The Evolution of Broadcast HDR: A Journey from Cameras to Screens

When it comes to capturing high-quality images, camera operators are often more familiar with broadcast cameras than they think. The transition from standard dynamic range (SDR) to high dynamic range (HDR) has been a significant challenge in the broadcasting industry. To understand this journey, let's start with the cameras that capture the action.

Cameras are indeed not much different from the broadcast cameras used by local news crews, such as ABC News and CBS News. The camera operators may have had a learning curve to adapt to HDR technology, but they've quickly become proficient in using the advanced features of their equipment. The key to mastering HDR lies in being aware of where to adjust the shading piece and brightness levels to really make the image pop inside those cameras.

The 4K image sensors used by these cameras are capable of capturing vast amounts of picture data, which makes it difficult to transmit the signal via microwave transmission alone. As a result, the cameras are hardwired to production trucks, where the signal is then routed through an advanced 4K HDR video switcher. This allows producers to assemble the broadcast with a standard operating procedure, but only after they've mastered the image for HDR.

The master image for HDR is created using a $45,000 Sony 4K HDR OLED monitor, the same one used by Hollywood movie studios. However, it also has an LG 4K TV, which allows producers to see what non-HDR content looks like on standard broadcast sets. This helps them assess whether their HDR image will be pleasing to audiences with non-HDR TVs.

One of the significant benefits of the HDR format is its backward compatibility with standard dynamic range (SDR) TV sets. The Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) format ensures that HDR images can still be displayed on SDR sets, making it a more accessible and inclusive technology for a broader audience.

The signal from the production truck is then transmitted over an AT&T fiber-optic network to a broadcast center. From there, it's distributed to CBS affiliates, as well as DirecTV customers who receive it in HD. While other broadcasters have been slower to adopt HDR, DirecTV has made significant strides in delivering 4K HDR content to its subscribers.

Despite the progress made by streaming services and 4K Blu-rays, which have been offering HDR for a couple of years now, there's still a long way to go before standard broadcast channels catch up. The main obstacle is the bandwidth required to transmit high-quality HDR signals. Additionally, the broadcasting industry is accustomed to having multiple cameras on set, which makes it difficult to justify investing in fewer 4K HDR cameras.

To overcome this challenge, experts suggest starting with smaller production increments and gradually increasing the resolution over time. One possible step towards achieving better image quality would be to use 1080p HD R instead of 4K. This approach can make a noticeable difference in image quality, as demonstrated by recent broadcasts that have showcased the benefits of HDR.

In fact, researchers believe that delivering 1080p HD R would be a quicker and more practical step towards improving broadcast image quality, given its lower bandwidth requirements and the availability of suitable cameras. Once the infrastructure is in place to transmit and display 1080p HD R content, it can serve as a stepping stone for further upgrades to 4K HDR.

The audio component of this technology is also catching up. With the help of partners like Dolby, DirecTV has been working towards delivering immersive Dolby Atmos sound to broadcasts, starting with high-profile events like the 2018 Olympics. This development will continue throughout the year, as more broadcasters adopt this cutting-edge technology.

