HDR and UHD developments should be separated out, says SES

Thomas Wrede

High dynamic range (HDR) is “too big a topic” to be simply linked to the rollout of Ultra High Definition content, according to SES’s vice-president, reception systems, Thomas Wrede. 

Delivering the closing keynote at the SES Ultra HD conference in London yesterday, Wrede said that HDR promises to “change television forever” and greatly improve picture quality.

However, he said that attaching its introduction to Ultra HD will mean that the industry will have to come up with an Ultra HD HDR standard and an HDR standard for HD as well.

“I think that this introduction is too big a topic to be just linked to Ultra HD. So maybe we need to decouple the launch of Ultra HD, initially at least, from HDR, also because HDR is very relevant for HD as well,” said Wrede.

He added that, arguably, the same principal should apply to high frame rate (HFR). “I wonder if we must not decouple the image capturing frame rate and the frame rate which is used in the displays from the transport frame rate,” he said.

Speaking more broadly, Wrede claimed that Ultra HD is “here to stay” and will “further enhance consumers’ television experience”. However, he said “live encoders need to improve further”.

He also said that phase two of the DVB-UHD specification should be backwards compatible with phase one, otherwise the industry will be “shooting itself in the foot.”