The Ultra HD Forum is the global organization promoting the industry’s proven best practices for the delivery of immersive ultra-high-definition (UHD) experiences.
Technologies include high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG) and High Frame Rate (HFR) for images, personalized next generation audio (NGA) and Content Aware Encoding (CAE).
The Ultra HD Forum (UHDF) released a major Phase A Guidelines update. Version 1.5 is the fifth public release and reflects another intense year of collective industry experience. Key changes from version 1.4 are:
- Descriptions and workflow diagrams of four “real world” deployments of UHD / HDR services for marquee television events (major sports tournaments, parades, etc.).
- Synergies between Phase A and Phase B technologies. (Phase B technologies are independent, incremental additions to the foundation of Phase A technologies.)
- Important new standards that support Phase A workflows, including SMPTE ST 2108-1 for carriage of HDR metadata over SDI interfaces.
- Clarification between “HDR10” and “PQ10” to ensure alignment with other new SDOs’ specifications such as SCTE’s.
- More detail about two-step forensic watermarking methods.
Ultra HD Forum Phase A guidelines were first published in 2016, and include:
- End-to-end workflows for UHD services
- Resolutions of 1080p (with HDR) and 2160p
- HDR / WCG (PQ10, HLG10 and HDR10)
- Channel-based immersive audio
Note that Phase B Guidelines, first published in 2018, introduce UHD enhancements and enablers such as:
- Dual-layer HDR technologies
- Dynamic HDR Metadata systems (Dolby Vision & SL-HDR1)
- High Frame Rate (100/120 FPS)
- Next Generation Audio (Dolby AC-4 & MPEG-H Audio)
- Content Aware Encoding
Phase B Guidelines show how these technologies can be implemented in a way that is backward compatible with Phase A decoders, which makes them attractive to operators.
