We’ve stumbled upon a truly ironic problem for the highly anticipated HDR (high dynamic range) format after watching a few Ultra HD Blu-ray movies on several 2016 4K HDR TVs we’ve reviewed recently. We were experimenting with introducing ambient lighting to see if we could better mask the backlight inconsistencies and local dimming issues in HDR mode on the LED LCD televisions we were testing, but invariably found ourselves asking, “Why does the HDR picture look so unimpressive? We can’t make out any dark detail!”
And then it hit us.
Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of HDR (high dynamic range) mastering is to expand the available luminance range rather than elevate the overall brightness of HDR videos. High-end display calibration software maker Light Illusion has published this exact quote from SMPTE’s ST.2084:2014 standard “High Dynamic Range Electro-Optical Transfer Function of Mastering Reference Displays” on its website:
This EOTF (ST2084) is intended to enable the creation of video images with an increased luminance range; not for creation of video images with overall higher luminance levels. For consistency of presentation across devices with different output brightness, average picture levels in content would likely remain similar to current luminance levels; i.e. mid-range scene exposures would produce currently expected luminance levels appropriate to video or cinema.
What this means is that for most scenes, 4K Blu-ray’s Average Picture Level (APL) in HDR should not deviate drastically from that of a regular 1080p Bluray in SDR (standard dynamic range). Indeed, that’s what we found in our own 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray vs Blu-ray comparisons.
Because we have the luxury of multiple displays (for review) available in our test room, we set up a Samsung KS9000 (hooked up to an OPPO BDP-103 BD deck) beside a Sony XD93 (fed from a Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player). Both TVs were calibrated for SDR and HDR (D65 white point and their respective EOTF), and periodically we would swap sources to make sure the difference we’re seeing was not caused by the displays (it wasn’t).
We put the UHD and normal Blu-ray discs of the same movie into the Samsung K8500 and the OPPO 103 respectively, and paused at the same frame on both players. Leaving the backlight and contrast untouched (at their maximum values) on the television showing 4K HDR, we then adjusted the backlight and contrast settings on the TV showing 1080p SDR to match the average brightness delivered by both displays for that particular frame. Finally, on the TV displaying SDR, we switched to another HDMI input connected to a signal generator to measure the peak white luminance produced by the adjusted backlight and contrast settings. Since we made sure the settings were shared across inputs, we could get a good idea of the average brightness of that specific frame in the Ultra HD Blu-ray version.
Let’s start with the results for Mad Max: Fury Road. Photos were taken with a locked-off camera, and you can click on each photo to see a higher-res version. The TV on the left is the Samsung UE55KS9000 showing the 1080p Blu-ray from the OPPO BDP-103 in SDR; whereas the one on the right is the Sony KD-65XD9305 displaying the Ultra HD Blu-ray from the Samsung BDP-K8500 in HDR. For now, please ignore any significant discrepancy in colours (which is mainly caused by different colour space remapping), and focus on the average brightness on each screen.
The following scene is from the beginning of Chapter 4. The Samsung 55KS9000 panel on the left was calibrated to 120 cd/m2 peak white with a [Backlight] setting of “4” and [Contrast] of “97“, and you can see that the Sony 65XD9305 on the right delivered a similar level of overall brightness despite having its backlight and contrast maxed in [HDR video] mode:
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| Mad Max: Fury Road – timecode 00:30:19 (Left: SDR Blu-ray; Right: HDR 4K Blu-ray) |
The next shot is from the start of Chapter 9. Again, you can see that the APLs from the Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray discs were very similar – we didn’t have to change the 120-nit [Backlight] value on the Samsung KS9000 at all:
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| Mad Max: Fury Road – timecode 01:22:12 |
Moving on to The Martian, from this scene in Chapter 2, we can see that we’d need to up the light output on the left TV showing regular Blu-ray in order to match the average brightness:
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| The Martian – timecode 00:03:24 (Left: 1080p SDR Blu-ray; Right: 4K HDR Blu-ray) |
Increasing the Blu-ray-fed UE55KS9000’s backlight adjustment slider one by one, we eventually settled on a [Backlight] setting of “8” whose light output (peak white measurement 220 cd/m2) came closest to that on the Sony KD65XD9305 in HDR mode:
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| The Martian – timecode 00:03:24 |
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| The Martian – timecode 00:29:15 |
We’ve analysed three other 4K BD films we have at our disposal (The Lego Movie, Kingsman: The Secret Service and Sicario), and obtained a similar result – the APL of a HDR UHD Blu-ray corresponds to the APL of an SDR Blu-ray presented on a display calibrated to 120-220 cd/m2 peak white.
