The two standards together set the industry on a path towards full Ultra HD services over the next few years by defining how the components of workflow and the infrastructure should interact. The other main ingredients are the higher resolution, or 4K, and High Frame Rate (HFR).

The shape of the new standard has already been revealed, but now the ITU has given it a name, along with a commitment to continue working towards a full immersive experience. “High Dynamic Range Television represents an important step towards the virtual reality quality of experience to be delivered by future broadcasting and multimedia systems,” said François Rancy, Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau.

BT.2100 defines the signaling used to transmit HDR from camera through the delivery infrastructure to TV or client device. This includes conversion from light to electrical signals and their subsequent transmission through the ecosystem in a process often called the Electro Optical Transfer Function (EOTF). BT.2100 includes two recommendations for the EOTF, one for enabling HDR programming over existing workflows and one for new workflows delivering to HDR compliant TVs. These standards in turn are being incorporated within the first Phase A of the Ultra HD Forum’s guidelines for end-to-end workflows involved in creating and delivering live and pre-recorded UHD content, published in April 2016.

BT.2100 allows TV producers to choose from three levels of detail or resolution. These are HDTV or full HD at 1920 by 1080 pixels, UHDTV or 4K at 3840 by 2160 and 8K at 7680 by 4320. All of these in turn incorporate the progressive imaging system defined in BT.2020, which includes extended gamut to allow more colors and bit rate raised from 8 bits to either 10 or 12 bits, which increases the number of shades of each color. While the wide color gamut (WCG) allows TVs to display richer pictures the greater bit depth enables smoother graduation between frames.

“This Recommendation is the culmination of three years of intensive work by dedicated image experts from around the world. HDR images are stunning and this is another major step forward in television quality,” said Andy Quested, Chairman of ITU-R Working Party 6C (WP 6C), which developed the new standard. “Programme makers today need a much wider range of options in order to meet the expectations of the different platforms they must supply, and this need for flexibility is catered for within the framework of a stable ITU-R Recommendation.”

ITU is the United Nations agency for standardizing information and communication technologies. Its remit includes allocation of global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, as well as developing the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies interconnect.