HDR Video Coding based on Local LDR Quantization

Abstract

High Dynamic Range (HDR) is considered as a major feature that will bring to the end-user a significantly improved experience, closer to the human perception. It is even considered as possibly more important than increased spatial or temporal resolutions. Its deployment in a mid-term future would preferably require coding solutions able to re-use existing or in-coming video codec. This paper presents an HDR video coding scheme aiming at offering high compression performance while re-using legacy low bit-depth decoders (e.g. AVC 8-bit, HEVC 8or 10-bit). To this end, we propose a fully generic solution that can be configured to guarantee backward compatibility with LDR devices (decoders and displays). The proposed technique transforms HDR frames into LDR-like ones and uses sideand meta-data to help the decoder achieve a good HDR reconstruction. Results show that this solution performs well for bit-rate typically targeted in broadcast or internet streaming video applications.