An Assessment of Reference Levels in HDR Content

The movie and broadcast industries are gaining experience with high dynamic range (HDR) video technologies, and are starting to produce HDR content at scale. This is accompanied by a learning process, particularly involving questions regarding the use of the extra dynamic range afforded by these technologies. To create further insight into the aspects of HDR content, in this paper a variety of different types of content was analysed. Manual annotation processes are used to determine the range of luminance values that, for example, diffuse white objects or white overlay graphics objects have in this content. We find that for each type of object analysed the mean luminance value is reasonably constant across different types of content, but that the spread of luminance values is remarkably large, and strongly content dependent. Our results may form a basis for understanding HDR content, and contribute toward forming opinions on defining reference levels in reports and standards, including ITU-R Report BT.2408.

Published

2018-10

Content type

Original Research

Keywords

High Dynamic Range Imaging, Movie Production, Live Broadcast, Reference Levels, Diffuse White, Graphics White

DOI

10.5594/M001824

ISBN

978-1-61482-960-7