High Dynamic Range (HDR) material is rapidly gaining in popularity because it can deliver appreciable improvements in picture quality – but, as producers are learning, HDR also needs very careful handling in order to maintain integrity and ensure the desired quality of the end-result. As HDR workflows are relatively young and post-production solutions have new HDR capabilities added to them, it is becoming both more important and more complex to choose the right kind of parameters and processing. And of course, critical factors such as the proper HDR format, conversion method and signal range also need to be supported by the post-production solution.
More clarity for HDR producers
Earlier this year, the EBU started an activity to analyze HDR image handling capabilities in a number of popular video editing software packages and HDR conversion units. The final results will be published later this year, but some preliminary conclusions can be drawn already.
First of all, the amount of new settings, and the options for each new setting, are clearly creating confusion among users and reducing confidence about the proper approach to a production.
Secondly, there is a lack of documentation on certain parameters and how they are implemented. This can easily lead to incorrect assumptions about the workflow and, with that, to degraded image quality.
Help us: send us your workflow scenario
To help Members, the EBU working group is preparing best practice guidelines, including project files and test patterns for some of the most common operations. The group will also provide feedback to vendors on the results of the implementation analysis. To make sure all of the most important scenarios are covered, users are encouraged to send their HDR workflow/conversion questions to: hdr@ebu.ch
For more information on this topic see the HDR section of the EBU Video group. EBU Members may also want to join the EBU NLE User Group.