EP034: Is HDR Really Taking Off?

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:16:02
Robbie
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. And today we're taking a look at whether HDR has really taken off. Or maybe not. Stay tuned.

00:00:16:04 - 00:00:34:15
Joey
This podcast is sponsored by Flanders Scientific leaders in color accurate display solutions for professional video. Whether you're a colorist, an editor, a DIT, or a broadcast engineer, Flanders Scientific has a professional display solution to meet your needs. Learn more at Flanders scientific.com.

00:00:34:17 - 00:00:44:15
Robbie
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another installment of The Offset Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Robbie Carman. With me, as always, is Joey D’Anna. Hey, Joey, how are you doing, buddy?

00:00:44:17 - 00:00:46:02
Joey
Hey, everyone.

00:00:46:04 - 00:01:04:21
Robbie
Joey. So today I want to talk about something that I think, maybe is slightly controversial. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's not, but maybe it's just me that thinks it's like, oh, we got to be careful here. And that's the idea of whether HDR has really taken off, for, what do you think?

00:01:04:21 - 00:01:32:20
Robbie
Probably over a decade now. We've been talking about HDR in some flavor. I mean, we've done a lot of training about it. We've done a lot of evangelizing about it. We've talked about everything from HDR, you know, ten and ten plus and Dolby Vision and all these workflows. You know, and recently this kind of came to, a little bit of, you know, the forethought in our thinking just because I'm sure everybody who's watching the episode is aware of Steve Yedlin, I guess, seminar on HDR.

00:01:32:20 - 00:01:54:02
Robbie
And that was kind of, you know, received and different levels of, you know, acceptance and, and pushback and all sorts of stuff throughout the, they have the web. But, you know, I wanted to take a, a little bit, a little bit of a slightly different spin on it for this episode. Because, you know, it's again, it's something that we've been talking a lot about over the past decade.

00:01:54:04 - 00:02:14:04
Robbie
But the question I have for today, has it really taken off right. It's something that you always hear about, but where kind of is the current state of it? And I think that's a little debatable, depending on who you ask, what the view on it is, what level you are in terms of production and post-production and, you know, the type of content you're doing.

00:02:14:06 - 00:02:38:06
Robbie
And it's a little more nuanced than just, yes, it's taken off or. No, it's not taken off. So I want to explore that thought, those those thoughts today. And I guess we'll start out with, you know, kind of the first part of this is it does seem to be everywhere. Would you agree with that assessment that HDR, no matter where you look on streaming platforms, on the web, etc., it's there.

00:02:38:08 - 00:02:47:12
Robbie
And it seems to be everywhere, but I'm not sure that's the best metrics of metric of has it taken off just because it's on a lot of places, you know?

00:02:47:14 - 00:03:19:18
Joey
Yeah. Because if you look at kind of the penetration of HDR in the market in terms of hardware. Yeah. It's everywhere. Almost every device being sold right now that has a screen can show an HDR image and can decode an HDR signal and is basically ready for any flavor of HDR. I believe the stat is now either 8 or 9 out of ten consumer televisions being sold support not just HDR, but Dolby Vision.

00:03:19:20 - 00:03:49:00
Joey
And Android supports it. So every Android mobile device all the Apple mobile ecosystem supports it. So basically every smartphone and tablet that's available for sale. And now we're seeing it on computer displays, on desktop computers, laptop computers, basically anything that you buy with a screen is gonna support HDR, which is like, you know, compared to the last big transition we had, which was SD to HD.

00:03:49:04 - 00:04:21:04
Joey
I think that happened a lot slower in terms of displays, right? Yeah, we we we are getting HDR available everywhere. And now we're seeing it on services available everywhere as well. All of the TV streaming platforms support it. And every day we're getting more and more, online streaming platforms, social media platforms, supporting HDR. So it does from an availability standpoint.

00:04:21:06 - 00:04:32:21
Joey
It's absolutely everywhere. So why does it now kind of feel like why isn't everything HDR? Why isn't everything that we're doing and producing. Exactly. Or it doesn't feel right.

00:04:33:02 - 00:04:54:06
Robbie
It doesn't feel right. And I think there are you know, I think that's all spot on. I think clearly the, the hardware at the consumer level, the hardware at the, you know, the professional level, the mastering level is there. You know, it seems like, you know, if you're going to invest in a new reference monitor these days, you're probably going to invest in one that can do, you know, very low levels of HDR performance there.

00:04:54:12 - 00:05:12:02
Robbie
And but I agree, it does feel like it's starting off. And, you know, with the O2 platforms, it's kind of a weird thing because I think you're right. Yes. They all offer whether it's a straight HDR ten or whether it's Dolby Vision, whatever, you know, I mean, you can't go on Netflix and not see HDR content. Same for these other platforms.

