56
|
ISSUE 2 2014
|
THE CHANNEL
THE CHANNEL
|
TECHNOLOGY
We’re
delivering
the higher
quality
signal to
the TV,
then it’s
up to the
TV manu-
facturers
to do their
magic
“
”
Dolby Laboratories revolutionised the way we
think about and use audio. Now Dolby is using
its expertise to revolutionise image quality.
Dolby Vision is the company’s new solution for
creating high-dynamic range, wide colour
gamut images. Demos of the technology leave
viewers stunned. We asked Dolby’s VP
Consumer Imaging Roland Vlaicu where
Dolby Vision came from
n 2007, Dolby acquired a
company called BrightSide,
based in Vancouver. They
had developed a technology
that enables you to display
high contrast images by
turning the back light LEDs
off on a video display, which
allows you to make the dark areas
of the image very dark and the
bright areas very bright. It’s a
technology that’s been around for
six or seven years now and is in
TVs around the world.
That was step one. Then we
thought we could do something even
better than that by actually making
the signal better, and this is
something they hadn’t done before.
Picture quality improvement efforts
have mostly focused on the TVs
themselves.
However a TV manufacturer
decides to present the image, it’s
always on the basis of the same
signal. If you turn on a broadcast or
BluRay or over the top streaming,
it’s always the same signal in terms
of visual fidelity. Everybody gets
the same signal and tries to do the
best they can with it.
The idea behind Dolby Vision
was to actually go further upstream
and change the signal that is being
delivered to enable televisions to do
a better job of creating a better
looking image.
With Dolby Vision, we didn’t
only invent a better version of high
dynamic range, but we also added
a wider colour gamut capability at
the same time. It can be combined
with HD video or Ultra HD/4K
video. Resolution is orthogonal to
the enhancements that Dolby
Vision brings and so is frame rate,
so you can combine the Dolby
Vision signal with any frame rate or
any resolution.
How will Dolby Vision change TVs?
Our Dolby Vision prototype
reference display that we showed at
the last NAB not only shows high
dynamic range video but also
shows wider colour gamuts.
Dolby Vision TVs, when they
become available, will know exactly
how to map this super high quality
reference signal down to exactly
what each TV’s capabilities are and
what each TV can show. Each TV
panel and each TV backlight design
will be slightly different, so you
need to be able to map this down
precisely in order to make sure you
maintain the right look.
What makes this system so
appealing is that it’s not just some
processing done in the TV, which a
lot of creatives despise. With Dolby
Vision, you can create a reference
look that is then relayed all the way
into the home.
This doesn’t prevent TV OEMs
from differentiating. The last thing
a TV manufacturer wants to hear is
that you’re forcing them to make
their TV look a way which is
identical to the competition. Dolby
Vision enables those TVmanufacturers
to tune their picture quality off a
much better original signal. We’re
delivering the higher quality signal
to the TV, then it’s up to the TV
manufacturers to do their magic.
So we’re building out the entire
ecosystem all the way from content
production. And we already have
announced some camera
manufacturers who are putting in
the right type of technology into the
cameras in order to shoot in Dolby
I
OFTHEFUTURE
VISION