“This is all very fascinating,” we hear you ask, “but what’s your point?”
Here’s the rub: because [Backlight] and [Contrast] are already maxed out on HDR televisions during the playback of 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays, there’s no straightforward way to increase the display’s light output during the day to avoid the picture being drowned out by competing ambient light – a good analogy is how you need to boost your smartphone’s screen brightness under the sun for the text to remain readable. Even with only a moderate amount of ambient light in our test room, dark HDR scenes (such as the dust storm sequence in The Martian) became extremely difficult to watch – our constricted pupils just weren’t able to discern sufficient shadow detail in the presence of room light.
For regular Blu-rays, this isn’t a problem, because they don’t force displays into HDR mode with maximum [Backlight] and [Contrast] settings to achieve higher peak brightness. You can easily increase the [Backlight] or [OLED Light] on a TV playing Blu-ray (or any other non-HDR material for that matter) to obtain a brighter picture for daytime viewing – there’s ample headroom available since SDR content is typically mastered to a peak white of only 100 to 120 cd/m2.
To compound the issue, the ST.2084 HDR standard specifies an absolute luminance EOTF (electro-optical transfer function), which means every input signal value should be mapped directly to the same output luminance level on all HDR displays. SDR, on the other hand, uses a relative luminance system where each signal value is allowed to produce different luminance levels on different displays with different peak white brightness, making it easier to adapt to brighter viewing conditions.
To be fair, the HDR presentation from UHD BD is not without its advantages. Owing to the extended dynamic range, highlight details appeared brighter, more realistic and better-defined, as can be observed from this shot in Mad Max: Fury Road (timecode 00:59:55):
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| Left: 1080p Blu-ray in SDR; Right: 4K Blu-ray in HDR (click to enlarge) |
Even cranking the KS9000’s [Backlight] to its maximum value of “20” couldn’t extract as much brightness and clarity (specifically the sun) from the Blu-ray disc as we could from the 4K HDR Blu-ray:
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| Left: Blu-ray; Right: UHD Blu-ray (click to enlarge) |
It’s not only specular highlights that benefit from HDR. At the other end of the contrast ratio spectrum, dark sequences reveal more detail too. For example, there were more stars visible against the night sky in this The Martian scene (timecode 00:28:54) on the 4K Bluray version, even after we bumped [Backlight] to maximum for the 1080p Blu-ray:
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| Left: 1080p BD in SDR; Right: 4K BD in HDR (click to enlarge) |
Summary
Let’s recap the problem in a nutshell: the HDR presentation in current Ultra HD Blu-ray films is not bright enough for viewing under moderate/ strong ambient lighting, because the HDR metadata forces compatible TVs to be driven at their maximum backlight capacity, leaving no room for higher light output. Of course, there exist other avenues (such as gamma adjustment or dynamic contrast trickery) to brighten the on-screen image for daytime viewing, but these are generally insubstantial compared with the most effective method of raising backlight luminance.
This issue is not confined to 4K Blu-ray – any HDR content that pushes backlight/ contrast to the limit for peak brightness while maintaining an SDR-like APL is going to suffer from the same problem. One potential solution is for manufacturers to provide the option to disable HDR mode either from the display or the Ultra HD BD player (so you’ll get 3840×2160 in SDR instead), but that would mean missing out on the most attractive component in the next wave of UHD (ultra high-definition) development.
Whilst it took the arrival of Ultra HD Blu-ray (so we could compare against standard Blu-ray) for us to spot the problem, it seems the video industry was already aware of this potential banana skin. A white paper titled “HDR/WCG Systems Survey: Emerging UHDTV Systems” published by leading calibration software developer SpectraCal here (email registration required to download) contains this illuminating snippet:
For HDR, the industry is considering 5 nits (cd/m2) to be a desirable surround luminance level.
