In “Debunking HDR”, Steve Yedlin commits two serious technical sins – he mislabels BT.1886 (an EOTF) as a “color space” and falsely claims BT.2100 = SMPTE ST2084. This isn’t semantics – it’s professional negligence. This misrepresentation has fueled an epidemic of color-spec illiteracy.
Enter Stephen R. George Jr., a veteran of Sony, Technicolor, ARRI and 20th Century Fox – who defends Yedlin’s mangling of color-spec terminology by shrugging off foundational concepts as too confusing – while dismissing HDR as irrelevant: “little content beyond 709 and sRGB actually reaches viewers.” George Jr. elaborates:
“At this point the field of image standards has become so opaque, crowded and cumbersome that there is a real risk that some arbitrary standard owned by and named after a corporation will overtake everything… People aren’t going to learn the difference between gamma, white point and color space unless you just tell them the separate values.”
Let that sink in: an industry specialist tasked with “R&D for entertainment technology companies seeking to establish high standards” argues professionals need not understand:
- BT.1886 is an EOTF, not a color space.
- SMPTE ST2084 (PQ) is an EOTF.
- Rec.2100 is the ITU-R standard for UHDTV (HDR/WCG), defining Rec.2020 color primaries, white point, and EOTF options (PQ/HLG).
These distinctions are foundational. When influencers like Yedlin spread such errors – and figures like George Jr. rationalize them – they undermine workflows and legitimize ignorance. Yedlin must retract these slides and release SMPTE-verified corrections.
This critique aims to uphold technical rigor in our craft. Corrections from Yedlin or George Jr. will be prominently updated.
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