HD HDR a ‘Very Interesting Proposition’ for Older Catalog, Says Disney Technologist

On the touchy subject of Disney backing high dynamic range for use with 1080p rather than 4K content material, the studio sees it as a viable strategy for its legacy titles, Sam Johnson, senior manager-technology and systems for Disney in the U.K., told a MESA (Media & Entertainment Services Alliance) Europe conference Wednesday in London. Disney for nearly two years has dodged questions about its ambitions for pairing HDR with 1080p, and Johnson in Q&A left little doubt it remains a sensitive issue inside the studio. “We’re working for Disney so we have to be very careful what we say,” said Johnson. “A lot of hardware companies are looking at HDR, but not just 4K HDR as a value-added product.” HDR content with 4K resolution “costs a lot to create, so looking at HD HDR as a potential standard, touted as Advanced HDR, is going to be a very interesting proposition for us for a lot of our library,” he said. Johnson emphasized the company believes 4K HDR is “here to stay,” and “we can now bookmark it as part of the standards.” Disney, a founding member of the UHD Alliance, worries “there is definitely a lack of standardization that potentially hinders adoption” of HDR, said Johnson. “There are a lot of HDR formats out there. I know the companies don’t like to think of it as a format war but there is definitely a lack of standardization that needs to be addressed.” Prompted to explain challenges posed by the diversity of HDR formats, Johnson listed HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and said: “We need to create different versions for them all.” The company needs to “partner up with Samsung on HDR10+” because Amazon is one of the studio’s “biggest” electronic sell-through partners, and “Amazon has said they will leverage HDR10+ as a standard” (see 1708280018), he said. “So we need to know how to provide HDR10+, especially when price points are going to be the same. That’s where our frustrations lie.”