UHD Color for Games
UHD Color for Games Author: Evan Hart Date: June 14, 2016 Version: 1.0 Introduction With the advent of Ultra High Definition television and the UHD Alliance1 specification for televisions, displays are taking a substantial step forward compared to the standards developers have been used to for the past two decades. While this is a specification for televisions, the technologies involved will ultimately impact many classes of displays. This shift in display standards presents substantial challenges for anyone concerned about the quality of images they display. The audience for this paper is any graphics programmer interested in being ready for this transition, but in particular it focuses on challenges tied to game development. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard created the sRGB standard in 1996. This standard allowed reasonably faithful representation of images on most computers. In many ways, it was standardizing what was already in use, as the standard conforms to what was implemented in many CRT displays at the time. The standard not only specifies the ‘gamma’ function most graphics programmers think of, but it also specifies the chromaticities of the red, green, and blue color primaries as well as the white point and the maximum luminance. Similarly, the rec.709 specification describes these properties for HDTVs. It differs somewhat in that it has a dimmer expected viewing environment. (Viewing environments impact the perception of properties of images, such as contrast, resulting in modified gamma correction curve, etc) The new UHD Alliance specification brings about new versions of components that defined the sRGB space graphics programmers have been living in for two decades.
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