Press Release Studios and Manufacturers announce HDR10+ Technology (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Ronald Epstein

Studios and Manufacturers announce HDR10+ Technology

20th Century Fox, Panasonic and Samsung Gain Momentum for
Best Possible TV-Viewing Experience with HDR10+ Technology

LAS VEGAS, NV – January 5, 2018 – 20th Century Fox, Panasonic Corporation and Samsung Electronics today announced updates to the associated certification and logo program for the open, royalty-free dynamic metadata platform for High Dynamic Range (HDR), called HDR10+ which they initially announced last year at IFA.

The HDR10+ platform will soon be made available to content companies, ultra-high definition TVs, Blu-ray disc players/recorders and set-top box manufacturers, as well as SoC vendors, royalty-free with only a nominal administrative fee. Companies can view the new logo, learn about the license program including final specifications, adopter agreements and sign up to receive a notification when technical specifications for HDR10+ become available at http://www.hdr10plus.org. In addition, Ultra HD Blu-ray metadata generation tools have been developed with third parties and will soon be available for content creators enabling Ultra HD Blu-ray players to enter the market. Details on the content transfer and interface format for the content creation pipeline will also be released shortly.

HDR10+ will offer a genuinely premium HDR experience for viewers through a device certification program ensuring an accurate representation of the creative intent expressed in the content. Also, its workflow improvements for creators will encourage increased production of premium HDR content.

The HDR10+ license program will provide interested companies with the necessary technical and testing specifications to implement HDR10+ technology in a way that both maintains high picture quality and gives each manufacturer the ability to apply dynamic tone mapping innovatively. The accompanying certification program will ensure that HDR10+ compliant products meet good picture quality and deliver the creative intent of movie directors and cinematographers. A certified product will feature the HDR10+ logo, which signifies the product’s excellent picture quality.

Key aspects of the license program will include:

· Benefits for device manufacturers (e.g., TV, Ultra HD Blu-ray, OTT STB, etc.), content distribution services providers, SoC manufacturers, content publishers, and content creation tool providers.

· No per unit royalty.

· A nominal annual administration fee for device manufacturers, SoC manufacturers and content distribution service providers.

· Technical specification, test specification, HDR10+ logo/logo guide, patents from the three companies directly related to the technical specification and the test specification.

· Certification for devices will be performed by a third-party, authorized testing center.

Once the HDR10+ license program is open, the three founding companies will incorporate HDR10+ technologies in all future Ultra HD movie releases, selected TVs, Ultra HD Blu-ray player/recorders, and other products.

“It was important for us to create an open system that is flexible and offers a viewing experience much closer to the filmmaker’s creative intent for the film,” said Danny Kaye, Executive Vice President of 20th Century Fox, and Managing Director of the Fox Innovation Lab. “Together with Samsung and Panasonic, we aim to standardize the licensing process making it easy for partners, including content creators, television and device manufacturers, to incorporate this technology and improve the viewing experience for all audiences.”

Support continues to grow for HDR10+ and companies are looking forward to applying the 3C specifications and certification program. More than 25 companies spanning many different industries have expressed strong interest in supporting the HDR10+ platform, further reinforcing its path to success.

Amazon Prime Video, the first streaming service provider to deliver HDR10+, has made the entire Prime Video HDR library available in HDR10+ globally. The Prime Video HDR10+ catalog includes hundreds of hours of content such as Prime Originals The Grand Tour, Golden Globe®-nominated The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, The Tick and The Man in the High Castle plus hundreds of licensed titles.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will support HDR10+ to enable a dynamic metadata solution for Warner Bros. content to Samsung, Panasonic and other HDR10+ capable 4K HDR TVs. "Warner Bros. has always strived to provide the best next gen home entertainment experience to consumers," said Jim Wuthrich, President of the Americas and Global Strategy, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. "With HDR10+ dynamic metadata, WB can continue to more accurately bring the filmmakers’ vision of our 2018 releases and our vast catalog of over seventy-five 4K HDR titles to the home across a broad range of HDR10+ capable TV's."

The new HDR10+ technology optimizes picture quality for next generation displays by using dynamic tone mapping to reflect frame to frame or scene to scene variations in brightness, color saturation, and contrast, which makes for an enhanced viewing experience. HDR10+ technology optimizes the performance of many 4K ultra-high definition TVs, enabling playback on a wide range of next generation TVs bringing user experience much closer to the original creative intent for Hollywood films.

“By bringing together know-how and technology from the three founding companies, HDR10+ has the potential to deliver considerable picture quality benefits to both viewers and creators alike,” said Toshiharu Tsutsui, Director of Panasonic’s TV Business Division. “Accordingly, Panasonic anticipates wide support for HDR10+.”

“Samsung is committed to technological innovation across our TVs and HDR10+ represents an evolution in display quality for the best possible viewing experience,” said Jongsuk Chu, Senior Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “We have also designed the HDR10+ platform to encourage future development in order to deliver further enhanced technology in the years to come.”

