High Dynamic Range (HDR) has become one of the most important features in modern video displays. It enhances the contrast and color of an image, making bright scenes more brilliant and dark scenes more detailed. The technology has improved dramatically over the past decade, with HDR formats like HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision becoming standard on many devices. Yet there is still a major problem: HDR content can look inconsistent from one screen to another. A movie that looks spectacular on a high-end television may lose its visual punch on a laptop or smartphone. Eclipsa Video is a new HDR format designed to address that problem.
Developed by Google in collaboration with Apple and NBCUniversal, Eclipsa Video is built on the SMPTE ST 2094-50 specification. This is an open standard for dynamic HDR metadata, which means it is publicly available and not tied to a single proprietary ecosystem. The format aims to give compatible displays precise instructions on how to render the image, so that a video looks essentially the same whether it is viewed on a TV, a tablet, or a phone.
To understand why Eclipsa Video is different, it helps to first understand why HDR content currently varies so much across devices. In this article, we will break down the inner workings of Eclipsa Video and compare it to the established HDR10 and Dolby Vision formats.
The basics of HDR and tone mapping
HDR expands the range of luminance and color in video, allowing for brighter highlights, deeper blacks, and more saturated colors. However, the signal must be translated to the physical capabilities of a display. This is done through tone mapping, where the display takes the high-brightness information in the HDR signal and compresses it to fit within the display's own brightness limit. Every display has a different maximum brightness, color gamut, and processing chipset, so tone mapping algorithms vary wildly between manufacturers.
Because tone mapping is not standardized, the same piece of HDR content can be interpreted differently by different displays. Some displays might preserve highlight detail, while others might prioritize overall brightness. The result is a viewing experience that is often inconsistent. This is particularly frustrating for content creators who meticulously color-grade their projects and want them to be seen as intended.
What is Eclipsa Video?
Eclipsa Video is a new High Dynamic Range format that aims to standardize the HDR viewing experience. It is based on the SMPTE ST 2094-50 specification, which is an open standard for dynamic metadata. Google, Apple, and NBCUniversal are the primary developers behind the format. They have positioned it as a solution to the fragmentation of HDR standards.
Rather than relying on the display's tone mapping algorithm to interpret a video's brightness, Eclipsa Video embeds precise guidelines in the content itself. These guidelines tell a compatible display exactly how to render the image. This includes not only the peak brightness and color values, but also the way highlights should be handled relative to a consistent baseline called the HDR reference white.
How Eclipsa Video works under the hood
At the core of Eclipsa Video is the concept of HDR reference white. This is a fixed brightness level that serves as a normal baseline for the main elements of an image. In typical HDR content, a display may struggle to decide how bright a white wall or a face should be. Eclipsa Video defines that baseline clearly, so that it remains consistent across all devices. Brighter visual elements like specular highlights, explosions, or reflections are allowed to go above the reference white, depending on the display's maximum brightness.
This approach is more sophisticated than traditional static metadata because it lets the display use its full brightness range without sacrificing consistency in the midtones. A low-cost display with a peak brightness of 500 nits will render the reference white at the same perceived level as a costly OLED that can reach 2,000 nits. The premium display simply has more headroom to show brighter highlights.
Eclipsa Video also uses dynamic metadata, which means the instructions are updated frame by frame or scene by scene. Static HDR formats, like HDR10, apply one set of parameters to an entire video. Dynamic metadata allows the display to adjust on the fly, which is more accurate for content that transitions between dark and bright scenes. This is especially important in films with dramatic lighting changes, such as a movie that moves from a dim interior to a sunlit street.
Another feature of Eclipsa Video is its ability to adapt to ambient light. The format can account for the brightness of the room in which the viewer is watching. In a dark room, the display can lower brightness to reduce eye strain while preserving shadow detail. In a bright room, it can increase brightness to maintain visibility. This adaptive tone mapping makes Eclipsa Video well suited for mobile devices, which are used in diverse lighting conditions.
Eclipsa Video vs HDR10
HDR10 is the baseline HDR format used by almost every television, streaming service, and Ultra HD Blu-ray. It is an open standard derived from SMPTE ST 2084, which defines the perceptual quantizer for HDR. HDR10 uses static metadata, meaning that the mastering display information and maximum luminance are fixed for the entire video file. This is its biggest weakness.
When a display receives HDR10 content, it uses the static metadata to decide how
Source:SlashGear News