# Beyond Feature Mapping GAP: Integrating Real HDRTV Priors for Superior SDRTV-to-HDRTV Conversion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10775 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10775/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09841/) (2020)
- [ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00219/) (2018)
- [Towards Real-World Blind Face Restoration with Generative Facial Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.04061/) (2021)
- [Bringing Old Photos Back to Life](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09484/) (2020)
- [Deep Learning for HDR Imaging: State-of-the-Art and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.10394/) (2021)
- [Deep SR-ITM: Joint Learning of Super-Resolution and Inverse Tone-Mapping for 4K UHD HDR Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11176/) (2019)
- [JSI-GAN: GAN-Based Joint Super-Resolution and Inverse Tone-Mapping with Pixel-Wise Task-Specific Filters for UHD HDR Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.04391/) (2019)
- [A New Journey from SDRTV to HDRTV](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07978/) (2021)
- [Attention-Guided Progressive Neural Texture Fusion for High Dynamic Range Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06211/) (2021)
- [Single-Image HDR Reconstruction by Multi-Exposure Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15897/) (2022)
- [SDRTV-to-HDRTV via Hierarchical Dynamic Context Feature Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.00319/) (2022)
- [Learning a Practical SDR-to-HDRTV Up-conversion using New Dataset and Degradation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13031/) (2023)
- [Merging-ISP: Multi-Exposure High Dynamic Range Image Signal Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.04762/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [RealRep: Generalized SDR-to-HDR Conversion via Attribute-Disentangled Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07322/) (2025)
- [Bio-SFT: Asymmetric Cortical Guidance and Retinal Adaptation for Robust HDR Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.17456/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rise of HDR-WCG display devices has highlighted the need to convert SDRTV to HDRTV, as most video sources are still in SDR. Existing methods primarily focus on designing neural networks to learn a single-style mapping from SDRTV to HDRTV. However, the limited information in SDRTV and the diversity of styles in real-world conversions render this process an ill-posed problem, thereby constraining the performance and generalization of these methods. Inspired by generative approaches, we propose a novel method for SDRTV to HDRTV conversion guided by real HDRTV priors. Despite the limited information in SDRTV, introducing real HDRTV as reference priors significantly constrains the solution space of the originally high-dimensional ill-posed problem. This shift transforms the task from solving an unreferenced prediction problem to making a referenced selection, thereby markedly enhancing the accuracy and reliability of the conversion process. Specifically, our approach comprises two stages: the first stage employs a Vector Quantized Generative Adversarial Network to capture HDRTV priors, while the second stage matches these priors to the input SDRTV content to recover realistic HDRTV outputs. We evaluate our method on public datasets, demonstrating its effectiveness with significant improvements in both objective and subjective metrics across real and synthetic datasets.