00:05:12:02 - 00:05:36:09
Robbie
But there's a there's a cyclical caveat or asterisks by that. If you have the right plan. Right. You know, all of these all of these OTT platforms, the yeah, the availability is there. But it's they're differentiating a little bit, technically differentiating between if you have the entry level plan. Yeah, you're probably not going to get HDR, Dolby Atmos, etc. that's going to be reserved.

00:05:36:11 - 00:06:02:14
Robbie
You know, same thing with the FHD. That's going to be reserved for the higher tier plans that, you know, I have to question how many people in the consumer landscape don't put those two things together. Right. They go cool. I just went to, you know, big box electronics store, got my HDR television. They get home and they hook up their basic level of plan and think that they're watching HDR, right?

00:06:02:16 - 00:06:11:14
Robbie
I mean, I would have to imagine there's a few people who fall in that category who have to have the right hardware but haven't married it up to the right plan.

00:06:11:16 - 00:06:47:07
Joey
As much as I hate to admit it, I think there's probably more people like that than not like that. And I think that's that's kind of one of the bigger problems, because no matter how much us nerds are into it, if it's not the default, most consumers won't know it's there. I, I had family members that up until very recently had a standard Def cable box plugged composite into an HDTV, with it being stretched horizontally, and they didn't know like the to them, that's just what TV looked like.

00:06:47:07 - 00:06:51:16
Joey
And it nothing seemed wrong to them. So it's funny about that.

00:06:51:16 - 00:07:14:11
Robbie
I have to. I had a similar experience with a family member and went over to their house and they had run over. I don't know how they did this, but they had run over the cable attaching their cable box to their TV with like the vacuum cleaner and split the cable. You know what it was? It was a S-Video cable like that Carol end and I couldn't find and that's video cable anywhere.

00:07:14:16 - 00:07:35:13
Robbie
Like anywhere. I was like, I don't have any more of those in the box of tricks. But no, I, I agree, I mean, and I think that there's, you know, a sponsor of the show and good friend from Ron Desmond, I said to us once until the base level plans kind of incorporate HDR, then maybe it really hasn't taken off.

00:07:35:13 - 00:07:51:11
Robbie
And I, you know, and I didn't really put too much, you know, thought into that at the time when they said that. But now that I think about it, that that is probably likely a big mismatch where people go, oh, my new TV looks great. Not even realizing that they're not leveraging the HDR content.

00:07:51:13 - 00:08:25:04
Joey
Yeah. Now one thing where that is the case and I've said it before, I'll say it again. I think the biggest evangelist for HDR in terms of showing it to the consumer. Yep. Is the iPhone right? Because and it's interesting, it's not even for video. The default iPhone configuration takes photos in HDR, you know, and if you send them via iMessage to another iPhone, they display in HDR completely by default.

00:08:25:06 - 00:08:53:18
Joey
Yep. You would not believe how many people just think their iPhone takes better pictures, because now it's displaying it in HDR. And when you get a picture from somebody, you know, somebody text you a picture, it comes up in HDR. It looks beautiful, pops off the screen. People are not knowing that that's what HDR looks like and not associating it with things like their TV and streaming content and things like that.

00:08:53:18 - 00:09:00:00
Joey
There's a big disconnect there, and I think it's an opportunity for kind of evangelizing the consumer a bit.

00:09:00:02 - 00:09:19:16
Robbie
Yeah. And I think Apple in particular has done a fantastic job in the Apple way of putting that stuff in front of people without, you know, hitting them over the head with the technical aspects of it. And, you know, there are some, you know, obvious differences with HDR playback and performance on a mobile device like that versus a consumer TV.

00:09:19:18 - 00:09:35:22
Robbie
We don't want to get into all the details about how the various levels of Dolby Vision and stuff work with that, but, I do think they have done a good job. Let's take a slightly different spin at this. Now that we've acknowledged there might be a slight disconnect between people buying capable hardware and then the services, that they're using.

00:09:36:00 - 00:09:59:04
Robbie
You know, the other question that I have about this, and when I, when I talk to colleagues, you know, of ours and friends of ours and stuff like that about, you know, what they're doing, it just kind of hits me really hard. That HDR still seems to be for a lot of higher end content. And it really, even though people are prepared, have prepared themselves.

00:09:59:04 - 00:10:22:20
Robbie
They bought HDR monitors. They're doing a couple of HDR projects a year here. You know, one movie here, one movie there or whatever. It just seems like the middle level production and consequently the post-production services, for those middle level productions and low end productions for sure, just haven't really embraced this. Right. It's just sort of like, you know, oh, well, what do we need that for?

00:10:22:20 - 00:10:39:17
Robbie
Right. And I, I was thinking about this before we started recording today. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Cost is a factor. You know, it does take some extra time, does take some extra effort. Does, you know, at least on the post-production side, does require some investment in the gear and stuff to do it.

00:10:39:19 - 00:10:59:08
Robbie
But, you know, one of the things I thought of and I want to get your take on this is, you know, early on, I think I was really excited about the language of HDR and what I mean by that is that, okay, we are going to have something here that is clearly and demonstratively different than the SDR content that we're we're watching.

