Dolby Podcast Episode 28, November 21, 2007
Jack and Craig talk about Dolby’s HDR video technologies with Dolby Senior Product Manager of Video, Gaven Wang, and answer a listener Jennifer’s question about whether a universal remote control will make it easier to use all the home theater equipment in her house.
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Mentioned in this Episode
Jack Buser: Hello and welcome to Dolbycast, the insider's guide to entertainment technology from the experts at Dolby Laboratories. I am Jack Buser.
Craig Eggers: And I am Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we are here to give you the straight talk on everything you need to please your ears. What's up Craig, how are you doing today?
Craig: Hey Jack, how are you?
[laughter]
Jack: You have been bubbling over with energy; what's going on?
Craig: I'm bubbling over with energy, I am excited about being here today because we have an exciting guest with us.
Jack: Yes we do, we have a member of our new Dolby video team here, believe it or not; can you believe Dolby is doing video technology?
Craig: Well, we promised in the last podcast, I believe, that we would be introducing some technologies that we introduced at CEATEC in Japan.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: And we are going to be focusing and featuring them also at the International Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas in January. So now is a good time to really set the stage.
Jack: Dig deep into the technologies, explain how they work, what they are going to do for next-generation TV. It is really, really exciting stuff.
Craig: And they are very cool, but before we do that, I think you have a reader—listener—question.
Jack: I do, and this question comes from Jennifer who signs her email Ferfy. So I don't know if it is actually Ferfy or Jennifer. But she asks—actually she says, “I have a problem. My husband, bless his heart, is a technology junky”—wouldn't know anything about that —“and we have so much gear in our home that it is hard to keep up just disposing of the boxes that things come in.” And I understand that, I really do. In fact we got a nasty note from actually the recycling man who comes by...
Craig: Is that right?
Jack: Yes. And said, you must fold all of your boxes properly and place them neatly next to the recycling container, otherwise...
Craig: They are not going to be happy.
Jack: We are in big trouble.
Craig: I took a bunch of wine carriers and put them in a recycling bin, I didn't fold those up, so I will probably get the same note.
Jack: And you are probably going to get the note. Anyway she goes on, she says that “it is naturally just the tip of the iceberg,” as we all can imagine, “there are whole areas of our home that only he and one of our sons can operate, though the rest of us do try from time to time. So he regularly defends his purchases on the grounds that they will make my life easier. So far, not so much. I can operate the TV and the TiVo in our bedroom, but need to call him in to do just about everything else or to use our home theater, alarm system, security cameras, heating/cooling, some of our lights, sprinklers, home network, digital camera, movie camera, his car...you get the picture.”
Craig: So who owns all these toys, Jennifer, you or him?
Jack: So anyway, she says can you recommend a universal remote or something that will actually make these things easy to operate.
Craig: And we have two answers to that.
Jack: We do. So Craig you have probably the...
Craig: You go first.
Jack: Well, my answer actually is a remote control that I have been using for a couple of years. It is going to require some setup. It is called the Harmony remote and if you go to —the company is actually now owned by Logitech. So if you google the Harmony remote, I believe it is harmonyremote.com or you can go to the Logitech website and find these Harmony remotes and they have a series of...
Craig: logitech.com.
Jack: logitech.com.
Craig: That's it.
Jack: And they have a series of remotes, their top of the line is the 1000, the Harmony 1000. It has a full LCD screen with color icons for all your devices and essentially here is how it works. It is very cool.
These remote controls actually will dock with your computer and you go into your computer and it goes to a website and says, what gear do you have. And so you put in, OK, I have got this TV, I have got this A/V receiver, I have got this DVD player, I have got these game consoles, on and on and on and on and on until you basically have told the website everything that you have and then it asks you, OK, fine, it asks you a couple other questions and then you press the go button or whatever, I forgot what they call the button, anyway press the button and it updates your remote control and automatically programs the thing, so that when you press the Xbox ® button, all of a sudden, boom, everything lights up and you are perfectly configured.
Craig: So you get... All your macros are done automatically.
Jack: That's right. So there is a lot of upfront preparation that needs to be done, so you, if you got somebody technically savvy in your house as it sounds that you do, you might want to get them to do the initial setup. But then once it is setup, you really can kind of get rid of all of the rest of the remote controls and just have one of these remote controls. It is very easy to use sitting there on your coffee table.
