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Is HDR Legit? Should I Invest In HDR Tech?

January 5, 2019

Team Mixing Light discusses a member question about HDR: Is here to stay and should they be investing in HDR tech?


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Day 5: 25 Insights in 25 Days 2019 New Year Marathon!

From The MailBag Episode 63

Is HDR Here To Stay? Is It Time To Start Investing In HDR Tech?

High Dynamic Range video is a hot topic.

We’ve talked a lot about it here on Mixing Light, and HDR is on our brain’s at the moment after just completing a project about HDR for a corporate client.  And while we have always been early adopters (ok, really just Robbie!), we’ve been getting a lot of questions from members about if HDR is just another technological fad or is it here to stay, and part of these questions is usually something about how to avoid the high costs of investing in HDR gear.

This week, Mixing Light member, Kyle, asks a similar question:

Hey Team Mixing Light!  So, there is obviously a lot of buzz around HDR these days.  What’s your feeling on the current state of HDR?  Is it Legit?  Do you think HDR is here to stay and in a few years, everyone will be working in HDR?  I’ve read, watched and listened to a lot of content about HDR and it seems like to do it right it’s really expensive. So is now the time to invest or should I wait a while and see how it all pans out?

As I said, we’ve been getting these type of question a lot recently and I thought it’d be good to address it in a Mailbag. This week, we’re once again joined by Mixing Light contributor Joey D’Anna.

Yes! HDR Is Legit & Here To Stay

As you’ll hear, we all think HDR is legit. With nearly 60 years of experience between us, we’ve seen fads including 3D recently.  HDR is not 3D!

But not all HDR, and more importantly HDR displays, are created equal.  Many people who are sort of ‘blah’ about HDR have only seen it on low nit consumer displays, or if they’ve seen it on a monitor with higher peak luminance, it’s usually at a trade show where the demo footage is cranked to eleven and can feel overdone.

In this Mailbag, we discuss at length the impact of HDR on our roles as colorists, if we’re still in the early stages of adoption – and if we are, how can you get prepared for what we think will be on onslaught of HDR over the next couple years.

Investing In HDR Tech? It Sort Of Depends

If you start looking into HDR, you’ll realize that to support HDR workflows on the ‘mastering level’, it’s very expensive – with 98% of that cost associated with an HDR mastering monitor which can be $40,000-$60,000!

Those kinds of numbers can be very scary!  We each share our thoughts on if now is the time to invest, how almost certainly the future will be more affordable, but also how you can get started and prepared for HDR workflows pretty affordably RIGHT NOW!

Do You Want Team Mixing Light To Answer A Question?

Remember, if you have questions that you’d like to get an opinion on please use the contact form.

Your questions can be aesthetic, technical or even client related. We’d love to hear from you, and your question might make future episodes of From The MailBag.

Enjoy the MailBag!

-Robbie


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