5 cd/m2 is very dark, roughly the amount of light generated by five lit candles; any switched-on room lamp is likely to exceed this figure. With its usage pretty much restricted to a dark room (not dissimilar to 3D if you think about it), 4K HDR Blu-ray is a niche format that may become even more niche, although in fairness most video enthusiasts would do their critical viewing in a dimly-lit environment anyway. It will be interesting to see if HDR broadcast can succeed in the average living room which is typically not light-controlled…
So let me get this straight. I have a bias light in my room that is about 10% of peak luminance. Seen as the display is calibrated to 120 cd/m2 that makes it about 12 cd/m2. So they are recomending for HDR I should have half of that, around 5 cd/m2.
So that’s really dim. Pretty much pitch black.
Interesting.
You wrote that you swapped displays periodically.
The only scenes that i can see a benefit with HDR is the last scenes with the sun and the dark star scene.
The others just looks the same as for dynamic range after you adjusted the backlight.
Did you swap sources on those last scenes aswell ?
It looks more that the brighter sun from the Sony tv is a result of the better backlighting compared to the samsung ?
Can it be that the Sony can put out a higher micro contrast making that sun to look brighter ?
Or does that scene look the same on the Samsung playing the uhd version ?
About overall details.
How much more details did you get on the UHD blu ray version compared to the Blu Ray version ?
Its hard to spot any differences in detail or sharpness between the two from the photos
so….basically 99% of people will not be able to tell a 1080p BD from a 4k UHD disk in a normal room ?!!!
crap…this is a niche market for sure….what a disapointement
I’m still with a Panasonic plasma HD TV at present and viewing darker lit movies has always been a problem during the day. However at least with plasma you have a greater contrast headroom to begin with compared to led/lcd TV. Also better displays use sophisticated screen filters to reject ambient light. Is this not the case on the TVs you tested this issue with?
I can see an obvious difference in contrast between the test images you show. The HDR mode gives a more plasma like contrast range.
But as you have illustrated limiting the luminance level will undermine this.
Unless individual manufacturers allow a light sensor to modify their HDR modes, it’s all but unusable for daytime and even nighttime because of more fussy ambient light requirements.
It seems to me that 4K LED SDR contrast is weaker than what a HD plasma would deliver and that HDR mode could achieve similar or better contrast to plasma but has shot itself in the foot!
What of LG’s OLED panels for this year? Maybe they will deliver what you want by virtue of true emissive displays.
@Dave: You are correct.
@Patrik: Yes, we swapped for the last scenes too. The sun looked clearer/ brighter & the stars more numerous on the TV displaying the UHD BD feed, regardless of whether the TV was Samsung or Sony.
The upscaling on both TVs were excellent, so we didn’t see any significant improvement in detail.
@nenito2k: I wouldn’t go so far to say that… depending on the scene (see the sun and the stars) the HDR version from Ultra HD Blu-rays is clearly superior even in the presence of ambient light. All I’m saying is to get the best HDR experience, you’ll need an almost pitch-black room.
@Darren: The Samsung KS9000 has an excellent ambient-light-rejecting filter, but it’s of little use when the fundamental problem is undefeatable inadequate light output in dark scenes.
HDR will likely look best on OLED, but the same problem of SDR-esque APL/ maxed out [OLED Light] remains.
Warmest regards
Vincent
I have checked that sun scene on my 500M and its the same blown out highlights there as you get with the Blu Ray version.
But what if you play that Sun scene on an non HDR ready 4K tv?
Will the sun be as blown out on both the UHD Blu Ray as the standard Blu Ray version ?
Just to rule out that they didnt clip the highlights on purpose on the Blu Ray version ;)
Well, with all respect I don’t think this is really the problem.
1. Increasing backlight/contrast on daylight is different on TV than phone, because that TV is no longer calibrated and content is no longer displayed as director’s intent. Until we have better AR screens (moth-eye, also last LG OLED is veryy good) viewing movies with high incident light is simply wrong.
