HDR on Youtube - next big thing? Requirements?

[Policar]

I agree! I still have my ST60 Panasonic plasma even though it's old tech by now. I do think the state of the art OLED sets are better but my eyes aren't good enough to need 4k at normal viewing distances anyway, though most people I know are getting 4k displays now. The dithering on plasmas makes them a little soft to begin with, but the ST60 is fine.

I saw HDR demoed on a smaller 1080p screen after seeing state of the art 4k projection and there's no comparison. I actually don't think 4k looks any better unless you walk right up to the screen or it's projected on a huge screen. I'm beginning to see the advantage for acquisition (for cropping in or whatever) but I think Netflix and YouTube and Amazon are sort of doing this for marketing rather than quality. It's a marketing thing meant to get people to replace their displays. I find it really laughable that people think this is something that matters. The old 1080p plasma screens have better acutance and the illusion of better resolution at normal viewing distances. However if you have the money a 4k OLED would be even better!

Your plasma is 100 nits at full brightness. Brightest highlight, every setting maxed out to bright. I've seen two HDR displays demoed and one was 4,000 nits and the other was 10,000 nits or more .So imagine all that contrast and better resolution and better color detail and then on top of that it goes 100X brighter but not just brighter, the darker areas are still as dark and well-rendered (actually much better). The sun looks like the sun. It doesn't look like an image of the sun. It's amazing tech. On top of that you're getting much richer reds and greens. It's just a massive jump in quality.

Fwiw, current-gen HDR-certified displays are 600 to 1000 nits. That's what's commercially available. So while those will look really really good.... They're nowhere near what's possible. I think energy conservation standards may prevent HDR from taking off, however. HDR projection standards will also never compare with home monitors in terms of contrast or brightness. So this may be something that never emerges as mainstream or properly-implemented. State of the art is 3XLED per-pixel (similar to Sony's "crystal led" technology) and LED efficiency is already high. This is very very expensive and still too inefficient for widespread use. OLED doesn't cut it for brightness/efficiency. Standard LED/LCD doesn't cut it for contrast. So we may be left with 1000 nit faux-HDR, which should look much better than anything you've ever seen, but nowhere near what's being demoed. Sony has 4000 nit displays at trade shows. That's very interesting because at that point it does feel very different. Only small areas of the screen can be that bright at once, but a large area that bright would be almost painful to look at. We'll see when and if this technology becomes commercially available. 4000 nits is a ways away and I wouldn't consider anything less than that representative of HDR.

[Damphousse]

20 minutes ago, tugela said:

Unlikely. 4K enabled sets are the bulk of models on sale today. Anyone buying a mid to high end set is going to have a 4K screen. In a few years those will be the only screens you can buy other than bargain basement models. HDR will NOT be a mature feature before 4K is.

Anyone who is buying a new TV and buys a 1080p screen is being very shortsighted.

What I meant was hang on to your 1080p television.  I had the 4k debate with a friend.  I didn't think it was a big deal at this stage and he was all over it.  I ended the discussion by telling him there really was no choice as far as new TVs since 1080p is getting phased out.  Like I said in my post 4k TVs are selling for a fraction of what I paid for my plasma.  But what I also said is even with that I don't think they are even at 10% market penetration.  Cost is not what is keeping people from buying 4k.  It is just HD is good enough.  Look at DVDs.  Blurays have been obsoleted by streaming video before they ever got the level of market penetration DVDs got.

Quote

The Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association (AHEDA) has released its market data for 2014. In a trend that will surprise few Lifehacker readers, physical disc sales continue to dwindle. What's more surprising is that the decline was roughly identical in the Blu-ray (BD) and DVD categories. Could the era of Full HD physical media be almost over?

The AHEDA's latest report card paints a pretty bleak picture for the future of Australia's home entertainment market; at least where physical media is concerned. DVD and Bly-ray disc sales totaled $951,330,000 in 2014. While still a huge number, this is a decline of 10 per cent compared to 2013.

According to AHEDA's data, there was no difference in the rate of decline between DVD and BD sales. In other words, Blu-ray penetration, which currently sits at just 16 per cent, is unlikely to climb much higher if sales continue to follow the same pattern.

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/02/blu-ray-is-nearly-dead-in-the-water/

Sorry that quote is from Australia but I don't see why the US or UK would be any different.  I actually didn't realize Blu-ray penetration is that low.  My point being there is a precedent for a much newer technology eclipsing an older tech before it becomes the dominant thing.

I don't know enough about the technical hurdles of HDR to say what will happen with market penetration but I have made a choice to get off the consumer upgrade merry-go-round.  I can't think of anyone in my close circle of friends and family who own a 4k TV or plan to buy one anytime soon.  Most of those people also don't own a bluray player.  And I can only think of one person who with any regularity buys blurays... and that is mostly child driven.

