Multistream video encoder for generating multiple dynamic range bitstreams

High-dynamic-range (HDR) technology allows capturing of video content at a wider range of luminance than low-dynamic-range (LDR) video. The resulting video more closely resembles the scene as perceived by the human eye. However, displays currently support only a limited range of HDR. Therefore, both an HDR version and LDR version of a video should be encoded during content acquisition. This means that the cost of encoder hardware in cameras would double. As a solution, this paper proposes a multistream video encoder that allows generating an HDR and LDR version of the same HDR video footage at roughly the same computational complexity as a single encoder, effectively allowing encoding of two dynamic-range versions of the video with a negligible increase in cost. For the LDR version, this multistream encoder results in a bit rate overhead of only 11.6% for the same quality as a two-encoder solution.