Theme 4. Basics of Display Screens
#39: Rec.2020
LG Display continues to advance its technologies to deliver more realistic and vivid viewing experiences. One of the key criteria for evaluating display quality is how accurately a screen can reproduce the original colors of the content. This is measured by a metric known as color gamut coverage.
To assess color gamut, internationally defined standards are used as references—such as sRGB, DCI-P3, and AdobeRGB. Following our previous article on DCI-P3, this article explores Rec.2020, the next-generation color standard established for ultra-high-definition (UHD) broadcasting and content production.
① What is Rec.2020 (BT.2020)?
One of the most important factors in achieving lifelike images on a display is its color gamut. Rec.2020, also known as BT.2020, is a color standard for UHD video defined by the ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union – Radiocommunication Sector).
Rec.709 and Rec.2020 each represent different generations of video standards.
Rec.709, established by the ITU-R in 1990, was defined as the standard color space for HDTV broadcasting. At the time, the industry was transitioning from SDTV (Rec.601) to HD, and Rec.709 became the benchmark widely used in broadcasting and general content production throughout the HDTV era. However, because its color space was limited, it could not fully capture the richness and depth of the original colors.
In contrast, Rec.2020 was introduced by the ITU-R in 2012 as the standard for UHDTV broadcasting—setting a new benchmark for the UHD, 4K, and 8K video era. With a far wider color gamut than Rec.709, it can express highly saturated tones and even subtle color differences, delivering more realistic and immersive viewing experiences.
② A Wider Color Space, A Deeper Sense of Immersion
Advancements in cameras and video production technologies are continually expanding the range of colors that can be captured. Displays, in turn, must evolve to keep pace. UHD standards, for instance, are based on Rec.2020, which covers a color space about 172% wider than sRGB used for HDTV. As content production increasingly shifts toward Rec.2020 as the reference standard, audiences will encounter this wider color space across a growing variety of video content in the years ahead.
