SMPTE RDD 2-2007

This document describes a method of connecting the 12-bit linear processing space in an electronic capture camera to a downstream 12-bit linear processing space ("virtual camera processing") via a pair of industrystandard 10-bit serial interfaces carrying 10-bit signal representations. This is achieved by means of a nonlinear transfer curve to be applied to the linearly-coded source image signal and a reverse function by means of which the non-linearity may be accurately reversed (forward and reverse lookup tables may also be used as an implementation alternative to the functions). By exploiting both human visual system characteristics and the particular noise characteristics of the camera, the non-linear curve prevents the bit-depth reduction having any perceptible effects on the received image.

By specifying a particular transfer curve and reverse function, interchange between multiple providers and users of source and destination equipment can be achieved.