Dynamic range expansion of video sequences: a subjective quality assessment study

The goal of this paper is to assess whether existing solutions to expand low dynamic range (LDR) still images to high dynamic range (HDR) displays can apply to moving pictures. To this end, we conduct a subjective quality assessment test on four state-of-the-art expansion operators, using high-quality input LDR content. Our results show that, perhaps surprisingly, no temporal artifacts, such as flickering due to global illumination changes, are introduced applying frame-based algorithms. In addition, they confirm previous studies in that operators as simple as linear expansion can yield acceptable (or even excellent) quality of the HDR video.