While some may believe cinema is struggling, for many, the big screen is still the best way to experience a film. However, in terms of image quality, it technically remains a step behind what consumers have been enjoying at home for some years: and that’s high dynamic range (HDR).
An HDR image will, by definition, present a greater range of luminance values than standard dynamic range (SDR). Assuming the display is up to snuff it provides a better, more natural-looking image that closely represents on screen what we see in real life: a bright sun dazzling in the sky, and details in the shadows, all at the same time. However, while HDR has been available on TVs for many years, cinematic projection has been limited, in the main, to SDR. Thanks to Barco, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year, this is about to change.
The company’s projectors power over half of the world’s cinemas with over 100,000 installations. It was key in transitioning the industry from film projection to digital, a process that was introduced by Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (the first film to be both shot and projected digitally) and accelerated in 2009 by customer demand to see Avatar in 3D, which required theaters to go digital.
Barco was also the first to introduce a laser projector, the current cinematic state-of-the-art (with 35,000 of these in the wild), and was even given an award this year for its contribution to the design and development of cinematic laser projection by the Scientific and Engineering Academy, the tech equivalent of the Oscars.
It’s not been resting on this laurel, however, and its new system finally brings true HDR capability to cinemas. Sensibly dubbed HDR by Barco, it consists of the Barco HDR LS4K-P projector as well as software toolkits for post-production professionals.
The first film to be shown in the format is the animation Transformers One available today on premium screens at:
- AMC Americana at Brand 18 (Los Angeles, CA);
- AMC Barrywoods 24 (Kansas City, MO);
- B&B Theatres Red Oak 12 (Dallas, TX);
- Regal Dania Pointe (Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, FL);
- Regal Times Square (New York, NY).
The company also says that it will be rolling out the system to other cities in the USA over the coming weeks, in partnership with major chains such as AMX, Regal, and others.
Introducing light steering
To learn more about the technical developments I spoke with one of the systems’ inventors, Barco’s executive vice president Gerwin Damberg.
As part of the original team at Brightside Technologies, Damberg is one of the pioneers of the HDR space. Brightside was the first company to focus on high-brightness display technologies for HDR. Acquired by Dolby in 2007, the system was renamed Dolby Vision, support for which is now baked into most major brands of TV, with content delivered by most streaming services.
Damberg was also part of the team that created Dolby Cinema, a version of the technology for cinematic presentation. It’s no surprise then that he is complimentary about the system but points out that while Dolby Cinema is sometimes referred to as HDR, it’s more accurately described as extended dynamic range: and he declares HDR by Barco to be, simply, better.
“It’s been a bit of a project,” he says. “We’re on a bit of a mission to change cinema to what I would call true HDR.”
To hit you with some numbers, Dolby’s system tops out at 108 nits (the unit that measures the luminance of a given area of the screen) while the Barco system is nearly three times brighter at 300 nits, and around six times brighter than standard SDR digital projection.
Damberg says that to achieve that level of brightness with a conventional system would require a brute force approach that he says would be, “from an engineering point of view, just impossible.” In no small part, this would be due to the excessive thermal output, but also because simply pumping out more light from the lens isn’t useful. What was needed was less brawn and more brain.
“What if we could just steer light, put a laser where we need it to be–use light recycling of a sort.”
After much-patented research, the team devised a system that directs the light energy from the projector to the parts of the frame that require it: this is dubbed “light steering”.
Wanted to understand more I enquired how this was achieved and was told about “wavefront synthesis”, which, to be honest, left me none the wiser. “We basically try to use the interference properties of lasers to interact with itself to create light where we need it and remove light where we don’t want it.”
What matters is that Damberg says the system offers greater brightness, greater contrast, and improved black levels, the latter of which for cinema he describes as “king.”
The projector/computer
The business of determining where lights should go in real-time is, unsurprisingly, achieved using algorithms powered by off-the-shelf Nvidia server GPUs. This means that the new Barco HDR projector is also a computer. It also means that future models can be upgraded using next-generation GPU hardware, so light steering could be done even more effectively and efficiently.
While the science will be lost on us mere mortals, Damberg says that while he thrives on the technical aspect, he doesn’t want it to be technology for technology’s sake: the end result is what’s important.
“The really rewarding part is always when we see it in the hands of creatives. When it starts to matter is if you see a beautiful image. The first experiments we did were, of course, Star Wars lightsabers. And then beautiful cinematography, like The Revenant. When you see that and then you get a colorist to adapt it and use the full dynamic range, the full paint palette— now you’ve created this cool piece of art. That’s when you forget about all the technology and you just sit there and you’re like, ‘Wow, this looks so cool!’”
Damberg says the reason Barco went full steam with the project is that the workflow is now in place. It unlocks the full dynamic range of the image that today’s digital cameras capture, as well as the VFX, which are already HDR.
Artistic impact
While this is just the initial rollout, when true HDR projection becomes widespread Damberg believes that it will impact how cinematographers approach filmmaking. “My gut feeling is they’ll get more courageous using the full dynamic range. We’ve had a couple of directors and colorists come in and work with us to look at it on our prototype system. They said, ‘Well if I had known that then, I would have shot it a little bit differently’.”
While digital shooting is now the norm, there are of course many high-profile directors who choose to capture on film. How does Barco plan to sell the system to the Tarantino’s and Chris Nolan’s of the film world?
“I think film will also work,” said Danberg. “You don’t always get the full dynamic range on film, but if, say, Tarantino wants to shoot on film and show it on digital high dynamic range projectors, I have no doubt that his movies will look fantastic. It might just take a little bit more care in post-production to make sure we don’t highlight any sort of film-specific features too much, like grain noise, frame rate; things like that.
But I think a filmmaker will appreciate just having that full palette of colors available as an artist to draw their vision on the screen: more colors, more shades of light and dark to tell the story.”
While Dolby Cinema currently reigns as the image quality champ, HDR by Barco is here to tip it off its perch. While Dolby is partnered with Christie, IMAX has a relationship with Barco, so could we see this as the next-gen digital IMAX system, I wondered? Damberg wouldn’t be drawn on this, but it’s certainly something I’d love to see happen and I hope it’s not long before the system arrives in the UK so I can experience it for myself. So, here’s to high dynamic range—and beyond!
