Summary

Supplement 15 to the ITU-T H-series of Recommendations provides guidance on the processing of high dynamic range (HDR) and wide colour gamut (WCG) video content. The purpose of this document is to provide a set of publicly referenceable recommended guidelines for the operation of advanced video coding (AVC) or high efficiency video coding (HEVC) video coding systems adapted for compressing HDR/WCG video for consumer distribution applications. This document includes a description of processing steps for converting from 4:4:4 RGB linear light representation video signals into non-constant luminance (NCL) Y¢CbCr video signals that use the perceptual quantizer (PQ) transfer function defined in SMPTE ST 2084 and Recommendation ITU-R BT.2100. Although the focus of this document is primarily on 4:2:0 Y¢CbCr 10 bit representations, these guidelines may also apply to other representations with higher bit depth or other colour formats, such as 4:4:4 Y¢CbCr 12 bit video. In addition, this document provides some high-level recommendations for compressing these signals using either the AVC or HEVC video coding standards. A description of post-decoding processing steps is also included for converting these NCL Y¢CbCr signals back to a linear light, 4:4:4 RGB representation.

This Supplement was jointly developed by ITU-T Study Group 16 and ISO/IEC JTC1 SC29/WG11 and the ISO title is ISO/IEC TR 23008-14 "Information technology – High efficiency coding and media delivery in heterogeneous environments – Part 14: Conversion and coding practices for HDR/WCG Y'CbCr 4:2:0 video with PQ transfer characteristics".