2. Increasing backlight on LED with no FALD simply puts whiter backgrounds. On these TVs HDR is good for increased luminance range and bad for spikes (highlights and shadows) because it doesn’t have per-pixel control.
Thank you for providing a clear and intelligent answer as to why I couldn’t improve the picture at my local AV store.
Yesterday I excitedly went to view The Martian on the Samsung 4K Bluray player with the JS8500. To my horror (and the horror and agreement of the employee present) we could not obtain a better picture from the 4K Bluray than from the 1080p Bluray.
The first problem was that the picture looked too dark in the display room (bright lights around). I investigated every setting available for over an hour, and used the Samsung BD Wise setting as well, with HDMI UHD color setting enabled for the additional bandwidth. Usually I can make adjustments to get the picture I want, but it seemed dark even on max settings.
The second problem was severe banding in the martian sky. I had heard that this problem might be caused by video processing, but even after I think turning off everything I could find, the severe banding still occurred. Has anyone solved this problem? Maybe set the TV to PC mode? I’ll try that next time.
From your KS9000 review:
“…UHD Premium-certified status…1000/ 0.05 nits…”
“…As you can imagine, a [Backlight] setting of “20” raised black level to around 0.16 cd/m2…”
So that certification is only for higher 4k resolution with SDR, not for HDR material ?
“All I’m saying is to get the best HDR experience, you’ll need an almost pitch-black room”
With edge led LCD panels and much of dark scenes…well I think it`s not so nice.
My issue is a simple one. There seems to be very little advantage over a 1080P BD disc compared to a native 4K disk.
So my question would be do we need 4K or 4K players? Any chance of some direct images for comparison as the ones in this article do not seem to show a negligible difference in terms of picture quality.
perhaps the jump from 1080P to 8K would have been the one to make…but manufacturers need to sell TV’s I guess!
The biggest jump in quality I have seen on 4K tv is in the resolution quality of 3D – It is now much better, especially for passive 3D, just as 3D is dying out….
Oh yeah you got it finally. The elefant in the room. So going on to the next Problems. With the 4k player from samsung you won’t get a picture on the panasonic dx900. You need to change the hdmi mode to get a picture in first pkace. But than you introduce massive colour banding only resolved after changing back the hdmi mode. On the sony x93 the player is more than often showing errors with the menu scrreens.Also you need to switch on every relevant setting for hdr and wide colour gamut by habd.There is no way for an average user to enjoy the hdr disc by simply plug and playing it.
However there are two possible but but not perfect solutiones to the HDR brightness problem:
1. Turn out the HDR mode on your tv:
This will increase the brightness by 50%. The picture will be still better than on the SDR disc but not as defiend than on full HDR mode. It’s something in between HDR and SDR. This is an good option for a brighter envorinment. The Panasonic DX900 and the Sony XD93 will still follow the correct rec.2020 coulourspace, so it’s an very good option on this tv’s. However, the Highly Recommended Samsung KD9000 will change the colour mode to Rec.709 after turning of the HDR HDMI mode! So the colourtraking will be broken. So no recommendation to use this on that tv
2. Raise the mid tone on your TV:
Especially the (only Recommended) Sony XD 93 can outperform the Samsung KD9000 and even the dx900 under HDR conditions in terms of brightness significantly. For that you have to change the coulour
enhancer to max. The HDR picture will get brighter (by nearly 50%) without consuming more power!
Of course there are similiar settings on the Highly Recommended Samsung but it will burn out bright highlights there, the same with the Panasonic DX900.
The next issue is the forced high energy consumtion under HDR mode! We are returning to the old Plasma problem. A generaly dim picture with better contrast and richer coloures but only enjoyable in a very dim room and the cost of high energy consumption. There is no way to fix this problem right now.
The High energy consumtion appears because under HDR the Brightness is cranked up to max. So even when the overall picture is dimmer in HDR compared to it’s SDR conterpart, the HDR picture will consume 50-80% more energy.
