Tone compatibility between HDR displays

Abstract

High Dynamic Range (HDR) is the latest trend in television technology and we expect an in ux of HDR capable consumer TVs in the market. Initial HDR consumer displays will operate on a peak brightness of about 500-1000 nits while in the coming years display peak brightness is expected to go beyond 1000 nits. However, professionally graded HDR content can range from 1000 to 4000 nits. As with Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) content, we can expect HDR content to be available in variety of lighting styles such as low key, medium key and high key video. This raises concerns over tone-compatibility between HDR displays especially when adapting to various lighting styles. It is expected that dynamic range adaptation between HDR displays uses similar techniques as found with tone mapping and tone expansion operators. In this paper, we survey simple tone mapping methods of 4000 nits color-graded HDR content for 1000 nits HDR displays. We also investigate tone expansion strategies when HDR content graded in 1000 nits is displayed on 4000 nits HDR monitors. We conclude that the best tone reproduction technique between HDR displays strongly depends on the lighting style of the content.