Even if you specialize in tech, it seems inevitable that you’re going to run across unfamiliar jargon. No brain can absorb everything, and if you don’t need to know a term, there’s less incentive to learn about it. I’m a naturally curious person — but I’m sure I’d push some important information out of my head if I started learning the intricacies of, say, motherboard design on the smartphones and PEVs I use. I barely understand what a MOSFET is.
HLG is a term I’ve encountered repeatedly when scanning the HDR specs of TVs, yet never needed to know much more about than that. I decided to probe a little deeper, and as it turns out, there’s a good reason it’s largely sidelined next to technologies like Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Regardless, you may have already experienced HLG without being aware.
What is HLG, and who supports it?
A solution to a very specific problem
HLG is short for Hybrid Log-Gamma. It was co-developed in 2014 by two public broadcasters, specifically the UK’s BBC and Japan’s NHK. As that suggests, the standard was developed to provide HDR (high dynamic range) over broadcast TV. It’s a very unusual implementation of HDR, though, and it’s not strictly relegated to over-the-air signals.
The tech addresses a few problems. First, it allows HDR to ride on the same channels as SDR (standard dynamic range). You might remember that earlier in…