A Cinema Luminance Range by the People, for the People: Viewer Preferences on Luminance Limits for a Large-Screen Environment

Metadata

Publisher: SMPTE — White Plains, NY, USA
Doc Type: Journal Article
Content Type: Original Research
Abbreviated Title: SMPTE Mot. Imag J.
Volume: 124, No. 5, pp. 56–61
Abstract: Display technology has been improving rapidly, in some areas faster than others. Televisions (TVs), tablets, and smartphones bring images to life through a combination of a brighter maximum luminance, a deeper black level, and/or a wider color gamut. Preference studies in this area confirm that viewers are looking for these increased capabilities in their displays. One such study performed on a TV-sized display at Dolby Laboratories found that to satisfy 90% of viewers, a luminance dynamic range of 0.005 to 20,000 cd/m<sup>2</sup> would be required. Translating results from small displays to the larger screens of the cinema is not always straightforward because of the conjecture that large screens will influence a viewer’s preferences differently. For example, it is assumed that in comparison to a smaller display (i.e., TV), the brightness preference for the cinema is dimmer. This generalized assumption, however, includes multiple aspects such as contrast, increased flickering with higher luminance, and different fields of view. To investigate those aspects, we have conducted a study on viewer preferences for the cinema environment isolating the maximum diffuse luminance, the minimum luminance, and the highlight luminance from these other factors. We used a 6 kW cinema projector and 13 ft, 2.8-gain screen to produce a luminance dynamic range of 0.002 to 2100 cd/m<sup>2</sup>, and concluded that the most demanding viewers prefer 22 f-stops of cinema dynamic range—double the number of f-stops of the existing dynamic range of the cinema.
Publication Date: 2015-07-01
DOI: 10.5594/j18577
ISSN: Print: 1545-0279 | Electronic: 2160-2492
Link: https://doi.org/10.5594/j18577
Author(s): Suzanne Farrell
bio
Suzanne Farrell is a research engineer for Dolby Laboratories. Her research includes psychophysical studies on viewer preferences, and preserving high dynamic range content on lower dynamic range displays through tone and gamut mapping. She graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in Motion Picture Science.
Timo Kunkel
bio
Timo Kunkel is a senior researcher for Dolby Laboratories. His main areas of research are high dynamic range and wide color gamut imaging, advanced display systems, virtual reality technologies and psychophysics. He has published on topics such as color and dynamic range perception of the human visual system and on creating novel color appearance models. Over the last 15 years he also worked as an architecture and landscape photographer focusing on computational photography approaches as well as head of pre-press imaging and co-founder of a German children’s book publisher. He received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Bristol, U.K. and M.Sc. in physical geography, remote sensing and environment modeling from the University of Freiburg in Germany.
Scott Daly
bio
Scott Daly is a senior researcher for Dolby Laboratories working on fundamental perceptual issues and efforts to preserve artistic intent throughout the entire video path to reach the viewer. His background includes a B.S.E.E degree from North Carolina State University, and an M.S. in bioengineering from the University of Utah in the 1980s. Applying visual models towards digital video and displays, he has publications on spatiotemporal and motion imagery, human interaction, with wall-sized displays, high dynamic range, cinema display, and stereoscopic displays. Awards include the Otto Schade Award from SID in 2011 for Applied Perception and a team Emmy Award in 1989–1990 for a video transceiver used in a prominent international news event. He is currently a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, and the Society for Information Display.
Keyword(s): Dynamic Range, Viewer Preference
Copyright: © 2015 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Inc.

Bibliographic Reference(s)

M. Nezamabadi, “The Effect of Image Size on the Color Appearance of Image Reproductions,” Ph.D. thesis, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, 2008. EXTERNAL
S. Daly, T. Kunkel, and S. Farrell, “Using Image Dimension Dissection to Study Viewer Preferences of Luminance Range in Displayed Imagery,” Proc. SID’s International Display Workshop, Sapporo, Japan, 2013. EXTERNAL
T. Kunkel and E. Reinhard, “A Reassessment of the Simultaneous Dynamic Range of the Human Visual System,” Proc. 7th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, pp. 17-24, 2010. EXTERNAL
S. Daly, T. Kunkel, X. Sun, S. Farrell, and P. Crum, “Viewer Preferences for Shadow, Diffuse, Specular, and Emissive Luminance Limits of High Dynamic Range Displays,” SID Symp. Dig. Tech. Papers, 44(1):563-566, June 2013. EXTERNAL
S. Daly, T. Kunkel, X. Sun, S. Farrell, and P. Crum, “Preference Limits of the Visual Dynamic Range for Ultra High Quality and Aesthetic Conveyance,” Proc. SPIE, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging XVIII, Vol. 8651, 2013. EXTERNAL
E. Reinhard, W. Heidrich, P. Debevec, S. Pattanaik, G. Ward, and K. Myszkowski, High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display, and Image-Based Lighting, 2nd ed., Morgan-Kaufman: Burlington, MA 2010. EXTERNAL
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Suzanne Farrell, Timo Kunkel, and Scott Daly; A Cinema Luminance Range by the People, for the People: Viewer Preferences on Luminance Limits for a Large-Screen Environment, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 124, Issue: 5, July 2015); SMPTE, 2015. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/j18577

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Suzanne Farrell, Timo Kunkel, and Scott Daly; A Cinema Luminance Range by the People, for the People: Viewer Preferences on Luminance Limits for a Large-Screen Environment, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 124, Issue: 5, July 2015); SMPTE, 2015. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/j18577

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<span class="citation">Suzanne Farrell, Timo Kunkel, and Scott Daly; <cite>A Cinema Luminance Range by the People, for the People: Viewer Preferences on Luminance Limits for a Large-Screen Environment</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 124, Issue: 5, July 2015); SMPTE, 2015. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/j18577" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/j18577</a></span>

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Suzanne Farrell, Timo Kunkel, and Scott Daly; <cite id="bib-10-5594-j18577">A Cinema Luminance Range by the People, for the People: Viewer Preferences on Luminance Limits for a Large-Screen Environment</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 124, Issue: 5, July 2015); SMPTE, 2015
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