Realizing Real-World Color with Rec. 2020
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TECH BRIEF A color revolution Realizing real-world color with Rec. 2020 Memorable visual spectacles come from the brightest, most vibrant colors. Whether you’re telling stories through cinema or thrilling theme park rides, color is one of your most powerful tools. It influences the audience’s reaction and connection to what they see on screen, helps create an emotional response and brings your images to life. When you’re looking for the right projection solution for a theatre, theme park attraction, or planetarium, understanding the science of color makes it easier to choose the technology that’s right for you: › How do we define color? › What’s ‘real-world’ color? › What are the differences between color standards? › How does RGB pure laser achieve the Rec. 2020 color gamut? Let’s dive into the science behind the colors you see on screen. The science of color How do we define color? How do we reproduce color in the digital display world? In 1931, color scientists with the International Commission on Color on digital displays is generally reproduced by mixing Illumination (CIE) created a numerical definition for every red, green, and blue color primaries. Color science allows us color we can see based on the color sensitivity of the eye and to determine the overall color capability of a display by plotted them on a diagram, assigning each color a unique plotting the chromaticity coordinates (x,y) of each of the coordinate pair (x,y) with the luminancei of the color primaries on the CIE diagram and drawing a triangle through represented as a separate value. The CIE 1931 color space the primaries. This triangle defines the ‘color gamut’ of the diagram (figure 1) is a visual representation of all the colors a display. The display can achieve the colors inside the triangle, typical human eye can see. The basis of conventional color while it can’t reproduce colors outside it. For example, the science, CIE’s color space is the standard used to understand current HDTV color gamut is defined by Rec. 709 and results current color space representations and their limitations, and in the gamut shown in figure 2. identify the color gamut capabilities of specific digital displays, which in turn challenges us to deliver richer images through extended color performance. 0.9 00.9.9 520 520 0.8 00.8.8 540 540 0.7 00.7.7 560 560 0.6 00.6.6 500 500 0.5 580 00.5.5 580 0.4 600 0.40.4 600 620 620 0.3 0.30.3 490 700 490 700 0.2 00.2.2 480 480 0.1 0.10.1 470 470 460 460 0 0.10.1 380 00.2.2 00.3.3 0.40.4 0.50.5 0.60.6 0.70.7 0.80.8 0 0.10.1 380 0.20.2 0.30.3 00.4.4 0.50.5 0.60.6 0.70.7 0.80.8 Rec. 709 Figure 1: CIE 1931 color space Figure 2: Rec. 709, the color gamut of television There are 3 key parts to this diagram. The horizontal (x) and Red, blue and green color primaries of current television vertical (y) axes are used to define any point on the plot with standards (Rec. 709) are the vertices of the triangle. The a pair of numbers. These are called the chromaticity colors contained within the triangle can be reproduced coordinates. Note that the center of the diagram is white, using these primaries. Note that many of the more saturated while the colors become more saturated as they move colors are outside the triangle and not reproducible with this towards the periphery. The periphery is called the spectral color gamut. locus. The numbers around the spectral locus indicate the wavelength of the light that would make that color. Realizing real-world color with Rec. 2020 tech brief | 2 Charting real-world 00.9.9 00.8.8 colors: understanding 00.7.7 the colors we need 00.6.6 to represent 00.5.5 0.40.4 An obvious consideration when reproducing color is the ability to display ‘real-world’ colors. While the CIE 1931 chart 0.30.3 provides a view of all the colors that are visible, it doesn’t tell 00.2.2 us which colors are common in everyday life. 0.10.1 In 1980, Dr. Michael Pointer published a collection of ‘real-world’ colors, widely referenced as representing the gamut of naturally occurring reflective colors. The result was 0 0.10.1 0.20.2 0.30.3 00.4.4 00.5.5 0.60.6 0.70.7 0.80.8 an irregular gamut of colors that naturally occurs called Pointer's gamut ‘Pointer’s gamut’ (figure 3). In addition to real-world reflective Figure 3: Pointer’s gamut of real-world