Source of my foundings is the youtube channel of the German “Digitalfernsehen”. They have dedicated two very detailed HD videos to this topic. Of course it’s in German, but you can see with mode is activated on with TV. They are testing the Panasonic and Samsung 4K players on the Panasonic DX900, Samsung KS9000 and the Sony XD93 on side by side comparsions.
I also saw the problems with my own eyes. I can compare the players ans TV’s in the electronic store I’m working. I toook especilal time after work so i could use the TV’s under dim conditions.
After all I two final questions. On my former comment to this topic you said that you don’t see a problem for watching HDR in a bright envorinment. So what happended in just a couple of days that changed your mind? I’m so presissdent, because we on the shop figured out that this is going to be a huge problem just one minute after we started the HDR movie. The second question would be, why didn’t anyone suspected that this could be a major problem before releasing the Hard.- and Software on the consumers? Absolutly no mentioning that goes like this: HDR is for watching in a very dim room only. However this might be inconvinent for most general users, but thats the way the director intended it to be watched. If you do not agree than there is another technology for you. It’s called Full HD SDR Blu Ray or go straight to the Cinema.
Clear lines like this wouldn’t have risen the expectations so high. Next time it would be more adviseble to ask critical questions to the manufacturers in advance. But than again they wouldn’t love you that much anymore…
I think its pretty simple what the next logical step is. Put those toys back in the box and get the DX902 and the G6 out, hook up the UB900 Panasonic bluray player and lets dance.
FALD or OLED anyday!
Stuard you are richtig about the u900. It will work without any flaws on any Tv. However, even the dx900 is too dim in HDR mode. You can crank out the double amount of brightnes when you deactivate HDR on the Tv. You can squeeze out about 200nits on the dx93 under HDR if you use the colour booster. So the Sony is the brightest Tv under full HDR conditions. It’perfectly possible that the xd94 could be the best HDR Tv. Let’s wait and see.
I have to raise a general question. The Hardware is nearly always perfect in terms of signal reproduction. I mean of course there are big diffrences escpesially in a dim room. But be hounest, the biggest diffrence arraises from the source material. There is an hd ready, full hd and now uhd premium logo. However it would be far more usefull if the industry could also apply to a minimum standard on picture and soundquality. Overviewt by a commity branding discs like they do with hardware. Something like AV perfect logo or whatever. The problem are not the players or the tvs. The problem us the HDR disc and it was masterd.
@Vincent:
1: Wouldn’t the simplest solution be a good’ol “Contrast” type slider for increasing light output, and then just have any info exceeding the max. physical light output simply clipped, very similar to how it works (in practice) on an SDR display?
2: That shot of the Sun… I could be wrong, but to me it really looks like the difference (in the Sun’s appearance) comes from the source itself and not from the TV. I mean, they wouldn’t really have needed to make it appear THAT diffuse on the SDR BD, would they? Perhaps to preserve the scenes overall look, but still… It doesn’t look like there is ANY area within that frame hitting 100% (VL 235/255) white?
3: I am still “hyped” (as the kids say these days) for HDR in the future, on an OLED, anyway! I only doing serious veiwing in a batcave, anyway, so… I don’t mind :P I think the approach of mapping signal to actual light output is a good one. (However, there should be an easy fix, though – something like a “signal multiplier” slider… As mentioned.)
Edit:
2: Actually, I just had a look at the Sun frame from the SDR BD on my VT60, and it was hard to figure out whether the brightest part of the Sun was output at 100% (or 109%?) IRE or not… Must be close if not. However, the Sun (and the image in general) didn’t look nearly as flat and diffuse as what it looks like in your photo (and I’m viewing via OLED on phone), so I was pleasantly surprised. But I can definitely see how that image would have benefited from HDR. (Although SDR in itself can look A LOT better. Exhibit A: Anyhting shot in IMAX, like some of Interstellar.)
Von’s hiber is back !!! This whole article wouldn’t exsist if Dolby Vision had been out first…instead of a one time HDR on off for hdr10, it does constant dynamic metadata ….basically it’s way better,fact….im not saying hdr10 is gross, just not as good…why we should wait to buy tech…..
Von’s hiber
Oh look, another must-have technology revealed to be little more than marketing hype.