20th Century Fox, Panasonic and Samsung will show technical demonstrations of HDR10+ technology at CES 2018. Accredited journalists or parties interested in the licensee program may email [email protected] for more information. Accredited journalists can see Panasonic’s HDR10+ technical demo at its suite at the MGM Grand Conference Centre. A HDR10+ technology demo will be held at Samsung's First Look event at Enclave Las Vegas on 7th January.

To learn more about the HDR10+ license program, please contact the HDR10+ license administration office at [email protected].​

Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner

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[dpippel]

Great. Another competing HDR technology that requires new hardware, when I already have thousands of dollars invested in my current one year old 4K setup. No thanks electronics industry, and not anytime soon either.

 

[Dick]

Guess UHD isn't new enough for these greedy corporations. Jesus, is anyone not satisfied with 4K? I will not invest a dime in this technology.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Guess UHD isn't new enough for these greedy corporations. Jesus, is anyone not satisfied with 4K? I will not invest a dime in this technology.

I am happy I am sitting out in this format. It's always a war between manufacturers and guess who always ends up losing....

 

[Ronald Epstein]

....oh, and now Warner Bros. is on board.

 

[Mike2001]

Is this new technology or a licensing program to bring consistency? Consistency would be a good thing.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I don't understand the consternation expressed in this thread. Technology advances have always been present and will continue to be developed in the future. Any technology once introduced to the public is bound to be obsolete, it's only a matter of time. If you have equipment that can't support this technology announcement then be happy with what it can support which is what you bought it for in the first place.

Edit: One more comment about consternation, after stating about not understanding it in this thread, I have to revise my position and say that I do empathize with people having those thoughts, but in this world of continue technological advances, I expect the industry to keep producing them, but it doesn't mean I have to support them by changing out my home theater equipment every two years.

 

[Mike2001]

I don't understand the consternation expressed in this thread.

It's the early adopter woe of chasing the latest thing. If you just spent gobs of money on a new TV and some new thing comes out that makes it obsolete, you are likely not a happy camper.

That said, it sounded to me like it was a standardized testing/licensing update, like THX. That would be a good thing.

 

[Alan Tully]

It seems a strange development with yer bog standard 4K UHD struggling to get a foothold in the market. It does remind me of the battle between HD-DVD & Blu-ray, I & many others just waited until a winner emerged.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It's the early adopter woe of chasing the latest thing. If you just spent gobs of money on a new TV and some new thing comes out that makes it obsolete, you are likely not a happy camper.

That said, it sounded to me like it was a standardized testing/licensing update, like THX. That would be a good thing.

I'd spent a boatload of monies in 2017 upgrading my home theater and I'm a very happy camper despite this HDR announcement.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It seems a strange development with yer bog standard 4K UHD struggling to get a foothold in the market. It does remind me of the battle between HD-DVD & Blu-ray, I & many others just waited until a winner emerged.

It's not strange at all to me as HDR10+ is a normal progression in order to match Dolby Vision.

 

[Robert Harris]

I don't understand the consternation expressed in this thread.

I do.

The rollout of 4k UHD, and along with it, HDR, was the worst I’ve encountered.

The absolute lack of communication, cooperation, and technical abilities of programmers, hardware and software creators, and then post-production entities, has been enough to turn off even the most die-hard of adopters.

When a consumer is unable to get a straight answer from tech support, and even the best support reps, blame the player, or projector, or panel, produced by the other entity, because their gear won’t function as advertised...

And if that fails, tell the consumer that their cables are the problem, and one can only trust and use Monster products...

As much as I love technology, unless HDR+ can be actuated by an easy, workable, well thought out firmware or software upgrade...

I’m not in.

Where in the past, one could “invest” in a new TV or monitor, and run it for five, ten years, or longer, with the constant “upgrades” of connections for newer, faster, more data compliant abilities, the life a a piece of hardware is now six months to a couple of years.

Bottom line, if my SONY OLED will be able to run HDR+, I’ll be a happy camper, and moderately pleased to at least experiment, before I find that something won’t sync properly, which is the norm.

Alternatively, I see it as an industry money grab.

Let’s keep in mind that while theatrical venues may want or need to offer the latest and greatest to their audiences, and have the ability to upgrade their projectors (most don’t), and move older gear to a lesser theater, asking a home theater fans to spend ten, or twenty thousand dollars on a new projector, or five or more on a new flat panel, in order to be able to upgrade to a newer HDR format...

And let’s keep in mind that home theater projectors are still in incapable of properly decoding and putting HDR 10 on a screen.

And that’s why I understand consumer consternation.

RAH

 

[Robert Crawford]

I do.

The rollout of 4k UHD, and along with it, HDR, was the worst I’ve encountered.

The absolute lack of communication, cooperation, and technical abilities of programmers, hardware and software creators, and then post-production entities, has been enough to turn off even the most die-hard of adopters.

When a consumer is unable to get a straight answer from tech support, and even the best support reps, blame the player, or projector, or panel, produced by the other entity, because their gear won’t function as advertised...

And if that fails, tell the consumer that their cables are the problem, and one can only trust and use Monster products...

As much as I love technology, unless HDR+ can be actuated by an easy, workable, well thought out firmware or software upgrade...

I’m not in.