In conclusion, the journey from cameras to screens in broadcasting HDR is a complex process that requires patience and collaboration among industry partners. By understanding the challenges and taking incremental steps towards improving image quality, we can eventually create an immersive viewing experience for audiences worldwide.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is Pebble Beach one of the most gorgeous golf courses in the world pristine fairways and white sand bunker stretch out along a picturesque cut of the Pacific coastline in Monterey California it's absolutely stunning here you know I've seen Pebble Beach golf course on TV dozens of times but until I actually came here and saw it in real life and it realized how much I was missing and it's not just the scale of the place or the span of the views it comes down to little details like the different specific hues of greens and blues and the reflection of the Sun off the water you can even see coral down there those are details that TV just couldn't reproduce until now with the advent of 4k HDR TVs and tons of them going into people's homes today the hardware is there all the owners of these TVs really needed was for someone to step up and provide the content today Digital Trends is going behind the scenes with DIRECTV to take a look at how they produce this 4k HDR footage from the tee box to your television okay so first in case you came here for the golf and not the tech here's HDR in a nutshell it stands for high dynamic range and for TV it represents the ability to display a wider range of shades from dark to bright and also more shades within the color spectrum this means you get more detail in shadowed areas more detail and intensity in bright areas to more specific use of colors in more levels of color intensity in other words far closer to what you see with your eyes in real life for people who this time of year in February or in the Midwest door shut Peter on right we want to try to attempt if you can't be here in person this is really an attempt to try to put the viewer here and experience it here that's the end result HDR shoots for but how exactly does HDR deliver that feeling how does it connect us in a way we've not experienced before with standard TV all you need to do is look at the water here the shots that are wider than show the water and the different colors of blue when you see the coral that it's right there below the ocean that's darker and then there's lighter blue and as the waves hit and crash over the rocks that to me is what I don't think TB has ever shown as well cloud formation today's a pretty bright and clear day but your eyes perceive the different shapes of clouds typically TV shows them as white blobs the devil really is in the details no matter how well tuned your 4k HDR TV is if it isn't getting HDR information then it can't deliver colors the way that nature or TV and movie producers intended them to be seen a lot of the so called detail we hope to see with 4k really couldn't make it to our TVs without the benefit of HDR even the sand traps I mean seeing the flecks of sand like the grains of sand the dimples on a golf ball just little things that we started to notice with the way golfers actually mark their golf balls has been you know pretty amazing and all of it is it's all here for the viewer to see what's great about HDR is that you don't have to lean in or squint to see it the images and experience are familiar you're just not used to getting it through your TV when you've seen something so many times your brain already know is what it should look like but what it's actually given more detail you sit there and you just you're trying to just kind of take it all in it's pretty exciting so how do the folks at DIRECTV get this kind of live broadcast HDR to their customers and what does that tell us about the future of broadcast HDR it involves an entirely different workflow starting with the cameras that capture the action they don't look much different than the broadcast cameras you might see your local news crews using camera operators you know I've had a little bit of a learning curve but the shading piece and being aware of where to put the brightness levels has really been kind of mission-critical to really make all this pop inside those cameras our 4k image sensors and because they're capturing so much picture data they can't just beam their signal via of microwave transmission these cameras are hardwired to production trucks and from there they're routed through a new advanced 4k HDR video switcher which allows the producers to put together the broadcast that's more or less standard operating procedure but then the producers get to master the image for HDR to do it they use a $45,000 sony 4k HDR oled monitor the same kind that hollywood movie studios use but they also have a run-of-the-mill LG 4k TV to see what non HDR will look like the folks who don't have an HDR TV turns out it's still gonna look a whole lot better than standard broadcast we're trying to engineer an image that's going to be pleasing to everybody one of the big benefits of the format of HDR we're doing here hybrid log gamma hlg is that it's backward compatible with standard dynamic range TV sets I obsessively watch what we do in HDR on that set because I want to make sure that it does look good on a standard dynamic range set from there the signal goes to a broadcast center over an AT&T fiber-optic network then it's beamed out to CBS affiliates but it's DirecTV customers who get it in HD are just like they're getting some events from the 2018 Olympics in HD our so seems like they've got this process down pretty well why does it seem like it's taken so long to get HDR broadcast when streaming services and 4k blu-rays have been doing it for a couple years you know we've made great strides in two years but there's still a big big road to go down it's it's tough there's a ton of bandwidth needed not only that but the broadcast industry isn't used to working with fewer cameras they'd like to have as many views as they can get and you just can't use that many 4k HDR cameras with the way most production trucks are set up so you wouldn't take paintbrushes from Picasso and expect the same picture same with these guys who have done productions one after another and they've had 30 cameras and 40 cameras and now you tell them you have 13 hmm right also there still isn't a great distribution infrastructure in place DirecTV is one of the few that can get 4k HDR to its customers but you know if I'm putting on CBS issues for a moment here there's no reason if I'm CBS to shoot everything in 4k when they don't have a way to distribute it we kind of come along and help work with them and collaborate with them and you know essentially we're pushing them we're pushing all the technology partners to kind of continue to push this forward maybe the key to getting a better picture from all these broadcast channels isn't to jump straight to high bandwidth 4k just stepping up from the 720p you get now would be a big improvement I think the first step with that in doing an entire production at least in an enhanced sort of visual format would be 1080p HD are we truly believe that HDR makes the difference 1080p HD R I think is a quicker quicker road to getting a complete show that makes a lot of sense 1080p HD R is a step up in resolution the cameras are there the bandwidth is far lower and people can really see that difference even if things were shot in 4k delivering it in 1080p HD R would look a lot better man I hope a year from now we're really in a position to talk about you know not only hopefully deriving the 4k HDR signal but the broadcast partners we work with look at benefits of having their HD format derived from it for better quality with that in place we can start talking about audio DirecTV and others are working with Dolby to deliver immersive Dolby Atmos sound of these broadcasts it started with the 2018 Olympics and we're going to see it in more broadcasts this year as well so not only is the picture you get from your cable and satellite providers finally catching up with your TV's tech and doing a better job of making you feel like you're really there the