00:10:59:08 - 00:11:24:01
Robbie
Right? And early on, it felt like people were doing that. We were cranking it to 11 and kind of making it its own thing. And the past couple of years, I think you're really hard pressed to tell the difference between, in a lot of cases, between the screen version of a show and the HDR version of the show, because it seems like everybody is super conservative, super gun shy about pushing it.

00:11:24:01 - 00:11:50:17
Robbie
Right? So yeah, you might have a great, you know, an HDR grade that's other than 75 to 250 nits of peak luminance, you know, with hotspots. And it's like, what's the point? Like, why are we doing I think that like, you know, that that push back has been well, it's so different. I hate it. It's ugly. It gets into some of the sentiment from the discussion about this, but I think it's like it's disappointing to me that that's where we are with the language of HDR.

00:11:50:19 - 00:12:13:10
Robbie
And I think it's it's it's making it for that middle sized company. Just a really tough argument to like, why would we pay extra money to basically have the same look and feel that we do now? And it's kind of turned a little bit into the higher end productions, just doing it because it's part of the deliverable to get their show on the OTT platform, but it doesn't really feel like they want to do it.

00:12:13:12 - 00:12:23:09
Robbie
It doesn't really feel like they put a lot of effort into it sometimes, I don't know, am I wrong about that? Has that? Has that have we regressed about the language of HDR in the past couple of years?

00:12:23:11 - 00:12:52:08
Joey
I think so I tend to think so. There are so many films and shows that are HDR and are graded in a way that. Basically, I think a lot of people are using the same, print emulation looks that they've always used because they're really pretty in their own way, and then they're kind of encapsulating them into HDR and then boosting the brightness a little bit, and that's about it.

00:12:52:08 - 00:13:22:00
Joey
And don't get me wrong, I don't want to dictate a creative style to anyone. I think that, that's completely within the realm of what the filmmakers can and should decide their images should look like, and the question of should the HDR look different is it's a big one. It's a valid one because in theory, that shouldn't.

00:13:22:00 - 00:13:47:14
Joey
Right? In theory, you should have the best possible version of your film, the one you want people to see, how you want people to see it. And yes, if it goes down the line to a less good format, you can adapt it to that format. But in general, you want your Master Hero deliverable to be. This is the the absolute best way I want it to be presented to the audience.

00:13:47:16 - 00:14:09:06
Joey
You know, we see that with top level films that, you know, film in Imax. So the filmmakers like, you need to go see this in an Imax film theater to get the whole experience right. That's fine. There are still 35 millimeter prints going out to other theaters. You know, and they're still, you know, HD or two K DCP is going out to theaters of those films.

00:14:09:08 - 00:14:39:21
Joey
But the idea is that the filmmaker decided, okay, my number one, my vision of it is in this format, this visual, and then everything else is going to be derived from that. I think a lot of filmmakers and a lot of, I think a lot of filmmakers right now are setting that default deliverable of where I want my absolute master image to be is kind of an old SDR.

00:14:39:23 - 00:15:01:20
Robbie
But is that is that is that driven by just their, their taste and what they like and what they know, or is that driven by like, you know, the idea that where the most eyeballs are because I think arguably the most eyeballs are still going to be on an SDR image, you know, no matter where it is back, you know, back seat, you know, head rest of a plane, you know, somewhere else, you know, that, you know, doesn't have that capability.

00:15:01:22 - 00:15:30:00
Joey
Yes. It comes with chicken in the egg problem. Yeah. If a filmmaker does want to embrace kind of what you can get with HDR visually that you can't get on a SDR display, it's tough because it does mean sacrificing what a lot of those downstream viewers are going to see. But there's plenty of filmmakers that do that with things like Imax as well already, and they're kind of considered the forefront right there.

00:15:30:00 - 00:15:52:08
Joey
They're the top, top level. So it's tough. It's a it's a tough question. I do think there's a lot of momentum in there as well. It is the images they're used to looking at that they're comfortable with that. And you know what? That's an artistic decision. And I don't want to dictate to not do that. But it is a little bit of a chicken and the egg problem isn't it.

00:15:52:10 - 00:16:14:15
Robbie
Yeah I agree and I think some of this in part has been like, how should I say this? I think if we had started out a couple of years ago, you know, decade ago with the idea that, okay, we are going to totally divorce the HDR component of this from the SDR component of it. We'd be having a slightly different discussion to these days.

00:16:14:15 - 00:16:46:02
Robbie
I think a lot of this mid-level leans towards HDR is derives because of the need or not the need, but the requirement to package the SDR alongside with the HDR for deliverables. So a lot of these OTT platforms, without the benefit of doing a completely bespoke SDR version and a separate HDR version. Right. And I think that that that, you know, that has and we've experienced this rate, you know, you might want to crank the HDR grade to a million, but guess what?

