Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 4, 2006. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
In collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Saarbrücken), the company Brightside (formerly Sunnybrook) presented a video codec for HDR data. It allows resolutions of up to 1,920 by 1,080 pixels at 16-bit colour depth and thus, for the first time, offers the ability to exchange HDR sequences in a space-saving manner.
Until now, it was problematic to reduce the HDR colour range to 8 bits using tone mapping before compression. Although the compressed data was significantly smaller, it also exhibited a significant loss of image quality. The new codec continues to use 8-bit compression, but stores additional data in a separate stream with which the HDR details can be reconstructed. This achieves high-quality compression ratios of 80:1, the files are backwards compatible, and MPEG-4, H.264 or Windows Media are also possible as target formats.
At its stand, Brightside Technologies also showed the first 37-inch HDR display (DR37-P), which was developed in collaboration with researchers at the University of British Columbia. A preliminary model had already been on display at the last Siggraph. The DR37-P is ten times brighter than normal displays and offers a hundred times the contrast range. Since the technology is still expensive, film, medical and satellite image processing, which require a high colour range for more precise work, are initially intended as target groups.
Further Links:
- Brightside Technologies
Max Planck Institute f
