Xiaomi manufactures and sells smartphones with the most advanced camera hardware on the market. But it seems the company wants its impact on the imaging industry to extend beyond hardware. Xiaomi is now taking the lead in developing a new HDR display standard.

The World Ultra HD Video Industry Alliance (UWA Alliance) recently approved a project called “High Dynamic Range (HDR) Still Images, Part 2: Single-Layer Format” that will focus on creating a single-layer format for High Dynamic Range. (HDR) still images.

Xiaomi is leading this initiative in collaboration with the China Electronic Technology Standardization Institute, Huawei, Tencent, OPPO and Honor.

The project is planned to be completed by the end of 2024 and aims to create a standard framework for HDR image processing. UWA Alliance’s certificate of approval shows that the project sets standards for two types of HDR still image formats (single-layer and dual-layer). The dual-layer format combines HDR with standard dynamic range (SDR); single-layer format only has HDR.

According to the Alliance, development of the two-layer HDR distribution format is nearly complete and can be quickly agreed upon and released. But the single-layer distribution format will take more time and this is where Xiaomi is focusing its efforts.

UWA lists the following advantages of single-layer HDR images:

• Take HDR photos and create HDR images without creating additional SDR content.
• HDR image editing is more efficient and there is no need to adjust the SDR part.
• It has higher compression efficiency and saves storage space and transmission bandwidth.
• Personal information may be individually deleted when distributing HDR images

It is said that the new standard will define the distribution format of single-layer HDR images after it is finalized. Covers image formatting, metadata, HDR to SDR conversion, and instructions for creating, editing, transferring, and viewing single-layer HDR images.