IRE - Institute of Radio Engineers

[Richard]

video signals are based on a 1 volt peak to peak output. Within that there is 300mv for the sync signals and the video information comes after that providing up to 700mv to express that signal content. IRE represents a percentage of the all the possible video levels. 0IRE means 0% of the video range has been used while 100IRE means 100% of the video range has been used.

All we need to know for displays is that IRE simply represents a video signal level that is expressed as a specific amount of light output on your display.

Our old NTSC system used 7.5IRE to 100IRE to for the video signal. DVD and HDTV expands the dynamic range of video black by using 0IRE and 100IRE.