InBroadcast - InShow Guide 2017 - 34

34

www.inbroadcast.com | IBC2017 InShow Guide | 15-19 September

AJA on the
New FS-HDR

AJA has unveiled its new FS-HDR frame synchroniser offering real-time
4K High Dynamic Range and Wide Colour Gamut processing...

AJA's FS-HDR rackmount universal converter and frame

Question: What is FS-HDR?
Answer: FS-HDR is our new 1RU
rackmount universal converter and
frame synchroniser offering real-time
High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide
Colour Gamut (WCG) conversion and
processing for 4K/UltraHD and 2K/
HD workflows. It's powered by the
Colorfront Engine™ and engineered
to be a Swiss Army knife for working
with HDR content. Users can convert
SDR to HDR, HDR to SDR and HDR to
HDR in real-time, and also input 4K/
UltraHD/2K/HD camera Log files and
output them as HDR or SDR.
A versatile tool, FS-HDR can also
act as a full, one-channel up, down,
cross-converter for 4K/UltraHD/2K/
HD conversion and frame sync needs,
or provide four independent channels
of 2K/HD conversion in four-channel
mode all including HDR transforms
if desired. With FS-HDR we're hoping
to make HDR more of a technical
reality in a broader range of creative
pipelines, including broadcast.
Q: Why Colorfront?
A: Colorfront's colour science
expertise spans decades, and the
company has worked on a large
volume of prestigious film projects
- covering dailies through post and
onto delivery. Given their history
and reputation in the industry, along
with Colorfront Engine's impressive
algorithms, we knew they'd be an

ideal collaborator to help bring the FSHDR to market. Not to mention, both
Colorfront CTO Bill Feightner and Lead
Engineer Tamas Perlaki have earned
Academy Awards for the technology,
and we've known their team for quite
some time.
Q: Tell us more about the
Colorfront Connection?
A: FS-HDR merges AJA's proven FS
technology with the latest HDR and
WCG technology from the Colorfront
Engine™, which powers the real-time
processing and conversion of 4K/
UltraHD and 2K/HD video. We've
licensed video and colour space
processing algorithms from Colorfront
and incorporated them into FS-HDR.
Our relationship with Colorfront dates
several years, and a number of our
team members have worked with their
team in various capacities. Bill Bowen,
our CTO, actually led the charge in
bringing our teams together, and
has been friendly with the Colorfront
team for years. We work really well
together, which has not only made
our collaboration enjoyable but also a
success.
Q: Why did AJA develop FS-HDR?
A: In today's era of digital
distractions, grabbing and maintaining
an audience's attention has never
been more important, and HDR offers
viewers something unique. It closely

mimics what we see in the real world,
bringing us closer to the human vision
system. For this reason, a number
of broadcasters, OTT providers,
filmmakers and ProAV professionals
are experimenting with HDR, with
many likening the difference between
SDR and HDR to the difference
between SD and HD. With so many
standards,
higher
bandwidth
requirements due to 4K/UltraHD and
consumer adoption of HDR displays
just beginning, implementation has
not proven easy to date, and the
availability of HDR content, though
growing, is still limited.
To make use of the dynamic range
in today's high-end cameras and
provide as many stops to the delivery
point - consumer screens, files would
be routed at 16-bit ideally, but the
bandwidth needed for that isn't just
there yet.
Currently a number of standards
exist in the consumer market too -
Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), a joint BBC
and NHK project; HDR 10; HDR 10+;
Dolby Vision; and Advanced HDR. As
a result, we see Dolby using 12-bit and
the open PQ platform through HDR 10
drawing on 10-bit, so a video transfer
curve is required in that case with
more video code values (10/12-bit)
being allocated to the darker part of
an image.
Looking at the market, we saw
a need for the ability to convert

between HDR and SDR, including the
various standards and formats, and
the idea for FS-HDR was born. FS-HDR
is a game changer in many ways. It
serves both PQ and HLG, allowing
users to convert between them as
needed and bring in Log camera
sources and deliver to SDR, HDR, as
well as "upgrade" SDR materials,
which are plentiful, to HDR.
Q: Which inputs and outputs does
FS-HDR support?
A: FS-HDR supports a range of
inputs from SDR BT.709 100Nits to
PQ BT.2020 1000Nits, PQ P3D65
1000Nits, Hybrid Log Gamma BT.2100,
Sony S-Gamut3/SLog3, ARRI Log C
Wide Gamut, Panasonic V-Log, RED
Log3G10 Wide Gamut and Canon Log 2.
For outputs, it's compatible with SDR
BT.709 100Nits, PQ BT.2020 1000Nits
and Hybrid Log Gamma BT.2100 and
even outputs SGamut3/SLog3 if you
need to plug into a Sony pipeline.
Q: Which is the more common
output for broadcaster - SDR or
HDR?
A: Today obviously SDR. For the
near future it depends, but among
broadcasters, we've seen the most
demand for simultaneously delivering
both SDR and HDR, especially with a
majority of consumer displays in the
home still SDR.
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