Wide Color Gamut Emerges as Powerful New Tool for Storytellers

In the quest to deliver better quality and more immersive experiences to consumers, content creators are beginning to embrace next-generation video technologies like wide color gamut (WCG).  The WCG value proposition is two-fold: to give consumers a more immersive viewing experience and to increase the range of colors available to content creators.

Those advanced capabilities open up a wide range of new content creation opportunities for storytellers.  On the consumer side, wide color gamut allows viewers who have seen a movie in one way to experience it in a completely enhanced manner – effectively pushing the movie experience envelope far beyond the limitations of older technologies and standards.[subscribe_reminder]

WCG support is part of Rec. 2020, one of three color gamut specifications: Rec.709 for HDTV and DCI-P3 for digital cinema.   Rec.2020, is the newest, widest color space available today, according to a white paper by Insight Media.  As storytellers create a scene, WCG enables them to develop a more accurate representation of colors as they appear in real life.

Insight Media

“Wide color gamut is a good example of how we can remove limitations from what the consumer at home has been able to see,” explains Josh Limor, senior director of product development for Industry Video Technology Licensing at Technicolor.

“To date, the home has been limited to Rec. 709, while theaters have had available to them a wider color gamut of DCI-P3.  These different gamuts mean the content has to be shaped somewhat differently.”

Rising TV Tide To Lift WCG Display Market

According to a recent IHS Technology forecast, WCG flat-panel displays – from smartphones to TVs - will grow from 2.8 percent of the display market in 2015 to 25 percent by 2020 in terms of display area shipped.  TV displays will account for 86 percent of the WCG market in 2020, up considerably from last year’s 52 percent.

Links

http://www.hometoys.com/article/2016/02/the-status-of-wide-color-gamut-uhdtvs-/33508
http://press.ihs.com/press-release/technology/uhd-lcd-tv-panels-exceed-40-percent-total-shipment-area-2016-ihs-says
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160104006605/en/UHD-Alliance-Defines-Premium-Home-Entertainment-Experience