Craig: Well Jennifer, it sounds like your husband has a lot of toys and it sounds like you guys are trying to control all those devices from a very, very simple interface. Here is my recommendation. There is an organization called CEDIA, Custom Electronics Design Installation Association. They have a trade show, we talk about them all the time.
Jack: Can you say that when you talk fast?
Craig: I can say that three times...
Jack: Customer electronics associate...
Craig: Can you say it backwards?
Jack: I know. I can't, go ahead.
Craig: But anyway, the CEDIA representatives or CEDIA installers in your town, maybe the easiest way is to have a CEDIA person come over to your house and literally evaluate what you got, try to understand what you are trying to do in terms of your multiple interfaces, your multiple macros. I mean potentially you want to dim the lights, potentially you want to work the screen if you have got a projection system. And really get somebody from CEDIA to come out, evaluate and understand what your situation is and make some recommendations as to a touch-type remote control that basically will control all of your functionality within the house.
Jack: That's right. I mean this is an association of custom installers and these guys specialize into coming into people's homes and making things sound good, look good, and making it work.
Craig: Making it work.
Jack: And easy to use. So they can even—I mean they can go so far as to design, as you were saying Craig, even like a custom-touch panel for your house. You just literally again just press one button and everything is automatically configured the way you want it and these guys also go a little bit further than just your home A/V setup. They are also sometimes able to do I guess complete home networking, is that right?
Craig: Yeah. Home lighting, home automation.
Jack: Home lighting, all that stuff. So CEDIA...
Craig: Go to Google, just google CEDIA and then if you go to the CEDIA site, you can get recommendations of installers in your area. That might be the easiest way to go about it.
Jack: Absolutely. We can't recommend those guys enough and again it is a national organization. They are probably in the town where you live.
Craig: There you go.
Jack: So listen, I think it is time for a break.
Craig: And then we are going to come back with—I have got something to talk about really quick.
Jack: OK, go ahead.
Craig: And then we will introduce our new guest.
Jack: Oh you want to do it before the break or after that?
Craig: Yeah. We will do it after that.
Jack: All right back to the break. We are going to a break, see you right back.
Craig: Break...break...break.
[radio break]
Craig: And we are back at Dolbycast; what is that Web address Jack?
Jack: It is dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: Send your complimentary comments.
Jack: And otherwise.
Craig: And otherwise, to that address.
Jack: And questions.
Craig: And questions. Hey, we do have a lot of questions too and we should probably get to a bunch of those in a future podcast.
Jack: Yeah. We may have to do another one of those all-questions podcasts. That's right. Actually a lot of questions on bass redirection. So I am going to push for bass redirection podcast.
Craig: So remember when we did the home theater outdoors segment?
Jack: That was fun.
Craig: Wasn't that fun?
Jack: The "bury the subwoofer in your ground" episode, that was very cool.
Craig: Yeah, bury the subwoofer in your ground and...
Jack: That is cool, that is cool. The Five One Rock system.
Craig: It was interesting. We have a company across the bay from us, Renco, who just announced, I just got this press release today, they are going to introduce a 42-inch LCD display that is 100 percent waterproof.
Jack: Very cool.
Craig: And you put it outside in your home, so that you take it outside.
Jack: Now can you dunk it underwater in your swimming pool, so it is like you are underwater with goggles, you can watch TV.
Craig: I wouldn't recommend that because it is connected to an electrical circuit you know. That might not be a good thing.
Jack: That would be bad.
Craig: But it is really cool because it says they have got an internal setting on it that will let it go down, they work really well down to 4 degrees in the winter time.
Jack: Whoa.
Craig: You know if you live in Minnesota, this could be...
Jack: Revolutionize your life!
Craig: Sit outside in the frigid cold and watch your home theater, man.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: But it is only $8,995, so that is probably in your budget.
Jack: 89... as in nine thou...
Craig: As in $9,000...
Jack: OK, no, that would be out of my…
Craig: So go out people, go out and buy one of those and....
Jack: Yeah, one for the front lawn and one for the back, right.
Craig: There you go, cool. So let us get to our guest.
Jack: While speaking of displays, we have a very special guest here in the studio with us and we have Mr. Gaven Wang and Gaven, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do.
Gaven Wang: So I am the Senior Video Product Manager and I manage the high-dynamic-range products for Dolby.
Craig: High dynamic range, what is that?