00:16:46:04 - 00:17:07:16
Robbie
Doesn't really translate all that well when you have to go to, you know, lower performance HDR or the SDR. So therefore we're just going to be a whole lot more conservative about it in general. So we can pretty much get the same thing between it. Now, companies like Dolby have, I think, started to come around to address this discrepancy in this problem because they've heard from enough people.

00:17:07:18 - 00:17:26:07
Robbie
You know, it'll be interesting to see what how Dolby handles this in particular Dolby, because that's where a lot of these, you know, the multifaceted deliverables with SDR going. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it, you know, in future iterations of, of Dolby Vision. But I think that's that's a large part of it. I think that people have gone cool.

00:17:26:07 - 00:17:47:17
Robbie
This HDR itself might be awesome and great to look at, but it does. It's inconsequential to me because I can't get that look consistently downstream, you know what I'm saying? And I think they've just decided, well, you know what? The path of least resistance is just make it HDR ish. And then we have a much better fighting chance of the SDR being the way that we want it, you know, and I think.

00:17:47:17 - 00:18:10:02
Joey
That's the other side to that is, you know, from a artistic perspective, at least now, even if you do, you know, kind of box yourself into an SDR grade in an HDR container, at least now the playback is going to be a lot more consistent on devices everywhere, which I think is a huge move forward.

00:18:10:04 - 00:18:42:14
Robbie
But I do think it's going to take a, a development or a change in thinking maybe if a change in technology where we just go, this SDR is one thing and this HDR is a different thing, right? And I think that that would empower filmmakers a little bit to kind of think about them as, you know, because right now it's a challenge to think about it as how do I create one cohesive thing that works across this broad range of performance capabilities, and that's can be challenging.

00:18:42:14 - 00:19:00:09
Robbie
It's certainly challenging, you know, to, to do it when you're trying to really push things. And I think that, you know, maybe we'll be to that place eventually where it just kind of goes, nope, this is HDR. Our only content movie show, whatever. And we're not even going to worry about this year. Are we there yet?

00:19:00:10 - 00:19:22:03
Robbie
Not even close. But I do think that that eventually will. You know, that could change the thinking about it. Let me ask you a slightly different question now. You know, I think when I think about that middle sized company, middle to small size company, what has been the primary limitation of them getting into HDR? I think it's a couple things.

00:19:22:04 - 00:19:47:17
Robbie
Number one, from a business point of view, it's just demand, you know, who's asking for this content. Probably not a lot of middle to lower and tier people are. But two I think there's been some technical hurdles, namely the cost of capable HDR reference monitoring that stopped a lot of people from getting into this. Right? I mean, even today here in 2025, I mean, you still have to spend, you know, to get a traditional reference monitor.

00:19:47:23 - 00:20:03:21
Robbie
You still have to spend, you know, a lot of money. Right? And, you know, that's changed a little bit in the past couple of years. You know, FSI has come out with their QD line, which was a little more affordable. Companies like ACS have come out with, you know, they're also offering the cutting monitor. Now that I think is like 1800 bucks.

00:20:03:21 - 00:20:21:04
Robbie
1900 bucks, I mean, so we are getting better at that. But then, you know, there's a whole bunch of people that want to do this. So they go get a consumer TV that can do HDR and then they don't. You know, we've discussed this ad nauseam in other episodes. They're running into technical problems. They don't realize they're having because of the capabilities of the set.

00:20:21:04 - 00:20:34:14
Robbie
So, I mean, I think that we are also not quite there yet on the acceptance factor or the the infiltration, if you will, of capable reference monitoring over, broad swath of, you know, types of companies.

00:20:34:14 - 00:20:56:12
Joey
So yeah, it becomes an issue of where's the demarcation line of this amount of investment is good enough to really do professional work that I want to stand behind with my client versus I'm kind of experimenting to see the future, but I'm going to go back to what I know as a post-production vendor, which is SDR.

00:20:56:14 - 00:21:15:12
Robbie
Yep, yep. I think that's true. And I think, you know, there's there's been other hurdles too. I mean, I, at least initially, you know, if you wanted to get into a Dolby Vision workflow, you know, years ago, it was super expensive. Then they dropped the price, you know, and they're still I mean, the cool thing is, you know, obviously, you can do basic Dolby Vision packaging and a tool like DaVinci resolve.

00:21:15:14 - 00:21:31:22
Robbie
There is still a license to get trims. But now the good news is that it's, perpetual license, not a yearly thing. So you can kind of buy it once and and be done with it. And, you know, it'd be interesting to see where they go with that in the future as well. But I mean, those kind of HDR reference monitoring I think has been a big hurdle.

00:21:31:22 - 00:21:55:02
Robbie
But it's still doesn't fix the issue of demand. Right. You're not going to get a lot of people to spend a ton of money on reference monitoring if nobody's asking for it. And so I think, you know, one of the problems or issues with AI, as far as I'm concerned, with uptake of HDR for that middle to lower end crowd is just how to sell it, right?