colors colors, there are emissive colors, such as neon signs, LED Pointer’s real-world colors are plotted on the CIE diagram. A brake lights on cars, and lightsabers, which are highly boundary is drawn around these colors, representing the saturated and fall outside the Pointer color set. gamut of his “’real-world’ colors. Meet the Rec. 709 So, what’s Rec. 2020? and DCI-P3 color In 2012, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) published ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020 (Rec. 2020) standards for ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV). This recommendation covers various image parameters, including Rec. 709 (Recommendation ITU-R BT.709) definitions for resolution, frame rates, bit depths, and color The most commonly used standard today, it defines picture space. Since then, the ITU published 2 further editions and it characteristics as having an aspect ratio of 16:9, 1080 active lines was expanded in several aspects by Rec. 2100 in 2016 for per picture, 1920 samples per line, and a square pixel aspect High Dynamic Range television (HDR-TV). ratio. Rec. 709 was developed for camera encoding and signal characteristics of HDTV. The Rec. 2020 recommendation addresses an expanded color gamut. The development of this gamut helped capture DCI-P3 real-world colors in a 3-primary system. The standards With a larger color volume than Rec. 709, it’s the standard for committee for Rec. 2020 chose color primary coordinates at cinema. This color palette allows DCI-P3 to offer slightly more the extreme edge of the visible color space, achievable with realistic and lifelike colors through more greens and reds. The RGB pure laser-illuminated projection technologies. DCI-P3 color space has regulated digital cinema projectors and the movie industry since its introduction in 2007 by SMPTE Since its publication, Rec. 2020 has been widely recognized (Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers). as the color space standard for 4K digital displays. Realizing real-world color with Rec. 2020 tech brief | 3 How does RGB pure laser projection achieve the Rec. 2020 color gamut? Rec. 2020 defines its primaries at the spectral locus, a very mixing a few close wavelengths will reach the target narrow bandwidth primary required to achieve the chromaticity within a reasonable measurement accuracy. chromaticity at the primary point. For practical reasons, it’s RGB pure laser projectors have wavelengths chosen desirable to mix a few nearby wavelengths to achieve the to optimize the delivery of Rec. 2020 color primaries to color primary, and theoretically, this will take the chromaticity achieve the Rec. 2020 color gamut for a wide gamut color of the primary off the spectral locus. In practice, however, experience. Let’s compare Rec. 2020 with DCI-P3 and Rec. 709 Rec. 709 DCI-P3 Rec. 2020 With Rec 2020, you get color that is much more vibrant Figure 4 than Rec. 709 and DCI-P3 (figure 4). The reason for this is Colors as you’ve never seen them before on screen: Since we can’t see that unlike Rec. 709 and DCI-P3, Rec. 2020 covers Rec. 2020 colors without a compatible projector and Rec. 2020 content, we created this illustration to represent the difference between the 3 practically the entire Pointer’s gamut of real-world colors. color standards. While it doesn’t represent everything we see as humans, The DCI-P3 color space does a better job of capturing Rec. 2020 has a far greater color volume and comes much Pointer’s gamut than Rec. 709 (figures 5 and 6). While it closer to doing that than the other color standards. adequately covers yellow and green, several colors are still excluded, particularly around cyan and darker blue areas. Essentially all these missing colors are captured in the Rec. 2020 color gamut, as illustrated. 00.9.9 00.9.9 00.8.8 00.8.8 Figure 5: Current Figure 6: Pointer’s 00.7.7 HDTV color gamut 00.7.7 real-world colors with overlaid on Pointer’s DCI-P3 (cinema) and 00.6.6 real-world color set 00.6.6 Rec. 2020 gamuts colors. 00.5.5 This illustrates that the 00.5.5 current high-definition 0.40.4 television standard 00.4.4 lacks the ability to 0.30.3 display naturally 0.3 occurring yellow and gold and green-cyan- 00.2.2 00.2.2 blue colors. 0.10.1 0.10.1 0 0.10.1 0.20.2 00.3.3 0.40.4 0.50.5 0.60.6 0.70.7 0.80.8 0 0.10.1 0.20.2 0.30.3 0.40.4 0.50.5 0.60.6 0.70.7 0.80.8 Pointer's gamut Rec.