At the Huawei folding flagship and all-scenario new product launch conference on April 28, Huaa launched the flagship smart screen V Pro. Huawei Smart Screen V Pro, in addition to the top picture quality achieved by high-quality miniLED panels and self-developed Honghu chips, China's independent double Vivid certification, which can be called the benchmark Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, has also become the focus of everyone's attention. In this issue, we start from the HDR Vivid HD video standard and talk about the significance of China's new ultra-high definition audio and video standard that Huawei has been promoting in recent years.
What does the HDR standard mean for high-end TVs?
HdR is called "High Dynamic Range" (High Dynamic Range), and it has more detail in the shadows and highlights than the content of the Standard Brightness Range (SDR), and there is no "dead black" or "dead white" phenomenon. If the ultimate form of screen development is to make the display effect as seen by the naked eye, then HDR is definitely an indispensable key technology.
The standard battle for HDR
However, there is also a certain threshold for achieving true HDR playback, which not only requires the support of the film source, but also puts forward strict requirements for the screen quality of the playback device, chip decoding ability, etc., which also gives birth to a series of HDR standards.
As shown in the table above, at present, the most extensive, universal and free is the HDR10 standard, which has relatively low requirements for equipment, and is public, free, but also incomplete. Because it does not support dynamic metadata, it cannot cope with the vast number of screens, and it cannot be dynamically adjusted according to the picture in real time, so the effect achieved is relatively general.
Support for dynamic metadata are HDR10+ and Dolby Vison. Dolby Vision is the most common HDR standard in today's high-end smart TVs, and its most well-known partner is Apple, where you only need an iPhone to shoot, decode, and play Dolby Vision's standard video.
However, Dolby Vision itself has a high threshold and barrier to hardware, and it also requires high licensing fees, and it will also be due to various factors. HDR10+ is the independent dynamic metadata HDR standard launched by Samsung in order to circumvent The Dolby Vision authorization, but because almost only Samsung's own devices are used, plus there are quite a few hidden licensing fees, resulting in very few related film sources, so the popularity of this standard is far less than that of Dolby Vision.
Why does China have its own ultra-high definition video standard?
It can be seen that HDR standards and certifications are not only an indispensable and important technology for high-end TVs, but also an important track for international film and television industry competition.
Although the original intention of these standards is to let content producers determine the content specifications on the one hand, and on the other hand, to allow terminal manufacturers to unify hardware specifications, and ultimately to allow consumers to have a consistent experience. But "the same book, the same track" is only a good wish of ours, in the face of the complex and changeable international situation in recent years, those seemingly "borderless" authoritative institutions, such as IEEE Association, WIFI Alliance and other well-known industry standard makers, in response to sanctions have not hesitated.
The high licensing cost and non-neutrality of the international HDR standard also determine that Chinese enterprises need a high-definition video standard with independent intellectual property rights.
HDR Vivid was born in this context, it was released by the World Ultra High Definition Video Industry Alliance (UWA Alliance), which is China's independent high dynamic range video standard. According to the official white paper, compared with the industry's private HDR technology, HDR Vivid is a more open technical standard and solution with industrial security requirements, which is more suitable for end-to-end industrial deployment of all parties in the ultra-high-definition industry ecosystem. With the joint support of the state and industry parties, the HDR Vivid high dynamic range video standard has completed the end-to-end system construction at this stage and officially entered the stage of large-scale commercial use.
Technically, HDR Vivid is also a kind of dynamic HDR, which has three core technologies of dynamic metadata, brightness intelligent mapping, and color intelligent mapping, with HDR performance similar to Dolby Vision, and more importantly, it has better device compatibility and no licensing fees. Especially for Huawei, which is now sanctioned by the United States, it has been unable to obtain the authorization of Dolby Vision and HDR10+, and if HDR Vivid can be developed, then this technology will not need to be subject to people.
Since its release in 2020, a number of industry leaders in the mainland HDR industry chain have joined: including CCTV, Guangdong TV, Sichuan TV, Migu Video, Tencent Video, iQiyi and other content platforms; as well as mainstream TV manufacturers such as Huawei, Hisense, Konka, Sharp, Skyworth, TCL, and Changhong; Huawei HiSilicon also released commercial chips supporting HDR Vivid in mid-December 2020; at the same time, Jingchen, MediaTek and other manufacturers also launched the research and development of HDR chips.
It is also worth mentioning that Huawei's role in it is not only the first practitioner of the new standard. According to the published patent information, a considerable number of patents in the HDR Vivid technology standard come from Huawei. So in essence, Huawei is also a major contributor to the HDR Vivid technology standard.
What challenges will the development of autonomous standards face?
Although companies from the state to the country are promoting the ecological development of HDR Vivid, the new standard must face many challenges if it wants to compete for a market with mature labels.
Since Huawei was on the V series smart screen last year, it has also launched more than 12,000 hours of HDR Vivid content, and covers mainstream platforms such as Tencent Video, Station B, and iQiyi. But frankly speaking, overseas still has a lot of say in terms of cultural content, and most of the domestic content creators and producers do not have the conditions for HDR creation, so consumers who really care about picture quality will mainly focus on PS, XBOX games, Netflix, overseas Blu-ray movies and so on. At present, it is still quite difficult to convince the world's film and television companies, game producers, and console manufacturers to support adaptation with a standard that has not yet been popularized.
It is true that relying solely on the formulation and promotion of a standard may not bring immediate results, but I believe that the process of China's scientific and technological independence will not change, and it is imperative to build a new system free from international hegemony, and every participant in this process is worthy of respect.