If in the source and/or on the display black = 0 and brightest white = 1 then there really is nothing you can do to make “HDR” (which kind of implies a “yet brighter white” of >1). All that has happened here is the TV has been forced to maximum brightness and the source (or TV, I’m still not clear which) has messed about with what amounts to the gamma curve so the mid-range still looks like mid-range.
The reason the sun looks better in The Martian scene is because they have *re-mastered* the footage to change the gamma and/or local contrast. Just like you can fake an HDR image out of multiple still photos. They could make the sun look nearly that good on the non-HDR version as well of they wanted. And as good if they advised you to crank your TV contrast to the max before watching.
The small true benefit of HDR source material is the greater luminosity resolution at the dark end.
@Laze
“They could make the sun look nearly that good on the non-HDR version as well of they wanted.”
Remember the sun in the HDR version is probably at around 1000cd/m2, and according to the Barten Constrast Sensitivity Function as referenced by SMPTE, we cannot do a dynamic range of 0-1000cd/m2 with only 219 steps of luminance without significant banding. This is why they invented the PQ EOTF for HDR, because even with 1024 steps of luminance, there is still banding according to Barten CSF.
However! Barten CSF does not take into account dithering! With 219 steps + dithering, maybe it is possible to do a smoothish gradient from 0-1000cd/m2. However, that dithering would have to be recorded in the source, and MPEG encoding may destroy the dither pattern.
@Simon
“…we cannot do a dynamic range of 0-1000cd/m2 with only 219 steps of luminance without significant banding.”
Indeed. However, since that is a discussion about how accurately/smoothly you could represent the “fulll” dynamic range of the source, it does not reflect upon the huge discrepancy between the two side-by-side images presented. What they have chosen to do is “white out” the sun in the SDR version to give the psychological impression of brightness.
By reading this article I am viewing both of those images as non-HDR jpegs on a non-HDR computer monitor. Hence the difference between them is striking *without* any need for true HDR presentation. The SDR version could have been mastered in the same way as that jpeg of the HDR image.
Of course, if the TV can truly produce a significantly higher peak luminance than a normal TV it will give it a greater sense of presence and depth when displayed correctly with a large DR. However, they made an artistic choice when doing each version of the film to present that scene in a certain way. (A cynic may suggest they did it deliberately to make the HDR one look better, but let’s assume not…) Maybe the washed-out image does give the effect the director wanted, even if several commenters here appear to prefer the HDR version. The point is though, the immediately visible difference is an artistic choice in the mastering, not an inherent “magic” of HDR.
@Laze
>What they have chosen to do is “white out” the sun in the SDR version to give the psychological impression of >brightness.
Or is it because there is no digital headroom left to make the sun brighter, given that all the other digital levels below it have already been used up to ensure the rest of the scene is produced with smooth gradients?
>By reading this article I am viewing both of those images as non-HDR jpegs on a non-HDR computer monitor. >Hence the difference between them is striking *without* any need for true HDR presentation.
I agree the difference is striking, but remember that what we are seeing in the photos is a function of how much dynamic range Vincent’s camera is capturing, and I doubt it’s capturing detail in that whole 0-1000cd/m2 range that the screen is putting out. The camera would only be capturing a slice of that range, per whatever exposure setting Vincent used. In the Mad Max photo for example, the front of the truck doesn’t seem to have any visible shadow detail there, presumably because the exposure of the camera was set to capture bright details at the expense of shadow detail. If the camera was capturing that whole 0-1000cd/m2 range and produced all of that range on an 8-bit display without banding, then you would have a valid point. But it’s not clear from the photos that that’s what’s happening.
The starfield scene seems to defy logic though. I can’t imagine any reason why stars should be completely missing from the SDR version.
Keeping the obvious increase in resolution aside, can’t the 1080p Blu-ray image be made look similar to the UHD Blu-ray image by tweaking the picture settings in the equipment?
It’s important to understand that the pictures here cannot show the detail in the HDR image, because our computer monitors are not capable of the contrast range inherent in HDR images. So to all who are looking at the images and saying “it’s not impressive”, you can’t make a comparison from what you are seeing. Go see an actual HDR capable TV in a store.