00:21:55:06 - 00:22:13:23
Robbie
How to convince people that it's there. And we know you and I offline have this talk frequently about how to get more HDR working, whatever. You know, and I think from our perspective, one of the things that we we've been trying to do, with varying levels of success, is just put it on every single project or every every bit, right?

00:22:13:23 - 00:22:41:13
Robbie
And just say, hey, this is an optional thing that we think you could do. And, you know, for a television network, it might be. Well, yeah. Okay. Well, this show is just not going to be HDR, so just give us the SDR. But for that independent filmmaker, you know, doing an independent narrative, doing an independent doc or whatever, I do think that there is logic in, hey, if you haven't already been commissioned by one of these OTT platforms, this gives you a leg up.

00:22:41:13 - 00:23:11:06
Robbie
You have a complete set of deliverables that you can now go, oh, hey, Netflix or hey, Amazon or whatever. We have this HDR version of the film too. And I do think there is some logic that makes those, those those films and those projects more, marketable. But it's still again, it's an additional cost that people look at and go, do I really need to spend this money when the nobody's really asking me for this yet?

00:23:11:08 - 00:23:14:17
Robbie
And I don't know, that's a that's a tough nut.

00:23:14:19 - 00:23:40:23
Joey
Yeah. And that's kind of the hard question is, well, you know, as a post-production vendor, do you try to move that ball forward by just including it at either no cost or low cost. So you can kind of get the clients into their or do you, you know, do you integrate it into the bid for everything and just kind of raise prices to compensate?

00:23:40:23 - 00:23:46:15
Joey
There's a couple different ways that you can kind of attack that. And I don't think there's a perfect answer for that.

00:23:46:17 - 00:24:06:03
Robbie
An important part of the challenge here too is that like, okay, fine, you can put hey, here's some, you know, Dolby Vision grading and packaging or whatever and put it on your bid. And people just go, what's that? What do you mean what does that do for me? And so then you open up this can of worms, or it's like you have to demonstrate and show them what it means.

00:24:06:08 - 00:24:25:21
Robbie
You have to have the it's not just the cost that's on the Po or the the bid. It becomes this whole other thing where for the uninitiated, you're having to show them and try it and have those, kind of, acidic, in creative, you know, discussions with them. This is what we could do. How do you feel about that?

00:24:25:21 - 00:24:49:09
Robbie
And so it's like it ends up being for the post-production vendor. It actually ends up being just a crap ton of extra work besides just the the doing it part. The sales, the communication, all of that. So it's like, you know, you think it's bad when people are like, well, what screen should I look at have that conversation about, you know, your HDR and you know what.

00:24:49:11 - 00:25:02:23
Robbie
What are they actually seeing on this device versus that device? It can get to be a very technical conversation where very quickly you can get clients to gloss over and just go, yeah, and that's not really my thing, you know? So like I think.

00:25:02:23 - 00:25:25:05
Joey
It's, you know, the other side of that coin though, is if you do kind of start out in an HDR world and you say, hey, take your iPad Pro, flip it into reference mode, view this on that. You can use this as a way to bypass the. But on my grandma's computer at their beach house, it looks kind of purple.

00:25:25:07 - 00:25:27:09
Joey
Notes from the client.

00:25:27:11 - 00:25:44:05
Robbie
Yeah. You know, I think a lot about, our audio partners and how they do a lot of things, and it's like, you know, we had a discussion with them a couple couple weeks ago, and it was like, we start every project in Atmos, you know? And for those of you who are not familiar with it, you know, Atmos is the audio equivalent to Dolby Vision.

00:25:44:07 - 00:26:05:01
Robbie
You know, kind of the wide end of the funnel. And, you know, I'm like, really? You're doing everything in Atmos when nobody's even paying for it. And it goes, yeah, it just makes all of the downstream deliverables much easier. Right? So if somebody needs, seven one and A51 and a stereo, we can just do it all from that one wide end of the funnel.

00:26:05:03 - 00:26:31:03
Robbie
And I just have not yet to date, really found that to be true with the Dolby Vision workflow in particular, just because it's just sort of like there's so much opinion on the matter, right? And there's so much, kind of forced feedback about what you're seeing looks so much different than what you have traditionally seen that people just don't want to even get into that ecosystem because they're scared of it.

00:26:31:03 - 00:26:32:16
Robbie
So, you know, but I do, I.

00:26:32:16 - 00:26:56:03
Joey
Do I will say this, I have I've on more than one project, done the full Dolby Vision workflow, graded it in HDR, did the SDR trim just as a way to make my SDR. I started doing it. It's just an experiment. I was like, okay, well, this client, this project's not going to be HDR, but it is really pretty.

00:26:56:05 - 00:27:13:13
Joey
Why don't I graded in HDR, then take another take a little bit of extra time, make a really good SDR trim pass and just send that to the client as my grade. And then get notes on it, and then go through the rest of the process and deliver it that way. And for a couple things, it actually worked really well.

