What is HDR? Why does it matter? Will it last? And how should we handle it? We’ve been hearing about ‘HDR’ since 2014, and it’s clearly an important and much debated development in the industry. Rather confusingly, HDR has come to mean two quite different things:
- The use of multiple exposures merged together to capture a wider dynamic range than is usually possible, or
- The use of a display with significantly brighter whites and, usually, deeper blacks to display a higher dynamic range than the current standards (rec 709 and DCI P3).
Clearly, some clarity is needed. The first definition – HDR capture – is also known as Photo HDR or HDR imaging (HDRi);. This article won’t discuss that. Instead, we are going to look at HDR displays – in particular, why they are here, how they are different and why they are better.
Terms like HDR are relative and often change as technology advances. For example, “HD” has frequently been used to describe new standards. When the old black and white 405 line broadcasts were replaced by 625 line color, the new technology was described as “high definition”, but it has of course been used for many more recent shifts. But before discovering exactly what HDR is, there are some other persistent myths to dispense with.
- HDR isn’t a fad. It is a technology shift and it is here to stay
- HDR is not painful or tiring to watch. This is a subjective statement, like saying that 5.1 audio is too loud. It might be true in individual cases, but there will always be good and bad examples.
- There is no single standard for HDR and probably never will be. HD doesn’t have a single standard either so there’s nothing new in that.
- Increased brightness on its own doesn’t equate to HDR. For example, a BT.709 image displayed at 1000 nits would not be HDR, and would look terrible. HDR is an entirely different format, not just a display technology.
- HDR isn’t dependent on 4k resolution, wider color gamut or any other improvements that are bundled with it. The requirements for HDR are images with a minimum 10 bits, and a display with enough dynamic range that can handle HDR formats.
