There has never been a push for or a requirement by any of the major Hollywood studios or leading streaming content providers that HDR shows hit a peak luminance of 1,000 nits. In the case of digital projection or direct view displays, there’s never been a requirement that movies hit system peak brightness either. “It... Continue Reading →
Why more care has to be exercised when shooting/grading/delivering HDR than SDR
Clipped highlights that can be rolled off in SDR are unsightly in HDR. HDR is more prone to unsightly banding artifacts. Streaming bitrates must be higher to avoid blocking artifacts. Noise becomes much more of a nuisance in the shadows. Overstauration can make your picture look like cheap camcorder footage. The higher local contrast of... Continue Reading →
HDR used to make the audience uneasy: a good strategy?
During Eric Weidt’s presentation (FilmLight’s Colour On Stage), where he discussed his collaboration with David Fincher on Mindhunter, the colorist talked about how the overhead neon tubes in the shot of a couple shopping at a grocer’s were overpowering, which is why he ended up decreasing the intensity, but that the extended brightness of HDR... Continue Reading →
Is taking advantage of HDR in just one or two scenes of a film a good strategy?
All Quiet On the Western Front (Netflix) had a couple of powerful scenes on the battlefield at night, the small fires burning on the distant horizon, flares in the sky (VFX) and the glint of soldiers’ helmets in the blackness created a very strong impression. As did the brightness of daylight as a few surviving... Continue Reading →
Filmbox On Sale
Video Village is having a sale on its Filmbox film emulation plugin for DaVinci Resolve until February 7th. The Indie quarterly license may be cancelled at any time. The plugin is HDR compatible, but since it's targeted at professional filmmakers/colorists, it's a little surprising that there's no P3-D65 ST2084 option in the drop down menu.... Continue Reading →
Reference White Is A Myth
One of the most popular posts on our blog is about HDR reference white, which has been standardized as 203 nits. But in reality, there is no such thing as reference white, any more than there is a fixed value for 18% gray or fair skin. Diffuse white can be 145 nits indoors or as... Continue Reading →
Cullen Kelly: Set A Speed Limit Of Around 250 Nits
During a live stream, Cullen Kelly said that 1,000-nit specular highlights are unpleasant to look at and that windows should be closer to middle gray. Do you agree? Can intense specular highlights serve an expressive purpose? "HDR is fairly new, and as typically happens with new technologies, we have impartial parties really, really pushing for... Continue Reading →
Cinematographers on HDR
Match the quotes to the DP “[HDR is] a dream for any cinematographer, any creator of images... I think every cinematographer will have an interest in high dynamic range, because it’s the way that we want to capture images, so later we can do whatever we want in [digital color grading]. We need all the... Continue Reading →
MiniLED – How many dimming zones are necessary to a achieve contrast ratios comparable to OLED?
According to this study, when seated at the minimum viewing distance, 4X as many zones are required for an 85" 8K TV as compared to a 55" 4K TV; but when seated at the optimum viewing distance (at which the display occupies a 40° field of view)), the number of zones remains the same for... Continue Reading →
No, It Doesn’t
Forum member, EOSHD https://youtu.be/wEf8FmPMJxM It appears that many in the online community obstinately refer to ETTR as overexposure, which it is not. Overexposure is pushing highlights too far, to the point of clipping, at which point they are unrecoverable. Exposing to the right maximizes dynamic range while minimizing noise in the shadows.