OPPO did the right thing by giving up ProXDR

Not long ago, OPPO announced at the Paris Film Festival that it was working with Kazakhstan and the Soviet Union to create a new generation of super light and shadow imaging systems, which will be launched on the OPPO Find X7 series.

Choose to announce this news at the world’s largest and most influential photography exhibition, which shows how much OPPO attaches importance to the new generation of ultra-light and shadow imaging systems. According to OPPO, the new generation of super light and shadow imaging system mainly consists of three parts:

- Super light and shadow full main camera system, from increasing the zoom magnification to creating multiple viewing angles Creative freedom;

- Ultra-light and shadow image engine, using more calculations to achieve less calculation traces;

- Ultra-light and shadow ProXDR display, a photo display technology that conforms to the screen viewing method.

Among them, "Super Light and Shadow Full Main Camera System" refers to the hardware of the imaging system, "Super Light and Shadow Image Engine" refers to the algorithm of the imaging system, and "Super Light and Shadow ProXDR display" is the display of the imaging system.

ProXDR display, also known as photon matrix display technology, has a core purpose of bringing higher dynamic contrast between light and dark and more accurately restoring the natural viewing of photos. To some extent, this is OPPO’s own HDR display technology.

But what is intriguing is that it was also at this massive event that OPPO announced its embrace of the Ultra HDR standard.

Picture/OPPO

Ultra HDR was just launched by Google this year A set of high dynamic range display standards for static images, supported for the first time on Android 14. As a core Android OEM, OPPO's support is both sensible and reasonable on the surface.

The problem is that before Ultra HDR, OPPO had just launched the ProXDR display on the Find X6 series released at the beginning of this year. Since this year, in addition to supporting it on folding screens, it has also been decentralized It comes to the Reno series and OnePlus’ mid-to-high-end product lines. The embrace of Ultra HDR will inevitably affect the actual value and status of ProXDR display, because once Ultra HDR becomes popular, ProXDR will be almost "useless."

So is OPPO planning to give up ProXDR? Let’s not comment on this issue for now. First of all, we still need to know what Ultra HDR is and why OPPO chose to embrace it.

Ultra HDR, the future of mobile photography?

In May of this year, Google held its annual I/O conference, where it naturally released the next-generation Android 14 system. Among them, Google also announced that Android 14 will support Ultra HDR after adding support for HDR video in the last major version.

##I/O Conference, Photo/Google

As a A new high dynamic range image format, Google hopes Ultra HDR can become the default configuration format for the phone's built-in camera app and any in-app camera.

Ultra HDR does have this potential.

On the one hand, Ultra HDR is backwards compatible with JPEG images, which means that virtually all platforms support displaying Ultra HDR images, and even the file extension of Ultra HDR images is .jpg, even on non-HDR display screens, there will be no overall dark problem. Previously, this was one of the key reasons why HDR photos have not been popularized.

##Picture/Android Police @Mishaal Rahman and Dylan Raga

Another On the one hand, the core difference between Ultra HDR and JPEG is that the HDR Gain Map is embedded in the metadata. To put it simply, Ultra HDR image files actually contain two layers of images, one is a JPEG image with standard dynamic range (SDR), and the other is a JPEG image with HDR Gain Map.

When rendering an Ultra HDR image on a device equipped with an SDR display, the SDR version without Gain Map will be displayed; when rendering the same image on a device that supports HDR display When editing an Ultra HDR image, a gain map is applied to the base image, resulting in an HDR image with clearer, more vivid colors and higher contrast.

The second picture from the left shows the problem of HDR photos under SDR display screen in the past, picture/Google

In short, Ultra HDR can completely not affect the display effect under the SDR display standard, and at the same time, under the HDR display standard, it can show the display effect that HDR should have.

Apple actually has a set of standards and technologies similar to Ultra HDR, called Extended Dynamic Range (EDR), which also uses the HDR gain map as an embedded map. The difference is that it is embedded HEIC/HEIF instead of JPEG images.

Of course, as a brand new image format, the biggest problem with Ultra HDR is "support". If software developers do not adapt to Ultra HDR, everything will still be empty talk. .

Fortunately, Google itself is one of the largest software developers in the world.

Picture/Google

When announcing that Android 14 would support Ultra HDR, Google announced that “Google Photos” would fully support it Ultra HDR format. You know, Google Photos had more than 1 billion users as early as 2019. The latest application report shows that the current number of Google Photos users has exceeded 2 billion.

Not only Google Photos, but also the Google Camera built into Pixel also supports the Ultra HDR format for the first time, as well as Chrome and all browsers based on Chromium used around the world. Including on MacOS platform.

In addition, Qualcomm has long announced support for Ultra HDR, and Adobe also announced in October that Lightroom will be the first to support the display and editing of Ultra HDR format. Of course, OPPO, as an OEM manufacturer, has also announced its embrace of the Ultra HDR ecosystem.

Mishaal Rahman, who focuses on Android research and reporting, believes that although it is still a very new image format, Ultra HDR will Be the future of mobile photography. The core is that Ultra HDR not only solves the big problem of SDR display, but also due to less tone mapping, the display effect of Ultra HDR is more balanced and natural, and will not be "too fake" as we often complain.

At the same time, Ultra HDR also makes OPPO ProXDR so necessary.

#ProXDR display, destined to become a thing of the past?

Strictly speaking, the correct name of ProXDR display is photon matrix display technology. OPPO claims that by collecting more than 12 million photon information points, it can accurately restore every pixel in the picture The light and shadow distribution achieves up to 8 times improvement in the dynamic range of light and dark.

Official information, picture/OPPO

But from actual use Look, ProXDR is actually a bit misnamed, because in comparison, ProXDR actually only affects the highlights. Due to format support issues, ProXDR can only be displayed in the photo albums of a few OPPO models, so here we choose to use animations to show the comparison effect of ProXDR display:

Turn on/off in OPPO Find There are visual differences between turning ProXDR on and off. Secondly, this contrast is not obvious enough, but it can already be shown that the ProXDR display actually only controls the bright parts, but has no effect on the dark parts.

In other words, let’s not discuss the gain effect on bright parts. Compared with the real HDR display, the ProXDR display can only be regarded as a semi-finished product, not to mention that OPPO has no impact on establishing the HDR ecosystem at all. power and appeal.

If nothing else, among the few OPPO models that support ProXDR display, even if you want to see the effect of ProXDR display, you can only use the system’s built-in In the photo album, other applications are not supported, including the "Notes" that comes with the system, and the effect of ProXDR display cannot be seen, let alone the support of other third-party applications.

You see, OPPO may not even pay much attention to it. Of course, you can also say that OPPO feels that supporting ProXDR display only in the photo album is enough.

In comparison, Ultra HDR obviously has better prospects and future. In addition to its better compatibility and display effect, Google, Qualcomm, Adobe, The Android ecosystem is also promoting the popularity of Ultra HDR. Even OPPO has announced its embrace of Ultra HDR in the name of "co-creating an ultra-light and shadow display ecosystem."

But OPPO probably also knows that once Ultra HDR becomes popular, the "half-disabled" ProXDR will be even more useless, and OPPO is unable to change all this. As Sun Yat-sen once said:

"The trend of the world is vast. Those who follow it will prosper, and those who go against it will perish."

The title picture shows OnePlus Ace 2 Pro, which also supports ProXDR display

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