Going out of IBC, one of the biggest issues to resolve is the one of higher dynamic range for 4K. At the SMPTE engineering meetings in Geneva next week a special session will see EBU members pressing their requirements for HDR.
“It has dependencies and impact factors. Good modern cameras capture images with quite a high HDR,” said Hans Hoffmann, EBU T&I head of media fundamentals and production technology. “In the RAW domain we have a signal with a potential headroom, and broadcasters can store that for future use.
“The difficulty is what to do in terms of bringing it through an eco chain to the consumer. The whole chain has been designed for Rec 709,” he added. “We need to reconsider all the operational practices.”
One of these will be tackling the different EOTF and OATF curves because a certain prediction on the signal quality in the home is required. This could be done with 709.
“We need to define a signal which is going through the chain, and it has to be at least 10-bit. This should be manageable,” said Hoffmann.
The big decision in the distribution environment will be the creation of backward compatibility or a completely new system. A side issue is the fact that HDR can boost HDTV just as readily.