Where in the past, one could “invest” in a new TV or monitor, and run it for five, ten years, or longer, with the constant “upgrades” of connections for newer, faster, more data compliant abilities, the life a a piece of hardware is now six months to a couple of years.

Bottom line, if my SONY OLED will be able to run HDR+, I’ll be a happy camper, and moderately pleased to at least experiment, before I find that something won’t sync properly, which is the norm.

Alternatively, I see it as an industry money grab.

Let’s keep in mind that while theatrical venues may want or need to offer the latest and greatest to their audiences, and have the ability to upgrade their projectors (most don’t), and move older gear to a lesser theater, asking a home theater fans to spend ten, or twenty thousand dollars on a new projector, or five or more on a new flat panel, in order to be able to upgrade to a newer HDR format...

And let’s keep in mind that home theater projectors are still in incapable of properly decoding and putting HDR 10 on a screen.

And that’s why I understand consumer consternation.

RAH

However, to somewhat paraphrase Hyman Roth, home theater is the hobby we chosen and it's been this way ever since it began in earnest back in 1980's. I do agree with you about the roll out, it's been handled very badly by the industry including the content providers.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

RAH hit the nail on the head.

From my position, I would love to get into 4k. However, there are so many things standing in the way.

If I am going to spend thousands on 4k projection, I want it to be future-proof.

Up until a few days ago, that meant waiting for Dolby Vision support.

Now, it means not only waiting for HDR10+ but trying to figure out which studios are going to support which of the two competing formats.

Like every other format (outside of DVD), this is another cluster-f launch.

As usual, everyone wants a piece of the pie.

I am so happy for those who were able to get displays on the cheap. I don't want a display. Once you go projection, you never go back to displays.

But even those of you who have displays, I would suspect they are already outdated because they won't support the new upcoming formats.

I have been through this upgrade thing too many times. I no longer jump into new formats without making certain they are well-established first.

 

[Robert Crawford]

RAH hit the nail on the head.

From my position, I would love to get into 4k. However, there are so many things standing in the way.

If I am going to spend thousands on 4k projection, I want it to be future-proof.

Up until a few days ago, that meant waiting for Dolby Vision support.

Now, it means not only waiting for HDR10+ but trying to figure out which studios are going to support which of the two competing formats.

Like every other format (outside of DVD), this is another cluster-f launch.

As usual, everyone wants a piece of the pie.

I am so happy for those who were able to get displays on the cheap. I don't want a display. Once you go projection, you never go back to displays.

But even those of you who have displays, I would suspect they are already outdated because they won't support the new upcoming formats.

I have been through this upgrade thing too many times. I no longer jump into new formats without making certain they are well-established first.

There is no such thing as future-proof when it comes to home theater equipment.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

There is no such thing as future-proof when it comes to home theater equipment.

Perhaps.

However, this isn't just about future-proofing. This is trying to figure out where the format is going.

Once Blu-ray won the format war it was pretty much solidified. 4k still is not and it has been around for about two years now.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Perhaps.

However, this isn't just about future-proofing. This is trying to figure out where the format is going.

Once Blu-ray won the format war it was pretty much solidified. 4k still is not and it has been around for about two years now.

So do we expect the industry to stop releasing advances as they developed them or to not develop them at all?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

So do we expect the industry to stop releasing advances as they developed them or to not develop them at all?

It's not about advancement.

It's about everyone wanting a piece of the pie. Instead of everyone coming together and adopting a single idea, they scatter and create their own competing ideas that basically do the same thing.

As a result, the consumer just sits on the sideline wondering which one is going to be compatible with a display or projector investment that might set them back thousands of dollars.

I'm getting ready to retire. I'm too old to be playing these games. The industry can do all they want. In the end, if enough consumers get pissed off and avoid buying into the format, it will become a niche. I am not saying that will happen to 4k, but at this time, I am certainly not going to help it along.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It's not about advancement.

It's about everyone wanting a piece of the pie. Instead of everyone coming together and adopting a single idea, they scatter and create their own competing ideas that basically do the same thing.

As a result, the consumer just sits on the sideline wondering which one is going to be compatible with a display or projector investment that might set them back thousands of dollars.

I'm getting ready to retire. I'm too old to be playing these games. The industry can do all they want. In the end, if enough consumers get pissed off and avoid buying into the format, it will become a niche. I am not saying that will happen to 4k, but at this time, I am certainly not going to help it along.

As somebody that spent almost 40 years in manufacturing management that's not going to happen as competitors are going to compete and continue to out advance the other guy.

As to your other point about retirement, I'm already to that point. I won't be upgrading my equipment again until the equipment fails me. At least, when it comes to the equipment change out I did in 2017, in my main HT set up.

 

[Robert Harris]

So do we expect the industry to stop releasing advances as they developed them or to not develop them at all?

No.

Tech advances are positive.

However, there must be a rational upgrade route.

Even if it’s not firmware/software, once a consumer has invested in a new 4k device, there must be compatibility, and the ability to, at worst case, change out a board or other upgradable part.

I have no problem spending to upgrade, but not to constantly replace high-end hardware.

The question that remains on the table relevant to HDR+, is whether no nor all current players, processors and viewing devices can run it, with nothing more than a download and upgrade.