Gaven: So high dynamic range is actually very well known in the photography industry. It is a way of photographers to take multiple exposures of the same image and superimpose them one on top of another and blend them. And what it does is it creates a 16-bit image that encompasses the real-life dynamic range.
Jack: So we are going to have TVs that can do 16-bit video, is that what you...?
Gaven: 16-bit video.
Jack: Oh my gosh.
Craig: So that is very cool.
Jack: That is very cool because we talk about 12-bit all the time, that's the latest and greatest, and you are saying it is 16-bit, wow.
Craig: What is the benefit of all this, Gaven?
Gaven: The benefit is...
Craig: What do I get from 16-bit video in HDR from Dolby?
Gaven: What you get from HDR in Dolby is you get local dimming technologies, which is LED-based backlight for LCD TVs.
Craig: So, let's back up for our listeners, local dimming does what?
Gaven: Local dimming enables the backlight to control the brightness of an area by not only the LCD panel, but also by modulating the backlight behind bright features in a scene.
Jack: So if I understand this correctly, standard LCD TV, essentially you have your LCD panel and then behind that you just have a light?
Gaven: Correct.
Jack: Right—and it is a uniform light? And so what we are doing, what Dolby technology is doing is instead of just having one uniform light behind the LCD panel, it is able to kind of adjust each area of the display, is that what we are seeing here?
Gaven: Correct.
Craig: Adjust the brightness for sure.
Jack: Adjust the brightness of it and dynamically, so what does that do?
Gaven: So what that does is we replace the today's backlight, which is made out of CCFL backlights with a digital array of LEDs, and these LEDs will cover an area of the LCD panel. We feed the LED backlight with the LCD panel 8 bits and 8 bits. So mathematically, it is 16 bits because for every 1 bit that you can modulate on the panel side, you can modulate another 8 bits on the LED side.
Craig: So you replace the light, which always stays on, which is why we never have really deep solid blacks when you watch an LCD display. You replace that light with a series of LED lights?
Jack: That can modulate.
Craig: That are each responsible I guess for a certain area within the display, correct?
Gaven: Correct.
Craig: And then you modulate the brightness of those which gives you basically...
Jack: I mean yeah, so all this technical stuff, I get it, but what's the end result, what is the punch line?
Gaven: The end result is ultra-high contrast, it is contrast that you can see while you are watching movies, so there is contrast ratings today. There is different ways of measuring contrast; there is regular contrast, there is dynamic contrast. The static contrast today is around 2,000 to 2,500:1. Dynamic contrast is around 10,000:1. Our local dimming technologies can take your display up to a usable 100,000:1 or higher...
Craig: That is like 100 times...
Gaven:...better than what you can do today.
Craig: A hundred times better contrast than what LCD technology can do today.
Gaven: At a minimum.
Craig: Unbelievable.
Jack: Gaven, for a second here for our listeners, every television set that we know of out there has two controls, one is brightness and one is contrast and they are different from each other, aren't they?
Gaven: Yeah.
Jack: What does brightness do on a television set?
Gaven: They are a little misleading. The brightness adjustment on a television set actually adjusts the black level of a television. So if you increase the brightness, what you are doing is you are raising the black level of the TV set.
Jack: So you are making blacks...
Gaven: You are making blacks grey.
Craig: But it doesn't actually make it brighter?
Gaven: It doesn't make your picture brighter.
Jack: I did not know this.
Craig: Yes.
Gaven: And contrast adjusts the whites.
Jack: Wait a minute, you just completely destroyed my world view. Say that once...so contrast adjusts the whites?
Gaven: Right.
Jack: And brightness adjusts the blacks?
Gaven: The blacks.
Jack: I don't get it.
Craig: You didn't know that?
Jack: I did not know that and I do not get it. So why, explain it to me because when I adjust the brightness, it just looks like it is getting brighter and when I adjust the contrast, it seems to make the difference between bright and dark greater.
Craig: When you adjust the brightness, look at the blacks next time, they turn grey.
Jack: They turn grey. No, I get that, I get that.
Craig: They turn grey, so what you are doing is you are adding—you are moving black to grey basically by adding more brightness to...
Jack: OK and I don't like that. I get that, I don't want to do that too much. Now, in terms of contrast with the white, explain that to me.
Gaven: All right. With the contrast it is balancing the whites with the raised black levels with the raised blacks, so you need to adjust both, you can't just crank up the brightness and still have a good image. You need to tweak the contrast settings in a while.
