4K Blu-ray being finalized by BDA!!

[Jon Fairhurst]

Good points, Tim. Another difficulty is that Apple never adopted the format - and dropped DVD drives (Air) as well. Had the prices dropped more quickly and computer manufacturers adopted BD, it would be a different story today.

Then again, Apple wanted iTunes to succeed. Packaged media was a key competitor, so they weren't motivated to adopt BD regardless of cost.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Back on the HDR thing, SMPTE will soon release its HDR transfer function document.

SMPTE backs ?dazzling? HDR spec | Advanced Television

Typically, Hollywood features are graded for 50 cd/m2 in the cinema and 100 cd/m2 for TV. TVs typically have much higher peak brightness than 100 cd/m2 (like 450 cd/m2 or "nits"), but that makes sense as grading is done in dark rooms and TVs are often viewed near windows at noon.

We don't necessarily need linear coding all the way to sunlight. The eye wants great accuracy around skin tones, but we just need to see that specular highlights, glints, and explosions are bright and shaped well. We don't need great accuracy there. HDR transfer functions often give about half their code values to the 0-100 nit range. The other half of the code values will get you to 1,000 nits if not 10,000. Generally, 10,000 nits is the limit as brighter images can cause discomfort and even eye damage. ("Kids, don't sit so darn close to the 20,000 nit TV!")

I saw an example of the recent Star Trek film where the view is from inside of a large hangar with the door open in the distance. The graphics artist had made a beautiful outdoor image, but after standard grading, the outdoor scene was blown out to near and full white. With HDR grading, you could see the city under sunlight in the background.

One concern is that bright highlights could make films look like high contrast video. That hasn't been my experience. HDR looks really vibrant compared to normal film, but with the details preserved, it looks like what film was intended to be. It doesn't have a video look whatsoever to my eyes - and I'm a person who really dislikes the 120 Hz, high contrast, high noise reduction, soap opera look of many TVs. Instead of looking plastic and processed, HDR looks like quality.