00:27:13:13 - 00:27:30:02
Joey
It was a little bit of an extra time involved. So it's not something I would recommend on a major critical project, but it meant at the end of the day, I had a Dolby Vision master that project ready to go if I ever need it, and the client had already approved the the SDR trim.

00:27:30:04 - 00:28:10:05
Robbie
Yeah. And I, you know, and honestly, that's the way I mean, I think that's the way I would like to be working. I think the reality of it is, is that, it's kind of more, more, more times than not. It's the other way around. It's okay. We've got an SR version. Now let's kind of go up to HDR, you know, with that said, I think there's another thing that's at play here with, just the industry and kind of the attitudes in general that is I think a lot of people and I've talked to people, that have this feeling that they are feeling dictated to, told what to do.

00:28:10:05 - 00:28:40:14
Robbie
So when it comes to their creative process right now, if you look at it from like a 50,000 point of view, we've always been told what to do. There's always specs and deliverables and QC and all that kind of stuff. But I think there is this gut reaction to I am not going to be told how bright to make something, how like in like there's all these myths, I think, that are so like I had somebody the other day told me, well, like, well, Dobie Dobie mandates that you have everything at a thousand nits.

00:28:40:16 - 00:29:03:07
Robbie
What do they know? But nobody mandates that. Right. But I think that those kind of things have they've they've snowballed. Right. They've the people are being like, I'm going to have this. I hate this because some big, massive corporation is telling me how to make my film. And you know what? Whether that's true or not, I think is somewhat debatable, but I don't think that my personal opinion, nobody's saying that.

00:29:03:07 - 00:29:25:16
Robbie
But I think, yes, you can have those debates, but I think that that has, that has polarized our industry a little bit about this. And, and Steve's recent seminar, I thought, you know, there were some things I agreed with in that seminar. There were some things that I disagreed with in that seminar. But what I walked away from the most after watching it was, man, we are.

00:29:25:16 - 00:29:52:21
Robbie
He is a identifying a polarization point in the industry about this. That's probably not going to get better anytime soon, because there are people who have already convinced themselves, this is horrible, I hate it. Stop telling me what to do. And then there are people who are like, nope, this is cool. I want to try things. And I don't think just like we have in other aspects of our society, I don't think one side is going to convince the other side or vice versa.

00:29:52:21 - 00:29:54:09
Robbie
You know what I'm saying?

00:29:54:10 - 00:30:39:09
Joey
Yeah. And I would just say I don't want to dive deep into Steve's presentation because I think everybody that's that's watching this should take it's long. It's about two hours. And it is massively worth not just watching, but watching in detail and considering in detail, because there are I, I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but the way he gets to the conclusions, even to the conclusions that I don't agree with, are so logically laid out that just from a a learning perspective and understanding the science of imaging, it is worth that presentation is worth its weight in absolute gold just to watch and understand his reasoning and follow his train of thought, because

00:30:39:09 - 00:30:42:04
Joey
it's so well thought out.

00:30:42:06 - 00:30:48:04
Robbie
I mean, clearly, I mean, he's a he's a master, master explainer, and I but I do think, well, we're seeing.

00:30:48:06 - 00:31:20:17
Joey
That kind of duality here even right now in this podcast because earlier I'm like, yeah, why don't people want to go past SDR luminance saturation? And then the next sentence I said was, yeah, but I don't want to tell the artists how to do it. So I should be saying do whatever you want. But I'm also saying at the same time, I want to see these kind, this, this kind of style and, and more, you know, more HDR ish images out in the world.

00:31:20:17 - 00:31:23:19
Joey
So I'm kind of conflicting with myself right now.

00:31:24:00 - 00:31:50:10
Robbie
It's complicated simply because, I mean, I do agree with the side of the arguments about the emotional and like kind of intrinsic feel, feel differences, like that's you can't get around that. Right? Like when you're, you know, for 100 and something years, you know, used to content that is what we're used to. Everything is going to feel, feel differently.

00:31:50:10 - 00:32:06:09
Robbie
But what I'm, what I'm, I'm pushing back on is just that, like, that doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it different. I remember when I lived in Australia, right. And like, you know, first time I ever, you know, when I land in the country and we got a cat in a cab in the, you know, the drivers on the other side of the car.

00:32:06:09 - 00:32:21:18
Robbie
And we're driving on the other side of the road. Right. And I remember going, you know, though, we're driving on the wrong side of the road. And the cab driver just looked back and just said, no, it's there's just the other side of the road or the different side of the road, you know, and it's just like it feels to me.

00:32:21:18 - 00:32:44:00
Robbie
That's kind of like an analogous thing to some of those HDR. I mean, it's like, yeah, I can totally get with how people think this is the wrong side of the road, but in reality it's just different in any difference, any challenge to established workflow doctrine, whatever it may be, always has pushback, always has a feeling of wrongness to it, always you know it.

