High Dynamic Range (HDR) video is taking center stage as a next generation visualization technology. In 2015, the first HDR movies are expected to be released. Moreover, various television makers announced HDR capable sets. Over-the-top (OTT) content providers, such as Netflix, are considering HDR more important than 4K and are consequently planning HDR content delivery. Technological challenges and questions regarding user experience/modelling remain however.
In the context of digital cinema, the dynamic range Electro-Optical Transfer Function (EOTF) of mastering reference displays has been defined with brightness levels ranging up to 10.000 cd/m² for the highlights (SMPTE ST2084:2014). However, the exact specifications for high dynamic range projection in cinema theatres are yet unknown. It is important to understand that the dynamic range of a projected image is not only determined by the specification of the projector, but influenced and limited by the entire theatre setup and the content characteristics. Hence, fully-fledged HDR digital theatres will be extremely expensive not only as it concerns the laser projector technology but also with respect to theatre construction and design. Therefore, the project will attempt to derive realistic guidelines that will allow mid-sized theatres to move to HDR projection without entering into adventurous and revenue-consuming business models.
In parallel, HDR content will not only be delivered by the classical movie studios but also by broadcasters – as is already the case today for Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) content. Hence, it is equally important for these media production houses to understand how to produce and grade HDR content to make it suitable for transmission and visualization on HDR display systems. Moreover, it is also important to render legacy SDR content properly on HDR display systems. Coupled with an increase in luminance range, these displays also offer a wider colour gamut. To preserve colour fidelity during rendering, colour gamut expansion should be taken into account in the SDR-to-HDR conversion process.
The overall goal of HD²R is to provide novel tools and guidelines for HDR digital cinema projectors and theatres, HDR displays, HDR content production and grading, and efficient HDR content coding based upon an improved modelling of the human visual system by extensive visual quality experiments.

Runtime: 2015 - 2017