[Vesku]

I use my GH4 camera and Panasonic 4k TV like a poor mans HDR. I shoot  with a flat profile and then darken midtones in TV/player/graphics card. I set my TV  brightness and contrast both at 100% and high gamut color on. The result is very bright image if the video has bright spots or bright whites. I expose so that normally there is headroom in whites, only what shines in real life shines in camera. I dont do ETTR if the scene has dim light. Cloudy days are dark and sunny days are very bright etc. 

[markr041]

Here is my first true YouTube-compliant 4K HDR (10bit, 4:2:2 REC2020 12-stop) video. You will see it translated to SDR (REC709) if you have an SDR viewing device; and HDR if you can watch in HDR:

Panasonic GH4 10bit 4:2:2 to Shogun Inferno, graded in resolve 12.5 in HDR. Output as DNxHR 444 12bit, with injected HDR metadata.

 

[Vesku]

7 hours ago, markr041 said:

Here is my first true YouTube-compliant 4K HDR (10bit, 4:2:2 REC2020 12-stop) video. You will see it translated to SDR (REC709) if you have an SDR viewing device; and HDR if you can watch in HDR:

Panasonic GH4 10bit 4:2:2 to Shogun Inferno, graded in resolve 12.5 in HDR. Output as DNxHR 444 12bit, with injected HDR metadata.

 

How do you watch your HDR test? Can you see the benefits?

[Axel]

54 minutes ago, Vesku said:

How do you watch your HDR test? Can you see the benefits?

There is a big TV showroom in my city. I don't know if the panels there are connected to the internet, but I like to find out. I saw they have two or three HDR devices there, probably just fed by a UHD bluray. As you can see in the UHD specifications, these support rec2020 (rec_609 for SD, rec_709 for HD and rec_2020 for UHD). Personally, I believe UHD BDs will be a still birth, but UHD may be not.

The question what was more important, 4k or HDR, could be misleading. It should read, if it's UHD it should be HDR as well ...

And: come on, this thread was read 620 times, but only 21 contributors to the poll? No wonder demographic studies don't work anymore!

[Vesku]

1 hour ago, Axel said:

The question what was more important, 4k or HDR, could be misleading. It should read, if it's UHD it should be HDR as well ...

And: come on, this thread was read 620 times, but only 21 contributors to the poll? No wonder demographic studies don't work anymore!

The poll must have at least one option more:  *I am interested and following the development. YES

HDR needs 1000 nits monitor or TV and 10 bit videos. Not many has equipment to produce or watch such videos. A very good non-HDR 10bit 60P UHD is very impressive too with a large gamut/high contrast TV.

[tugela]

Read 620 times....by 22 people.

[Vesku]

1 hour ago, Axel said:

How do you watch HDR videos?  There is a big TV showroom in my city.

I think this is the situation for most people today.

[kaylee]

1 hour ago, Axel said:

come on, this thread was read 620 times, but only 21 contributors to the poll?

you shamed me into voting ?

im super interested in the idea of hdr in principle and i appreciate this thread. im not educated on the latest news but ill get way more into it when i have a chance to see a great example of it in person in a nice dark room

as opposed to fads like the revival of stereoscopic 3D, this is progress

[Axel]

5 hours ago, Vesku said:

A very good non-HDR 10bit 60P UHD is very impressive too with a large gamut/high contrast TV.

Talking about 60p, did you hear about this film?

This Youtube-clip is 23,97 (downloaded and checked), but the film was originally shot in 120 fps (also in the rec_2020 specification). On the premiere, it was projected at this framerate and got mixed reviews due to an "uncinematic experience". Somehow I sense the aesthetics of HFR in this, and I can imagine I'd like that. This is weird, because I always despised HFR. Or people shooting 50/60p because it looked less juddery or shaky. 

Film is dead. Viewing habits change. Creative filmmakers tell new stories. Using bleeding edge technology. And make cinema great again (Alas! You can't use certain phrases anymore).

 

[Kisaha]

It is naive, if not worst, to declare the end of things. Let me remind you, 

"Fukuyama is known for his book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government."

The history never ends, anyone that have read 2 or 3 history books knows that.

on the topic, I watched Hobbit on 48fps, terrible, also the end of 3D for me. What's next? we will see.

This is the best film I have seen so far, Bacalaureat, a Romanian film, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4936450/  nothing really technical about it.

[Axel]

1 hour ago, Kisaha said:

It is naive, if not worst, to declare the end of things.

(...)

I watched Hobbit on 48fps, terrible, also the end of 3D for me. 

Nobody except Peter Jackson liked The Hobbit in 48p, and 3D is about to die - again. As you said, don't declare the end of something. 3D is like Dracula. Often impaled and turned to dust. When the world just had forgotten his existence he came back. Stereoscopic images are first reported from the very early 17th century:

2 hours ago, Kisaha said:

This is the best film I have seen so far, Bacalaureat, a Romanian film, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4936450/  nothing really technical about it.

At school I had a girlfriend from Romania. She spoke 10 languages fluently and got the international baccalaureat. Studied in Belgium and became a dermatologist. Her parents had been very poor. And no intellectuals ...

