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IT House News, June 4th, Apple, Google, NBC Universal United SMPTE (AMP) co-developed a new HDR video standard called Eclipsa Video, officially known as SMPTE ST 2094-50.

It is worth mentioning that Google, Samsung, also jointly launched the Space Audio Standard Eclipsa Audio, which is considered an open source alternative to Dolby Atmos. Eclipsa Video, on the other hand, is considered to be one of the open-source alternatives to Dolby Vision.

Eclipsa Video will be managed by the HDR10+ Alliance. SMPTE ST 2094-50 is the newest member of the SMPTE Dynamic HDR standard family in terms of the standard system. The series had previously included norms ST 2094-10 (Dubi Vision), ST 2094-20 and ST 2094-30 (Advanced HDR) and ST 2094-40 (HDR10+).

The first reference to ST 2094-50 began last year. In May this year, Google for the first time publicly confirmed its participation in this standard development with Apple and NBCUniversal. The Google Product Manager, Roshan Baliga, stated at the time that the standard was designed to ensure that users, regardless of the equipment they used or the light conditions, could see video images of the original intent of the creator.

According to Google, the standard introduced two new dynamic metadata equivalent to instructions for the use of monitors.

The first technology is known as “Reference White Anchor (reference white anchor). The mechanism establishes a uniform brightness baseline for displaying the equipment, and maps the high-light elements of the standard dynamic range (SDR) content to fixed reference points, thus providing additional brightness space for the HDR content. Google says that this allows SDRs and HDR content to coexist on the same screen, and does not affect each other.

The second technology is known as “Headroom-Adaptive Gain Curves”. Content creators can embed instructions for different display devices in video files. When the device has limited brightness, the video can guide the monitor to dynamically adjust the shadow and middle brightness area, thus retaining high light detail and reducing exposure and loss of detail.

Google points out that the current HDR content shows a wide range of effects on different devices. Because mobile phones, tablets, laptops, monitors and televisions have different peak brightness capabilities, HDR videos often have problems of ash in images and missing details of high-light areas. In addition, HDR display effects may be affected when the device environment light sensors dynamically adjust the screen brightness. ST 2094-50 is designed to address these problems.

Unlike the Duby Vision and HDR10+ major focus television, the initial deployment of Eclipsa Vidio will focus on mobile devices and computing platforms.

The HDR10+ Alliance indicated that the Eclipsa Vidio project would first cover smartphones and then gradually expand to other equipment categories. The first products certified by Eclipsa Video are expected to be released later this year, so it is assumed that iPhone 18 Pro will take the lead in supporting them.

Google Roshan Baliga says, "We are happy to bring this upgraded HDR experience to the web page. Support for the final version of the SMPTE ST 2094-50 standard will be provided in the subsequent Chrome version.”

This collaboration further reflects the collaborative trend between Apple and Google in the area of open media standards in recent years. The parties had previously promoted projects such as the AV1 Video Coding Standard and the Eclipsa Auto, through alliance for Open Media.

It is a matter of concern that, as one of the co-facilitators of the Eclipsa Visio project, the NBCUniversal Underground Media Platform Peacock just announced in January this year as one of the first streaming media services in support of Dolby Vision 2. As a result, the launch of Eclipsa Video has added new variables to the future HDR ecosystem. It is not clear what kind of competition or co-existence there will be between the standard and the forthcoming Dolby Vision 2, HDR10+Advanced technologies.

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