Jack: So, adjusting these two settings is definitely an art. And I have seen some CEDIA installers really go to town on a TV and really modulate those two and that is essentially the core principles that they are operating with?
Gaven: Right. They are trying to get a good compromise between good black levels and a punchy picture.
Craig: So, taking it all back to HDR again.
Jack: HDR acronym. Got to explain the acronym on Dolbycast. HDR is high dynamic range.
Gaven: Right.
Jack: OK, coming back to that.
Craig: Bringing it back high dynamic range, how do we make the picture better, what gets better?
Gaven: So, what gets better is we...by modulating the backlight on this, if you have one image that is on the picture with bright areas and dark areas, we can keep those dark areas black and keep the bright areas bright and use the full amount of light to highlight the bright areas while keeping the black levels very black.
Craig: So, you are preserving your blacks in the picture while maintaining a really super- high white level of contrast level.
Gaven: Exactly.
Jack: Now you are calling this technology the consumer is going to see what? So, are they going to look for HDR, high dynamic range on the TV, what are they going to look for in their TV to know that they are getting this technology?
Gaven: So, they are going to look for the Dolby® Contrast and Dolby Vision logos.
Jack: OK. So, there is going to be logos, Dolby logos on the TV set: one Dolby Vision and one Dolby Contrast and what is the diff?
Gaven: The difference is Dolby Contrast is cost-effective today and it is enhanced dynamic range, it is not the full high-dynamic range, but it is enhanced dynamic range that will give you much better contrast levels and it will let you experience everything that local dimming can provide as far as blacks and whites and everything in between at a conventional brightness level.
Jack: So, how does that differ? OK, so it gives me the true blacks on an LCD TV, but at a conventional brightness level, that is Dolby Contrast. Now what is Dolby Vision?
Gaven: Dolby Vision is the next step. Dolby Vision takes it to a high-dynamic-range level. In high dynamic range, you need more brightness. So a minimum of about 1,500 nits for peak brightness.
Jack: What is a nit?
Gaven: A nit is a...
[laughter]
A nit is another term for candela per meter square; candela per meter square is one candle in a square meter box.
Jack: So, this is how you measure brightness.
Gaven: This is how you measure light brightness.
Jack: I had the fortunate opportunity at CEATEC because I was there to see the TV that you guys were showing. I can attest to the fact that those things are bright and the blacks, at the same time, this TV is so incredibly bright. I mean, it looks real. When you stare up into the sky in reality, your eyes have to adjust because it's bright.
I got that, almost that, same kind of sensation looking at this TV; it's like I was looking at a window into the world. It wasn't like a TV that I had ever seen before. It's that sensation. Everybody keeps talking about what HDTV will be able to do, and then you say, "OK, yes, kind of looks like." But this looked like somebody had put a window up and I was looking out into the world.
Craig: You have to remember that your perception of brightness in that display is really a function of the black levels. So, if you have a really good solid black level, it's going to make the TV set look brighter when you do have a brighter image.
Gaven: Correct. The eye sees luminance in a logarithmic scale.
Jack: Luminance being brightness.
Gaven: Being brightness, light, the amount of light. Even in our display, our display at CEATEC was capable of putting out 4,000 peak nits.
Jack: Which is a lot.
Gaven: Which is a lot. It's 20 times more than what an LCD TV can produce today.
Jack: I felt that. I mean, I looked at the TV as, "Oh, my gosh!"
Gaven: But that 20 times more measured light, to the human eye, it doesn't quite look even double the brightness of a regular display.
Jack: Because you have the law of diminishing return as things get brighter, is that right?
Gaven: Exactly.
Jack: OK.
Gaven: And the way the eye receives light on a logarithmic scale, it's not linear.
Jack: Right.
Gaven: So, that display, even though it's 20 times the measured brightness of the TV, it only looks a little bit close to double the brightness.
Jack: Yep, yep. So, I have to say, I have to ask this question. Let's return to some fundamentals here. What is Dolby doing video? I mean, here we are, over 40-year-old company known for audio, why are we doing video? And question number two, are we making TVs?
Gaven: Right. So, why are we doing video? Actually, Dolby has very strong roots in video. The first product that Ray Dolby worked on was a video noise reduction system...
Jack: That's right. That's in our museum. I've seen that.
Gaven:...for black and white television. He had also worked on the first VTR, the Ampex video tape recorder.