audio component is coming along too and DirecTV is going to continue to put its resources and experience to work pushing the rest of the industry to make sure you can see it in your home todaythis is Pebble Beach one of the most gorgeous golf courses in the world pristine fairways and white sand bunker stretch out along a picturesque cut of the Pacific coastline in Monterey California it's absolutely stunning here you know I've seen Pebble Beach golf course on TV dozens of times but until I actually came here and saw it in real life and it realized how much I was missing and it's not just the scale of the place or the span of the views it comes down to little details like the different specific hues of greens and blues and the reflection of the Sun off the water you can even see coral down there those are details that TV just couldn't reproduce until now with the advent of 4k HDR TVs and tons of them going into people's homes today the hardware is there all the owners of these TVs really needed was for someone to step up and provide the content today Digital Trends is going behind the scenes with DIRECTV to take a look at how they produce this 4k HDR footage from the tee box to your television okay so first in case you came here for the golf and not the tech here's HDR in a nutshell it stands for high dynamic range and for TV it represents the ability to display a wider range of shades from dark to bright and also more shades within the color spectrum this means you get more detail in shadowed areas more detail and intensity in bright areas to more specific use of colors in more levels of color intensity in other words far closer to what you see with your eyes in real life for people who this time of year in February or in the Midwest door shut Peter on right we want to try to attempt if you can't be here in person this is really an attempt to try to put the viewer here and experience it here that's the end result HDR shoots for but how exactly does HDR deliver that feeling how does it connect us in a way we've not experienced before with standard TV all you need to do is look at the water here the shots that are wider than show the water and the different colors of blue when you see the coral that it's right there below the ocean that's darker and then there's lighter blue and as the waves hit and crash over the rocks that to me is what I don't think TB has ever shown as well cloud formation today's a pretty bright and clear day but your eyes perceive the different shapes of clouds typically TV shows them as white blobs the devil really is in the details no matter how well tuned your 4k HDR TV is if it isn't getting HDR information then it can't deliver colors the way that nature or TV and movie producers intended them to be seen a lot of the so called detail we hope to see with 4k really couldn't make it to our TVs without the benefit of HDR even the sand traps I mean seeing the flecks of sand like the grains of sand the dimples on a golf ball just little things that we started to notice with the way golfers actually mark their golf balls has been you know pretty amazing and all of it is it's all here for the viewer to see what's great about HDR is that you don't have to lean in or squint to see it the images and experience are familiar you're just not used to getting it through your TV when you've seen something so many times your brain already know is what it should look like but what it's actually given more detail you sit there and you just you're trying to just kind of take it all in it's pretty exciting so how do the folks at DIRECTV get this kind of live broadcast HDR to their customers and what does that tell us about the future of broadcast HDR it involves an entirely different workflow starting with the cameras that capture the action they don't look much different than the broadcast cameras you might see your local news crews using camera operators you know I've had a little bit of a learning curve but the shading piece and being aware of where to put the brightness levels has really been kind of mission-critical to really make all this pop inside those cameras our 4k image sensors and because they're capturing so much picture data they can't just beam their signal via of microwave transmission these cameras are hardwired to production trucks and from there they're routed through a new advanced 4k HDR video switcher which allows the producers to put together the broadcast that's more or less standard operating procedure but then the producers get to master the image for HDR to do it they use a $45,000 sony 4k HDR oled monitor the same kind that hollywood movie studios use but they also have a run-of-the-mill LG 4k TV to see what non HDR will look like the folks who don't have an HDR TV turns out it's still gonna look a whole lot better than standard broadcast we're trying to engineer an image that's going to be pleasing to everybody one of the big benefits of the format of HDR we're doing here hybrid log gamma hlg is that it's backward compatible with standard dynamic range TV sets I obsessively watch what we do in HDR on that set because I want to make sure that it does look good on a standard dynamic range set from there the signal goes to a broadcast center over an AT&T fiber-optic network then it's beamed out to CBS affiliates but it's DirecTV customers who get it in HD are just like they're getting some events from the 2018 Olympics in HD our so seems like they've got this process down pretty well why does it seem like it's taken so long to get HDR broadcast when streaming services and 4k blu-rays have been doing it for a couple years you know we've made great strides in two years but there's still a big big road to go down it's it's tough there's a ton of bandwidth needed not only that but the broadcast industry isn't used to working with fewer cameras they'd like to have as many views as they can get and you just can't use that many 4k HDR cameras with the way most production trucks are set up so you wouldn't take paintbrushes from Picasso and expect the same picture same with these guys who have done productions one after another and they've had 30 cameras and 40 cameras and now you tell them you have 13 hmm right also there still isn't a great distribution infrastructure in place DirecTV is one of the few that can get 4k HDR to its customers but you know if I'm putting on CBS issues for a moment here there's no reason if I'm CBS to shoot everything in 4k when they don't have a way to distribute it we kind of come along and help work with them and collaborate with them and you know essentially we're pushing them we're pushing all the technology partners to kind of continue to push this forward maybe the key to getting a better picture from all these broadcast channels isn't to jump straight to high bandwidth 4k just stepping up from the 720p you get now would be a big improvement I think the first step with that in doing an entire production at least in an enhanced sort of visual format would be 1080p HD are we truly believe that HDR makes the difference 1080p HD R I think is a quicker quicker road to getting a complete show that makes a lot of sense 1080p HD R is a step up in resolution the cameras are there the bandwidth is far lower and people can really see that difference even if things were shot in 4k delivering it in 1080p HD R would look a lot better man I hope a year from now we're really in a position to talk about you know not only hopefully deriving the 4k HDR signal but the broadcast partners we work with look at benefits of having their HD format derived from it for better quality with that in place we can start talking about audio DirecTV and others are working with Dolby to deliver immersive Dolby Atmos sound of these broadcasts it started with the 2018 Olympics and we're going to see it in more broadcasts this year as well so not only is the picture you get from your cable and satellite providers finally catching up with your TV's tech and doing a better job of making you feel like you're really there the audio component is coming along too and DirecTV is going to continue to put its resources and experience to work pushing the rest of the industry to make sure you can see it in your home today\n"