Emerging standards are making the best of existing pixels. Understand the principles of HDR, learn how to build workflows to simplify production, and deliver the highest quality HDR pictures possible.
Many people and cultures celebrate special New Year dates. Organizations designate fiscal years. Broadcasters traditionally mark their new technology year mid-April, at annual NAB Shows. Old habits die hard.
There are many types of codecs, all used for specific purposes to reduce file sizes and make them easier to distribute down a limited bandwidth pipe. Lossy compression and Lossless compression are the two most common categories of data compression used to reduce the size of data without significant loss of information.
In this final part of the series, an attempt will be made to summarize all that has gone before and to see what it means.
Floating-point notation and gamma are both techniques that trade precision for dynamic range. However they differ fundamentally. Gamma is a non-linear function whereas floating point remains linear. Any mathematical manipulations carried out on floating-point encoded data will be correct whereas manipulations of gamma-encoded luma cannot be. Gamma was intended to linearize a cathode ray tube whereas floating point encoding was designed from the outset for mathematical manipulation.
Television production these days is tricky enough without adding virtual elements like augmented reality (AR) graphics, but that’s exactly what Taipei-based production company Getop did for the live telecast of the 2020 Golden Melody Awards (GMA). The highly rated annual televised awards ceremony - considered the “Asian Grammys” by many - celebrates top musical talent from across southeast Asia.
The requirement for a wide dynamic range to be provided economically is usually met by what is loosely called gamma, which is a non-linear transfer function having numerous drawbacks. However, there is an alternative form of what might loosely be called gamma, which is floating point.
After a year like 2020, predicting the future is scary business. However there are several leading-edge technologies—many borrowed from the IT and consumer-facing industries—that certainly look to make a significant impact on video production and broadcasting in 2021. Here are some, in no particular order, that will see continued implementation and streamline production and distribution workflows. To date we’ve seen these new tools begin to alter the way video production and distribution is done, helping the industry move forward and media businesses grow, and that’s certain to continue in new and exciting ways.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: The pandemic has had a highly disruptive effect on video production and distribution in 2020 and many agree it will be felt for several years. The inability for people to gather safely has made it impossible for full-scale video production to go ahead as it did before. Yet, the industry has risen to the challenge in a myriad of ways and learned to be more efficient in the process.