Craig: That's right. He was...
Jack: That's right. He was working at Ampex on the very first, sort of the great grandfather, of the VCRs.
Gaven: Exactly. It's the first VCR that was ever to come on the market.
Jack: Unbelievable.
Gaven: In the past few years, recently we do a lot of work on the pro cinema side.
Jack: Yes, for digital cinema.
Gaven: For digital cinema. Correct. What we've done now is now we're trying to get into the consumer space to enhance the overall home entertainment experience. So, we rooted ourselves in audio experience and now we're trying to enhance on the video side as well.
Craig: I think you summed it up really well. I mean, Dolby has a rich history of making audio entertainment better in the home.
Jack: Yep.
Craig: Now, we're reaching out. We're going to make video entertainment, not only...
Jack: So, we're not making TVs.
Craig: No.
Jack: We're actually going to provide technology on to other people's TVs.
Gaven: Yes, exactly. Well, we provide the IP and the technology for TV manufacturers to use...
Craig: Do we need to tell our listeners what IP is? Do you think they got that one?
Jack: Intellectual property.
[laughter]
Jack: I'm the king of acronyms. I'll tell you what, this is a great segue into a break. When we come back, I want to hear more about what consumers need to look for.
Craig: What's our plans?
Jack: What's our plans? Is this the beginning of something new? Let's just talk. So, let's go to a break. We'll be right back.
[radio break]
Craig: Back at Dolbycast with Mr. Gaven Wang, Video Product Manager for Dolby Laboratories.
Gaven, you know in our previous conversation, we talked about Dolby video technologies and how they apply to display devices. So, the question again is, is Dolby building television sets? Is that our next business?
Gaven: No. Dolby is not in the hardware business. We're focused on enabling manufacturers that build these TV sets to use our technology to enhance the performance of televisions.
Craig: So, Dolby Vision and Dolby Contrast will be built into LCD display devices.
Gaven: Correct.
Jack: I want to talk a little bit more about what this actually looks like because I think a lot of our listeners now get the technology and I think they understand the benefits. But one thing that I really want to convey is the experience. We talked a lot about looking out through a window and that it looks real, like reality. One thing that you guys were talking a lot about at CEATEC is that your eyes actually have the ability to see a lot more brightness and a lot more contrast than really any TV today, or any TV ever, has been capable of. Is that the case?
Gaven: That's the case. The human eye on the logarithmic scale can see up to five orders of magnitude of luminance.
Jack: Right.
Gaven: Today's display devices can only produce two to three orders of magnitude. What local dimming technology does on the Dolby Vision side, because Dolby Vision is higher brightness, the Dolby Vision product can enable five orders of magnitude.
Jack: Just like the human eye can see.
Gaven: So it can match what the human eye perceives.
Jack: So, in that scene in Lawrence of Arabia, when they shoot straight into the sun, I could get a pretty intense experience, I would imagine, watching that scene.
Gaven: Correct.
Jack: So, I have the TV with Dolby Vision, Dolby Contrast, do my DVDs work on the TV? Do I need to buy all new DVDs? Does it work just with Blu-ray and HD DVD? What about normal TV?
Craig: So, what about broadcasts?
Jack: Yes. What's the deal?
Gaven: It works with all content. We do a lot of algorithm processing because even though HDR, high dynamic range, is 16-bit content, in video, there is no available 16-bit content. So, what we need to do is we need to take in the standard 8-bit or 10-bit video signals and we do a lot of algorithm processing. We expand those 8 bits into 16 bits. So, through our part of the TV system, we do 8-bit to 16-bit expansion and everything that we do on the Dolby Vision part is processed in 16 bits to enhance the...
Jack: That prototype TV that you showed us at CEATEC, is that in my living room now? Or, do I need to pick that up after this conversation?
Gaven: You can pick it up after.
Craig: But we do have to say for the retailers and for the show attendees at the International Consumer Electronics Show, this is something we will have on display in our exhibit.
Jack: Yes. Please, come by and see us.
Craig: Come by and check it out. Come see Dolby Vision, Dolby Contrast. Come see Dolby Video, right?
Jack: And come see Gaven. Listen, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Gaven: Thank you for having me.
Jack: All right.
Craig: Thanks, Gaven.
Jack: Thank you, listeners. We'll see you next time.
Craig: Bye, Jack.
Jack: Bye, Craig.
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