InBroadcast - June 2022 - 41

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 12 - Issue 6 | June 2022
41
InStudio
Integrating SDR & HDR content in a live production
environment for a pristine viewing experience
By Ciro A. Noronha, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of Engineering for Cobalt Digital...
ne of the most
effective
provides
brighter
colors, and
picture quality. But
achieving a seamless
remarkable
since
to
not
every device today supports HDR,
broadcasters
face obstacles
end-to-end
workflow that supports legacy content
and sources on the production side,
and legacy devices on the consumer
side.
Challenges include:
* Integrating SDR and HDR
content into a live production
environment;
* Delivering content efficiently
to both legacy SDR and new
HDR playout devices where
bandwidth constraints preclude
the ability to dual-cast in both
formats;
* Retaining pristine image quality
for both SDR and HDR.
Live
complex
numerous
quality
productions
viewing experience is
substantially
formats
operate
environments
and
in
with
differing
levels. Managing this
highlights, deeper shadow details,
brilliant
multitude of content to create HDR
and SDR programming requires tools
that can manage multiple formats
across new technologies
while
optimizing legacy equipment. In live
production, it's best
to produce in
HDR, but this requires legacy SDR
sources to be converted to HDR.
SL-HDR1
is
a
single-stream
distribution solution incorporated
into the ATSC 3.0 NextGen Broadcast
standard that supports cost-effective
backward compatibility with all nonHDR
screens. This enables a single
video stream to be delivered to new
and legacy display devices. Newer
devices will
automatically
render
more realistic HDR picture formats
while legacy displays will render SDR.
A backward compatible solution that
creates both SDR and HDR without
compromising image quality delivers
technologies for an enhanced
HDR. HDR
the best viewing experience in a
single production workflow.
Cobalt Digital Inc. and Advanced
HDR by Technicolor, have partnered
to implement an innovative workflow
that
delivers
high-quality, HDR
content in a backward-compatible
single-stream format. This
bandwidth-efficient format is critical
to realizing the features of NextGen
Broadcasting while compatible with
existing non-HDR capable displays.
The Technicolor HDR ITM (Intelligent
Tone Management), an artificial
intelligence-trained, content-based
adaptive process, ingests legacy SDR
into an HDR production environment
without compromising quality. This
is achieved by the 'round-trip' feature
whereby the SDR-to-HDR conversion
process includes additional metadata
preserving the original SDR.
Cobalt
Digital's
O
signals up to 4K resolution. The
9904-UDX card also implements the
round-trip feature for creating and
processing the metadata at the HDR
level ensuring SDR signal fidelity. The
feature enables Cobalt to incorporate
a series of presets on image aesthetic
parameters
which can be preloaded
onto cards. Operators can
plug these presets into the input
and output signals and activate the
equipment. It
for broadcasts
is especially useful
that
deliver legacy
content such as syndicated shows
and commercials.
The collaborative solution enables
9904-UDX-4K
openGear card incorporates SDR-toHDR
conversion via ITM, and SL-HDR1
encoding/decoding in real-time for
multiple formats and quality levels
to be managed so SDR and HDR
can be delivered in an innovative,
seamless, dynamic, and automated
process. It is already in use by many
Cobalt customers, including a major
broadcaster that
announced
its
deployment in numerous markets at
NAB 2022.
https://www.cobaltdigital.com
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.cobaltdigital.com https://www.cobaltdigital.com https://www.cobaltdigital.com
InBroadcast - June 2022

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