00:32:44:02 - 00:33:04:01
Robbie
And I just think that, I just think that we're not developed in that we're still so early on in the infancy of this, where it just really hasn't developed. And I also, I mean, I don't know, I don't tell me how you feel about this. I don't think that the technology has also fully developed yet on a lot of levels.

00:33:04:01 - 00:33:25:12
Robbie
Right. And that's even that's even a baseline. Like you're a big evangelist for the the advantages of peak as an absolute kind of, you know, hey, every, you know, absolute relationship between light output and, and that kind of stuff. I mean, who's to say that peak can't adapt and change over the next decade or two to, you know, fix some of the technical problems?

00:33:25:12 - 00:33:41:11
Robbie
We've seen that with, you know, code management systems like ACS, which continues to adapt like there's nothing to say that, you know, peak HLG and that kind of stuff. Can't continue to adapt to, address some of the potential limitations of it right now.

00:33:41:12 - 00:34:01:11
Joey
Yeah. And we've seen that already. And I think we definitely need more of it. You know, one of the big problems with PCU is you can't map up which for some viewing environments just doesn't work. Dolby started to address that with like their Dolby Vision IQ, where it has like a light sensor on the display and it kind of adapts to the viewing environment a little bit better.

00:34:01:11 - 00:34:27:04
Joey
We're also seeing that, you know, kind of back to the beginning of this discussion. The mobile devices have kind of led the charge on that, because if you look at HDR content on your phone, you can crank the brightness up, you can crank the brightness down. You're you're managing your own display brightness on a mobile device drastically more often than you are on a television or in a reference environment.

00:34:27:06 - 00:34:54:15
Joey
And I don't think the standards were initially designed with that in mind. So as this evolves, the ability to handle different viewing environments, I think is going to improve, I hope, but also we can kind of like, do we need to go up? Do we need to be able to encode up to 10,000 nits? Maybe looking back, that's not necessary, and it would be a more efficient use of data to be able to scale the peak curve.

00:34:54:16 - 00:35:21:05
Joey
For example, to make better use of, code value, precision, things like that. You know, you're right. These things are yes, they're standardized and standards do evolve. And I would like to, I think, to get us to this point where like everything is HDR and we're, we're in happy, wonderful imaginary land. Like we kind of said, we aren't yet I think the standards do need to evolve a little bit.

00:35:21:05 - 00:35:30:06
Joey
The technology does need to evolve a little bit with kind of what we've learned over the past decade of implementing this kind of work.

00:35:30:08 - 00:35:48:07
Robbie
Yeah. I mean, so to kind of sum that up, I don't think the pushback, I got from the non HDR crowd is invalid at all. I think there's a lot of the liberty to the things that they say. But I also think that the things that the HDR proponents are trying to do, are also perfectly valid.

00:35:48:07 - 00:36:13:23
Robbie
And it just feels that we have, again, just like a lot of things in our society, we've made this into a polarizing thing when I just don't think it really needs to be. I think that, like, we can, we can, we can do both. We can push the technical and, performance, you know, abilities of what we're doing now with an eye towards legacy and esthetic and all of all of that kind of stuff.

00:36:14:04 - 00:36:44:00
Robbie
I don't think it really has to be an if or then conversation. And again, I think a lot of this a lot of this is driven by the fact that early on and still today, it is challenging to do everything in one in all inclusive packaging. Right? You know, if Netflix said tomorrow, hey guys, every production can deliver a bespoke SDR and an HDR package, and we're not going to derive the SDR out of that HDR package at all.

00:36:44:02 - 00:37:02:00
Robbie
It would make a lot of people really happy, right? Because then that because then they wouldn't have to be like, oh, now we have to, you know, we have to, you know, down, you know, dumbed down our HDR to make the SDR look good. So I think that part of it, you know, with all of the work that people are doing on the technical side and the creative side, is, is getting there.

00:37:02:02 - 00:37:20:21
Robbie
But the last thing I want to say about on this, on this topic for, you know, small companies like us, is I would just say, don't give up on it either. I just think that, you know, people, you know, a decade ago who were like, oh, man, I'm not getting into 3D. I think, like they were probably right about that.

00:37:20:21 - 00:37:45:11
Robbie
Right? Like, you know, you know, even though it's making a little bit of a comeback with headsets and all that kind of stuff. I still think it's proven itself to be a little bit of a niche thing. I just don't think with HDR we are the the snowball effect over the past decade is so massive, with so many billions right involved that nobody's walking away from this yet, you know?

00:37:45:11 - 00:38:06:11
Robbie
And so I think that like, you gotta be in it on some level knowledgeable about or whatever. And this stuff about the language of it and the creative, you know, aspect, I think that we get worked on. And also, I just want to say one more thing about the creative side, because it just dawned on me and I know that you'll you'll love this reference because he's one of your favorite colorist, right?

