![]() ![]() You’re more likely to end up with banding, clipping, detail loss, washed-out colors and an image that just doesn’t measure up. For a more detailed dive, check out this series from Mystery Box, a company responsible for many popular HDR videos on YouTube.Ĭan you shoot HDR with a camera that lacks an HDR-friendly log, along with 10-bit recording functions? Sure. Beware that this is a simplified guide for novices. The key to shooting HDR is to have the right equipment and setup. PQ (also known as ST.2084) isn’t backward compatible, so it’s trickier to work with but generally delivers better HDR results. ![]() The main difference is that HLG is designed for old-school broadcast signals, so it’s backward compatible with SDR’s Rec.709. Explaining those is beyond the scope of this article, but both use the Rec.2020 wide color gamut. One key thing to know about HDR is that there are two flavors: PQ (or perceptual quantizer) and HLG (hybrid log gamma). That delivers much smoother gradients between colors and shades. However, HDR TVs and cameras using Rec.2020 standards can record and display color in 10 or more bits, so you get 1,024 levels of luminance between the blackest black and whitest white and over a billion colors. This means you can often see “banding” or blocky color transitions in subtle gradient areas in skies or shadows. Older Rec.709 HDTVs and cameras were generally limited to displaying 8-bit color information, meaning that each pixel has 256 levels between black and white luminance. HDR devices also deliver more colors within that gamut by increasing bit depth. While both are much narrower than the gamut of colors your eyes can perceive, Rec.2020 can show over 100 percent more color than SDR, making for a noticeably richer experience. HDR uses a color gamut called Rec.2020, while SDR uses a gamut called Rec.709. ![]() Certain hues, particularly very saturated colors, are visible on HDR displays but not on standard TVs, projectors or computer displays. The other thing HDR offers is a wider range of colors (called a gamut) and more colors within that gamut (the bit depth). HDR increases dynamic range by increasing brightness, which in turn boosts the contrast between light and dark images, measured in photographic “stops.”HDR is designed to go up to 10,000 nits, around 30 to 40 times more than the screen you’re probably looking at right now. Display brightness is usually expressed in “nits” of peak brightness. For the purposes of this story, though, I’ve included a brief explanation here, as well. For a more technical dive into HDR, check out Engadget’s explainer video. To produce HDR, it’s best to have a decent understanding of how it works. While shooting and editing 4K is not that different from producing HD, HDR changes the entire color space, forcing you to rethink how you shoot, edit and color-correct your videos. If you’re not too discouraged yet, read on. It’s also very demotivating for anyone thinking of making an HDR video (i.e., me) because many folks can’t even play it on their PC right now. While it might not affect that many users, it clearly affects creators who took the time to craft an HDR video. To start, HDR is completely broken on YouTube on PCs right now, and has been for at least two months, thanks to a bug on all Chrome-based browsers and also the clunky way that Windows 10 handles HDR. As a result, the experience is pretty miserable on a Windows 10 PC or Mac and browsers like Google Chrome. Meanwhile, little attention has been paid to YouTubers or PC users. Unfortunately, the key players have focused on professional HDR production and streaming delivery to consumers on HDR TVs. It’s begging for a more streamlined process from acquisition to post-production to final delivery on YouTube. It requires you to know a bunch of different standards, complex color space concepts and endless jargon like “MaxFALL” and “Rec.2020.” Producing HDR is extremely challenging, and depending on what equipment you have and your level of ambition, it may not be worth your time. If you’re now feeling motivated, let me bring you back down to Earth. ![]() If you have a newer HDR-capable phone or TV and want to see the stunning difference between SDR and HDR, watch an ordinary video and then watch this one. While few people own HDR monitors, plenty of folks have HDR televisions and HDR smartphones. The benefits are more dramatic than 4K, which only delivers extra resolution that many people can’t even see. If you’re a producer, HDR video can elevate your work because it’s simply brighter and more colorful than standard video. ![]()
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