Achieving Cinematic Motion With High-Dynamic Range

This paper explores how the appearance of cinematic motion (the characteristic balance of smoothness and realism of motion commonly used in cinema) is affected by high-dynamic range (HDR) presentation. We report on a psychovisual experiment that investigated how observers rated the comparative smoothness of motion among scenes of different motion types (pans, action, slow movement), frame rates, and luminance levels. We found that to match the level of cinematic motion in today’s non-HDR presentation, the frame rate may need to either remain at 24 frames/sec or be increased to 30 frames/sec, depending on the type of motion and the luminance level of the scene. We conclude that by selecting the appropriate frame rate depending on the motion type in each scene, content creators will be able to achieve a similar cinematic motion without compromising their use of the HDR color palette .