Broadcasting Standard
The high dynamic range (HDR) technology, an open broadcasting platform led by Samsung Electronics, has been adopted as a next-generation broadcasting standard in Europe. The HDR technology make its videos appear more vibrant and realistic as it makes dark areas darker and light areas lighter.
According to industry sources on December 13, Europe’s Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) recently picked the HDR10 and the hybrid log gamma (HLG) technologies as the next broadcasting standard. DVB is an international organization that decides technical standards for the delivery of broadcast services in Europe and DVB standards are used in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.
The latest UHD Phase 2 standard supports HDR technology, which can significantly improves the video and audio quality for UHD broadcast TV services, and frame rates of more than 50/60 Hz, which help display moving objects more accurately. The HDR10 and the HLG technologies, which were approved as HDR standards, were opened to the public so anyone can use them to vitalize the UHD content ecosystem.
The HDR10 technology was adopted by the UHD Alliance, which consists of Hollywood movie studios, TV manufacturers, distribution-service providers and imaging technology firms, as well as Samsung Electronics. It is widely used in Hollywood studios and content distributors, such as Netflix and Amazon, as the technology enables more delicate visual expressions.
The HLG technology doesn’t need metadata to reproduce detailed pictures so it is better to transmit videos that is impossible to photoshop in real time, including sports games and news. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) first proposed the technology and Samsung Electronics has been cooperated to conduct tests to improve performance from 2014.
As the HDR technologies were chosen as the next broadcasting standard in Europe, its technical leadership has shifted to open platform technology, according to industry watchers. This is because open technologies are highly likely to be used as European broadcasters are to start UHD services with HDR in earnest from next year. The U.K. recently chose it as a national broadcast standard and three North European countries, Italy, France, Spain and Germany will discuss whether to adopt it as national UHD broadcast technical standards next year, based on DVC standard.