Changes

Contrast is calculated by the difference between the brightest whites and darkest blacks of a display. This is measured in candelas per square meter (cd/m²) - a value called nits. Zero nits (completely black) is currently only possible on OLED displays, which completely turn off the pixels. Standard dynamic range (SDR) TVs produce 300 to 500 nits, while High Dynamic Range displays can reach thousands of nits. <ref name=”2”></ref>

Contrast is calculated by the difference between the brightest whites and darkest blacks of a display. This is measured in candelas per square meter (cd/m²) - a value called nits. Zero nits (completely black) is currently only possible on OLED displays, which completely turn off the pixels. Standard dynamic range (SDR) TVs produce 300 to 500 nits, while High Dynamic Range displays can reach thousands of nits. <ref name=”2”></ref>

The increased contrast provided by HDR devices gives an increased sense of sharpness, detail, clarity, color, and saturation (Figure 1) to a level that is not possible in current consumer displays or theaters. However, it is not only about parameters such as contrast, resolution, or color, but being able to combine these to get High Dynamic Range displays can improve picture detail so users have a more immersive experience. Bill Baggelaar, Senior Vice President of Technology for Colorworks and Post-Production Services at Sony Pictures, regarding the new technology said that “you can see things that you were never able to see before, things that were kind of hidden and you didn’t really notice. You also get a sense of immersion that I think goes beyond what we’ve been able to show with current display technology. So I think HDR has a really bright future.” <ref name=”3”></ref>

The increased contrast provided by HDR gadgets gives an increased sense of sharpness, detail, clarity, color, and saturation (Figure 1) to a level that is not possible in current consumer displays or theaters. However, it is not only about parameters such as contrast, resolution, or color, but being able to combine these to get High Dynamic Range displays can improve picture detail so users have a more immersive experience. Bill Baggelaar, Senior Vice President of Technology for Colorworks and Post-Production Services at Sony Pictures, regarding the new technology said that “you can see things that you were never able to see before, things that were kind of hidden and you didn’t really notice. You also get a sense of immersion that I think goes beyond what we’ve been able to show with current display technology. So I think HDR has a really bright future.” <ref name=”3”></ref>

There are several formats for displaying High Dynamic Range, with the current main standards being the Dolby Vision format and the HDR10. While the first format, Dolby Vision, is proprietary, the second one is an open standard. For a while, Dolby Vision was essentially the single player in the HDR industry, meaning that they had a monopoly over it and that manufacturers who wanted to use the technology would have to pay fees to Dolby. Some manufacturers did not want to play by Dolby’s rules and started researching for alternatives. The companies realized that having a lot of different formats could lead to problems and so they agreed on an open standard - the HDR10. <ref name=”2”></ref>

There are several formats for displaying High Dynamic Range, with the current main standards being the Dolby Vision format and the HDR10. While the first format, Dolby Vision, is proprietary, the second one is an open standard. For a while, Dolby Vision was essentially the single player in the HDR industry, meaning that they had a monopoly over it and that manufacturers who wanted to use the technology would have to pay fees to Dolby. Some manufacturers did not want to play by Dolby’s rules and started researching for alternatives. The companies realized that having a lot of different formats could lead to problems and so they agreed on an open standard - the HDR10. <ref name=”2”></ref>

An essential feature of virtual reality is the sense of immersion. There are several factors that contribute to an increase of it, and perceptual realism of the displayed images is one of the most important. <ref name=”4”></ref>

An essential feature of virtual reality is the sense of immersion. There are several factors that contribute to an increase of it, and perceptual realism of the displayed images is one of the most important. <ref name=”4”></ref>

One way to achieve perceptual realism is to get physical realism which is not an easy task since it raises problems in terms of real-time computation and physical modeling. According to Petit and Brémond (2010), “true photorealism implies very accurate 3D models. Next, one must collect the photometric and colorimetric inputs (light source description, spectral representation, material texture, BRDF, etc.) needed for the illumination computation. Then, the full simulation of the scene illumination (either with radiosity or ray tracing methods) in large virtual environments is far from real time. And finally, one cannot avoid the technical limits of current display devices, which are not designed to display physical High Dynamic Range (HDR) luminance values but Low Dynamic Range (LDR) 8-bit images.” However, the virtual reality field has seen major developments since the release of Petit and Brémond’s paper, including research on specific procedures to capture and broadcast High Dynamic Range imagery. <ref name=”4”></ref><ref name=”5”>Kolchesky, M. (2017). The world’s first virtual reality HDR Pipeline – Vienna 2017. Retrieved from http://ivrpa.org/news/the-worlds-first-vr-hdr-pipeline-vienna-2017/</ref>

One way to achieve perceptual realism is to get physical realism which is not an easy task since it raises problems in terms of real-time computation and physical modeling. According to Petit and Brémond (2010), “true photorealism implies very accurate 3D models. Next, one must collect the photometric and colorimetric inputs (light source description, spectral representation, material texture, BRDF, etc.) needed for the illumination computation. Then, the full simulation of the scene illumination (either with radiosity or ray tracing methods) in large virtual environments is far from real time. And finally, one cannot avoid the technical limits of current display gadgets, which are not designed to display physical High Dynamic Range (HDR) luminance values but Low Dynamic Range (LDR) 8-bit images.” However, the virtual reality field has seen major developments since the release of Petit and Brémond’s paper, including research on specific procedures to capture and broadcast High Dynamic Range imagery. <ref name=”4”></ref><ref name=”5”>Kolchesky, M. (2017). The world’s first virtual reality HDR Pipeline – Vienna 2017. Retrieved from http://ivrpa.org/news/the-worlds-first-vr-hdr-pipeline-vienna-2017/</ref>

Intel is one of the companies investing in this area, collaborating with DVMobile to create a pipeline for capturing and broadcasting 360-degree HDR videos. The objective is to take virtual reality and immersion to the next stage of development. <ref name=”5”></ref>

Intel is one of the companies investing in this area, collaborating with DVMobile to create a pipeline for capturing and broadcasting 360-degree HDR videos. The objective is to take virtual reality and immersion to the next stage of development. <ref name=”5”></ref>