Technicolor to streamline SDR to HDR production, which can deliver HDR quality images while supporting SDR at no additional cost and with no compromise of quality. This two-pronged approach will increase HDR adoption rates.”   

In the final analysis, according to Mickael Raulet, chief technology officer at Ateme — a global leader of video compression and delivery solutions helping tier-one content providers, service providers and streaming platforms — sustained success, acceptance and adoption of HDR will hinge on the quality of experience delivered to consumers. 

“As the old saying goes, ‘Content is King’ The ability to deliver consistent viewing experiences across all content is becoming apparent to content producers, broadcasters and CE manufacturers. This level of viewing experience needs to be consistent. If a consumer is watching a sporting event in HDR and it is interrupted by commercials in SDR, the viewing experience can be quite jarring. Other members of the ecosystem — such as advertisers — are taking notice of this. We expect high-end consumer goods, like automobiles, to demand that their spots have the same HDR viewing experience,” he concluded. 

Watch an excerpt from the roundtable discussion on the state of HDR in the Americas.