HDR, or High Dynamic Range video, is well-established at this point. With Netflix, along with newer streaming services like Apple TV+ and Disney+, all offering Dolby Vision as a premium experience for their customers, and Amazon's embrace of a wider range of HDR standards, those of us with HDR-capable televisions now have a broad range of content to consume in this vibrant new format. But what about those of us charged with making content for these new distribution avenues?

One of the major technology trends in 2020 continues to be HDR. As you may also know, Netflix has instituted a requirement that all original programming be finished in HDR (the Dolby Vision flavor, to be exact) — not unlike their 2015 edict that all original programming be shot with cameras from a growing list of bodies that capture at least UHD 3840x2160 natively. While a full primer on ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting HDR’ is beyond the scope of this article, I wanted to highlight one camera particularly well-suited to HDR capture (as well as satisfying the Netflix resolution requirements): ARRI’s ALEXA Mini LF.

We have been talking about HDR for several years now as the next big advancement in cinema production. It was four years ago that we started to see HDR evolve from a buzzword into a reality, but I’ll admit that I never saw much HDR content outside of a trade show or showroom floor, and I’m guessing that is true for most of us.