[markr041]

Let's get back to the topic of this thread: YouTube HDR. And the news is bad. 

Ok, so I uploaded my HDR video to YouTube because I want people to see a real HDR video (10+ stops, REC2020 color gamut, 10bit, 4:2:2) that is not a promo piece. And I followed Youtube's instructions, and they worked - YouTube converted the HDR video to SDR so that people without HDR viewers can see the video. That is what you are seeing above - SDR. Looks ok; YouTube did a good job converting. But it is REC709 all the way (8bit, 4:2:0, 5-6 stops, limited color gamut).

Ok, how can you view the HDR version if you have an HDR capable screen/TV/monitor? You cannot! There is no way within YouTube to tell it to show the HDR version instead of the SDR version. Does that mean it is impossible to see the HDR version in HDR? No, there is one way, and only one way - using the new $69 Google Chromecast Ultra. It will stream YouTube HDR videos in HDR. Nothing else will.

It may be that YouTube has licensed the YouTube player in some Samsung TV's to also play its HDR videos, that is yet to be confirmed.

This is the current sorry state of YouTube HDR. It is a proprietary system.

 

[Vesku]

22 minutes ago, markr041 said:

there is one way, and only one way - using the new $69 Google Chromecast Ultra. It will stream YouTube HDR videos in HDR.

It is not true HDR unless you have a 10bit graphics card and a 10bit HDR standard monitor or TV. How do you say to monitor that now comes HDR material? The display must have a HDR setting.

[markr041]

"It is not true HDR unless you have a 10bit graphics card and a 10bit HDR standard monitor or TV. How do you say to monitor that now comes HDR material? The display must have a HDR setting."

I know that and everyone knows that (I produce HDR videos). What I am saying is that if you have all of the HDR viewing hardware it is not enough to see the HDR YouTube video in HDR. An HDR system - HDR TV with a switchable mode or a combo appropriate graphics card and 10bit monitor capable of REC2020 color - will not show an HDR YouTube video in HDR. You can only see the SDR version. The bottleneck is that you cannot get YouTube to switch to the HDR version.

So if you have that equipment you can see the top video I posted in HDR, but you cannot see the bottom one, which has the correct metadata. You will see the REC709 video version in HDR mode, which looks awful.

[Mat Mayer]

Sorry but I am too busy to read it all.

Please could someone just list the basic specs please? A few bullet points would be really appreciated.

I assume Panasonic G7 won't be good enough, but do you think the GH5 will have what it takes internally?

Thanks.

Ps. To those complaining, at least they are not going to 8k which I assume would be a much bigger task. Maybe with HDR and then Dolby Vision we will be set for 10 years?

[Policar]

5 hours ago, Mat Mayer said:

Sorry but I am too busy to read it all.

Please could someone just list the basic specs please? A few bullet points would be really appreciated.

I assume Panasonic G7 won't be good enough, but do you think the GH5 will have what it takes internally?

Thanks.

Ps. To those complaining, at least they are not going to 8k which I assume would be a much bigger task. Maybe with HDR and then Dolby Vision we will be set for 10 years?

The specs I'm hearing are 15 stops DR, rec2020. For acquisition. Then 10 bit 4000 nit wide gamut for the panel itself. Obviously not many current systems meet these specs and there are many, many competing standards. After all, 1024X720 was once "HD."

The result is breathtaking, though. Especially on the 10,000+ nit display. Only one other tech demo impressed me as much this year and it felt less mature. What's cool is you'll be able to see colors you've never seen before.

 

[Liam]

I'm lost. There are displays that actually show up to 15 stops of dr now? Or still just an image with 15 stops compressed, but not as much? What does 10 bit have to do with hdr? Just another advancement that's buddying up with hdr in youtube and better screens? They definitely don't have to go hand in hand, right? A good hdr display still uses all of its dr with a video not made for hdr, right? Not just essentially lifting the blacks and everything to match a bad display? A video made IN hdr, when played on a normal screen, will clip the boundaries? Or compess it, giving it that flatter look? Will old content be poorly converted in order to appear to be hdr?

Sorry.. last I heard on this topic was like "Wow, there's a display what has EIGHT stops of Dr!! The futuuuuuure!" so I'm pretty behind. I should try to figure it out on my own really, but if I'm missing something important, please share. Also are pretty much all 4k tvs these days that say hdr liars?

[Axel]

3 hours ago, Liam said:

 Will old content be poorly converted in order to appear to be hdr?

Or will it be hardware processed by the TV to look better? Perhaps almost as good as real HDR?

Perhaps I buy expensive hardware now to meet the requirements. Then, in three or four years, HDR is a real hype. Everybody views the measly old 8-bit rec_709 on the new TV sets, and they look 95% as good as mine?

And then: since I can monitor 4k natively I have becoming more critical. What was announced 4k once turned out to be BMTHD (barely more than HD). The same could apply to early adoption of HDR.