00:38:06:12 - 00:38:25:20
Robbie
Go do yourself a favor and watch some stylized HDR shows from, Ian. Light on, void of light on. Right? Yeah. What was the, what was the, the show that he did that I know tales From the loop was one of my favorite on Amazon that he did. What was the one that you really like?

00:38:25:22 - 00:38:26:17
Joey
Glow.

00:38:26:19 - 00:38:29:12
Robbie
Oh, yeah. Glow. That's a nice. And so, like, I.

00:38:29:12 - 00:38:37:04
Joey
I still think that is the benchmark for a incredible looking HDR grade that.

00:38:37:04 - 00:38:40:12
Robbie
Had a throwback throwback to the screen. It had a throwback look.

00:38:40:12 - 00:38:52:17
Joey
But it just worked in its own way. It wasn't a it was a it was a visual. I, I need to go back and rewatch it again with this conversation in mind. But I think about I.

00:38:52:17 - 00:39:14:00
Robbie
Use I think a lot of his work and that kind of work in that vein, to incorporate a lot of the esthetic choices that were made in the film and SDR world, and try to update those a little bit into the HDR world. I felt the same way about the Amazon series. He did tales from the loop. I just I was just like, this is gorgeous.

00:39:14:00 - 00:39:34:03
Robbie
Like, absolutely gorgeous. And I felt the same way about, our buddy Dan Moran and his grade on, adolescence, which is like the biggest show and the, you know, biggest thing in the world right now. And Netflix, again, you know, and Dan has probably one of the, the sharpest, most creative filmic eyes that I know.

00:39:34:05 - 00:39:55:02
Robbie
It's incredible to see when people put in the effort. And I think that's part of it. I think it's like giving the artists space and time to sort of figure this out a little bit, right. And I think that's part of the dictating thing, too. It's like, oh yeah, you've done all this work, now you need to do an HDR version and everybody scrambles and just goes, whatever.

00:39:55:04 - 00:40:13:10
Robbie
But when you allow them the space to go to think about it and go, all right, how can we get our look and feel into this place? Really magical things happen. So I would encourage everybody to go check out some of that more modern stuff. Ian's work, Dan's work, because it's it's like to me, it's like the best of both worlds.

00:40:13:10 - 00:40:48:11
Robbie
It really is giving a little bit of that, you know, hat tip to the, the traditional esthetic, but updating it for an HDR world, I mean, listen, man, I, I know that if we could, you know, be in a situation where, you know, we hit that mark, a lot of people's ideas about HDR would probably change. Right. And I think, you know, again, for me, it's just that those people and the teams involved in those projects and many projects like them were given the time, the effort, the headspace to think about how can we get this into an HDR looking thing that that still works for everybody.

00:40:48:13 - 00:41:19:06
Robbie
And I think to, you know, the detractors point, yeah, there's plenty of bad HDR, there's plenty of bad HDR, but there's plenty of bad HDR, right? Don't let the bad HDR be, you know, the the definitive statement on the matter because I think if you do a little digging, you will find some some good HDR. And, you know, this is we'll have to revisit this in a couple of years because I think that, you know, again, it that's, you know, it's a still an ongoing developing, set of things.

00:41:19:07 - 00:41:39:12
Robbie
And now that we have, you know, a good, solid decade under our belts, I, for one, am excited where the next decade goes on all levels, monitors, mobile devices, the standards bodies with, you know, things like PCU and HLG, like color spaces, all of that kind of stuff. I think we are alone. Yeah, okay. We've learned a lot.

00:41:39:14 - 00:41:53:05
Robbie
We know it works. Now we know doesn't work. You know, we've talked about some of these things in other episodes, right. Like when Brown was on us, you know, on with us talking about monitors and you know, he's going on about rec 2020. Like I'm like, oh, yeah, that doesn't make sense that it was a little ass backwards to begin with.

00:41:53:05 - 00:42:04:20
Robbie
Right. So, you know, I think I think as an industry we are learning it just, you know, it just might not be at the speed to impact somebody's project. Right. The second. But I do think it's going to be, going to get better.

00:42:04:21 - 00:42:06:02
Joey
Agreed.

00:42:06:04 - 00:42:28:20
Robbie
All right, everybody. Well, hey, thanks for checking out another episode of the show. Just as a reminder, you can follow us on Instagram and on Facebook. The show is also available on YouTube and all those places. Just search for the offset podcast. You can always head over to offsetpodcast.com, to find episodes as well. And over there too, we put sometimes put additional show notes, links, you know, transcript, that kind of stuff as well.

00:42:28:22 - 00:42:41:20
Robbie
Thanks as always to our sponsor, Flanders Scientific and to you guys, our audience, who keep watching these shows and, you know, making us want to do them. So we appreciate that as well. Until next time, I'm Robbie Carman.

00:42:41:22 - 00:42:50:08
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna. Thanks for listening.