High Dynamic Range Television (HDR-TV) delivers an incredible impression of realism and further leverages the superior colorimetric fidelity of Recommendation BT.2020 on Ultra High Definition Television (UHDTV). The ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) developed the standard, or Recommendation, in collaboration with television industry experts, broadcasting organizations, and regulatory bodies within its Study Group 6.
"High dynamic range television will offer a completely new television experience to all viewers worldwide," said Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General, welcoming the announcement. "TV programs will be enhanced with more vibrant images that will add brilliance to shows and realism to the news."
"High dynamic range television is an important step towards the virtual reality quality that future broadcasting and multimedia systems will offer," said François Rancy, Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau. He congratulated Yukihiro Nishida, Chairman of ITU-R Study Group 6, on this great achievement.
The ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020 on UHDTV, adopted in October 2015, represented the constant evolution of television since it was invented in the 1930s, which transformed blurry black and white screens into large flat screens with ultra-high-definition color images.
This latest ITU-R Recommendation BT.2100 on HDR-TV further enhances television images and offers viewers a more realistic viewing experience. Thanks to the HDR-TV Recommendation, TV programs are fully utilizing new technologies for much brighter displays. HDR-TV brings greater brightness and naturalness to scenes lit with natural light, adding highlights and contrast. It improves dimly lit and nighttime scenes, increases detail in darker areas, and gives TV producers the opportunity to reveal textures and chromatic subtleties that are often lost with current conventional dynamic range TV.
The HDR-TV Recommendation details two options for producing high dynamic range (HDR) TV images. The Perceptual Quantization (PQ) specification enables a very wide range of brightness levels using a nonlinear transfer function with fine-tuning to match human vision. The Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) specification offers a degree of compatibility with traditional displays by adhering more closely to previously established TV transfer curves. The Recommendation also briefly explains a simple conversion process between the two HDR-TV options.
With ITU-R Recommendation BT.2100, TV producers can also choose between three levels of detail or resolution: HDTV (1920 by 1080), UHDTV "4K" (3840 by 2160) and "8K" (7680 by 4320), all of which use the progressive image system with extended color ranges and frame rates of ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020 on UHDTV.
"This Recommendation is the culmination of three years of intensive work by image experts from around the world. HDR images are spectacular and represent another significant improvement in television quality," said Andy Quested, Chairman of ITU-R Working Group 6C (WG 6C), which developed the new standard. "Today's programmers need far more options to meet the expectations of the various platforms they must serve, and this flexibility is achieved within the framework of a stable ITU-R Recommendation."