But how much of this is due to the fantastic upscaling that these 4KTVs bestow upon non-4K/HDR content. These sets are meant to mimic 4K level clarity and HDR level contrast while viewing native 1080p content.
hi,
why in a SDR camera the photo shows the highlights difference in the HDR tv???
Doesn’t bother me having to close the blinds as I do that anyway. Who in their right mind would want to watch HDR on all programmes…except for UHD HDR Blu-ray.
And on another note some edge-led TVs have better uniformity than FALD ans sometimes better ANSI CR.
So we are always going to be here debating (esp. photographers who consider themselves A/V experts).
Incidentally the difference on the Sony HDR TV to any Sony TVs until the end of 2014 W829,X9005b etc. is now an apples to oranges comparison. The HDR demos esp. OLED and manufacturer optimised demos are a sight to behold-in comparison to what we had before. This “there’s no notable difference between 1080p and 4K Blu-ray is complete rubbish talk from anyone yet to take the plunge. (not using HDR as there’s no contest there at all).
I relent in the fact that recent 1080p Blu-ray has never looked better. Sort of Deja Vu regarding non-owners of then Blu-ray; “Theres no difference between HD DVD and Blu-ray”.
Some Plasma owners are chiming in saying they are glad the held on to their Plasma (yeah right) vs OLED!
Plasma was far from perfect as OLED is now but C’mon OLED looks STUNNING when in PWO mode. HDR with OLED though with these oncoming standards I don’t know for sure but they will sort something out…Its too good for the manufacturers not to.
HDR all the way.
The reality is that HDR is not needed for a quality viewing experience. Th done thing that viewers do want is true blacks. and decent contrast ratios within am ambient lit room. It is possible to create an SDR display that can do this no HDR needed.
“Why does the HDR picture look so unimpressive? We can’t make out any dark detail!”
Thats because the Samsung K8500 UHD Blu Ray player clips blacks with 10bit video.
i just got the K8500 and i can confirm it
just to bad that you didnt notice it before this test as i belive it would be different.
for 10bit video (UHD Blu Ray) on the Samsung K8500 player you need to manually set “brightness” to +3
thats in picture mode and user.
on some UHD discs it even clips highlights
on of them are Deadpool.
for that movie you need to lower contrast in the user menu to be able to see all details.
this has nothing to do with who well or bad HDR content on the tvs was produced.
Also you get the same effect(except torch light highlights) as you did with UHD content even on an SDR tv.
i have compared severala blu rays and UHD Bly Rays on an SDR tv and the UHD version has way mor depth in it.
it also have deeper and richer colors compared to the same Blu Ray movie.
Blu Ray movies looks flat and dull comparing to the UHD versions even on an SDR tv.
yep you read it right
Even on an SDR TV! :)
i think 10bit is the answer here
if your SDR tv supports and works with 10bit video you WILL ge a greater image with UHD Blu Ray
Another note when im on it
those great details you got at the Sun scene with Mad Max UHD Blu Ray is there even on an SDR tv.
the sun itself is distinct from the background
its just the Blu Ray version of Mad Max is bad mastered.
im wondering if 10bit video does all of this or just a bit of it while the rest is just bogus and gimmick marketing.
different mastering or different cameras used for the Blu Ray and UHD versions.
for sure 10bit video gives greater and more refins details but those scenes from Mad Max Blu Ray could be much better it they wanted to.
Two photos here with the 500M playing Mad Max Fury Road Blu Ray and UHD Blu Ray.
Mad Max Fury Road Blu Ray 120cd/m2
http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb192876/Mad%20Max%20Blu%20Ray_KRP-500M.jpg
Mad Max Fury Road UHD Blu Ray 220cd/m2 (max brightness on this tv)
http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb192876/Mad%20Max%20UHD_KRP-500M.jpg
so you get more details with an HDR tv right ;)?
the right answer is that you get more details with UHD Blu Ray compared to Blu Ray if your tv supports 10bit video and has wider colorspace than rec709
but i agree
UHD is more dim than Blu Ray even on an SDR tv,but you get another level of dynamic range and depth in the picture with UHD so its worth it anytime.