Flat Panels HD has picked up a snippet of news from a Philips whitepaper, which indicates the inclusion of dynamic metadata in HDMI 2.1.
The HDMI Forum has not yet acknowledged the existence of HDMI 2.1. However, page six of Philips’ whitepaper (http://tinyurl.com/jtm49ag) – published in August last year – states, “HDMI 2.0a covers HDR EOTF signaling and static metadata. Dynamic metadata is to be covered in HDMI 2.1′.
HDMI 2.0a supports static metadata. In simple terms, this means that the same grading for brightness, HDR, colour and so on is used throughout the content stream. With dynamic metadata, this could be changed on a scene-by-scene, or even frame-by-frame, basis. HDR10 uses static metadata, while the more premium Dolby Vision standard uses dynamic.
Dynamic metadata can also be used to downconvert HDR content to SDR – see Philips’ whitepaper for more information.
An example diagram of Philips’ HDR/SDR video transmission system
