Custom data indicating nominal range of samples of media content

A computer system comprising one or more processing units and memory, wherein the computer system implements a video processing tool configured to perform video processing operations comprising:

• receiving, as part of an elementary video bitstream of encoded video content, a sequence header for a video sequence, the sequence header including range data that indicates nominal range of samples of the encoded video content, the samples of the encoded video content having a sample depth that indicates an available range of values of the samples of the encoded video content, wherein the nominal range is a range of values within the available range for the sample depth of the samples of the encoded video content, and wherein the range data indicates one of multiple possible options for the nominal range, the multiple possible options for the nominal range including:
• full range characterized by values from 0 . . . 2n−1 for samples of bit depth n;
• and
• a limited range characterized by values in less than the full range;
• parsing the sequence header, including parsing the range data;
• and
• for each of multiple frames in a group of frames of the video sequence:
• receiving, as part of the elementary video bitstream of encoded video content, encoded data for the frame;
• and
• decoding the encoded data for the frame to reconstruct the frame, thereby producing samples of reconstructed video output for the frame.

One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon, as part of an elementary video bitstream of encoded video content, a sequence header for a video sequence and, for each of multiple frames in a group of frames of the video sequence, encoded data for the frame, the sequence header including range data that indicates nominal range of samples of the encoded video content, the samples of the encoded video content having a sample depth that indicates an available range of values of the samples of the encoded video content, wherein the nominal range is a range of values within the available range for the sample depth of the samples of the encoded video content, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are selected from the group consisting of volatile memory, non-volatile memory, magnetic disk, CD-ROM, and DVD, and wherein the elementary video bitstream is organized to facilitate decoding by video processing operations, the video processing operations comprising:

• parsing the sequence header, including parsing the range data, wherein the range data indicates one of multiple possible options for the nominal range, the multiple possible options for the nominal range including:
• full range characterized by values from 0 . . . 2n−1 for samples of bit depth n;
• and
• a limited range characterized by values in less than the full range;
• and
• for each of the multiple frames in the group of frames of the video sequence, decoding the encoded data for the frame to reconstruct the frame, thereby producing samples of reconstructed video output for the frame.