Issues and Settings on Dolby Vision Discs

[philochs]

This is a thread to discuss issues and picture settings with Dolby Vision encoded discs. This includes posts about the grey bars issue, or advise on which settings to use for best PQ results. Also, feel free to discuss the merits of Dolby Vision here.

[chad_1138]

I have experienced the "gray bar" issue on Fate of the Furious. Played from my Oppo 203 directly to my Sony 1080p tv (HDR to SDR). Only 4K disc I own (out of about 30) that has done this.

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by chad_1138

I have experienced the "gray bar" issue on Fate of the Furious. Played from my Oppo 203 directly to my Sony 1080p tv (HDR to SDR). Only 4K disc I own (out of about 30) that has done this.

Just pointing out the obvious, you're only playing the HDR10 base layer into a 1080 tv downscale. The DV layer shouldn't be involved.

[Staying Salty]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...7&postcount=48

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Yes, they test streaming from all DV content sources, all DV capable BD players, hard drive content they have, DV signal generators and test patterns and one TV is at Dolby HQ for even more engineering testing.

Just my opinion. Very interesting. Hard to believe that this FW updated will be released with the gray issue not fixed.

1 If it plays all disks/streaming without problems, then all is well and would indicate the issue was with displays, perhaps players (perhaps the players have beta FW updates for these tests).

2 If it plays only newer disks/streaming without problems, it would indicate the issue was with DV encodes.

Read my signature, Dolby must uphold their end of this chain.

If it is determined that any of the problem was caused by the disk, then Dolby should fund a disk exchange for a disk with the corrected encode.

[TheSweetieMan]

I am the owner of a 65-inch LG B6 OLED, which is paired with the Oppo UDP-203.

I have not had any issues with this 'gray bar' phenomenon on any Dolby Vision discs--which I happen to currently own all available titles in that format.

I'm also not adjusting picture settings, or lowering brightness to 'crush blacks' in order to fix a phantom issue.

I use Dolby Dark. The personally recommended settings from Dolby for the 2016 LG OLED panels--and I keep my brightness at the default setting of 50.

[StrayButler91]

Just putting this out there - I didn't have any issues with "grey bars" whilst watching Fate of the Furious, but when I upped the brightness for a test, that's when the bars went grey. So those with the issue are probably just cranking up brightness too high (mine sits around the 55 mark).

TV: 65" OLED E6
Player: LG UP970

[jamesdevil]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

I am the owner of a 65-inch LG B6 OLED, which is paired with the Oppo UDP-203.

I have not had any issues with this 'gray bar' phenomenon on any Dolby Vision discs--which I happen to currently own all available titles in that format.

I'm also not adjusting picture settings, or lowering brightness to 'crush blacks' in order to fix a phantom issue.

I use Dolby Dark. The personally recommended settings from Dolby for the 2016 LG OLED panels--and I keep my brightness at the default setting of 50.

We have the exact same TV and player and I've experienced the exact same thing as you. No issues.

[doctor_who]

DISCS

NOT

DISKS

blarghhhhh!

[Caleb C.]

I currently own four Dolby Vision discs: Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, The Fate of the Furious, and Power Rangers. I have watched all of them with zero issues.

I use the Dolby Vision Dark mode with all picture settings at default, and any enhancements turned off.

[Aidenag]

Yeah zero issues on any of my dolby discs using a C7 and oppo 203. Everything been flawless.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

TCL Dolby Vision display and Oppo 203. No grey letterbox bars that have jumped out at me so far. Maybe I'm not savvy enough to spot the anomaly, if there is one, but I haven't had issues that I am aware of.

[philochs]

Originally Posted by doctor_who

DISCS

NOT

DISKS

blarghhhhh!

Thanks, fixed it.

[vincentric]

To just quickly go over the specs and settings that I used for viewing DV on disc - it was an LG C6 OLED with firmware 5.30.02 installed and an LG UP970 with the DV firmware installed, settings for the TV were default DV Dark Movie with just the post process stuff disabled (trumotion, noise reduction and edge sharpening), settings for player were in-movie picture mode at User 0 values, my tired mistake, the player's picture mode is locked to Standard during DV playback, I use picture mode User 0 for pretty much everything else though (hdr10, sdr, etc.).

I saw the ''grey'' bar issue in Power Rangers, Despicable Me 1, and RE Vendetta (yes even Vendetta which has no bars at the 1.78 ratio contained the problem as well).

I quote grey because the bars don't really turn grey but more like a slightly lighter shade of black (on my end at least) with a sort of pinstripe pattern visible within. It was something that I didn't even notice at first, even in a dark room environment, I had to pause the image and look for it a bit more closely.

While the issue was present in all three titles I checked, it was most obvious in Power Rangers particularly during darker sequences (of which there are many in this movie), for instance at the start of the film where the title is displayed against a black screen, the bars here were noticeably lighter. The bars also don't appear the same shade in every problematic scene it can vary looking lighter in some and darker in others.

The problem again didn't really jump out at me at first but once I knew what to look for, it was something that I just could not unsee after seeing it.

What's interesting is that LG took down the DV firmware for the UP970 so for those who weren't able to download the update before will have to wait until LG releases it again. Now I don't know if the reason for them taking it down was to fix the grey bar issue or something else (I did notice a few other issues with the dv firmware here), but I do know that I will retest and share results when the dv update is re-released.

Edit: Overall, I am no expert, just an AV (leaning more towards video) enthusiast who likes to call it how I see it.

[HeatEquation]

It's no coincidence that everyone is experiencing this issue across a variety of players and TVs. Dolby will have to get on this quickly.

Still baffling that most people are more than willing to put up with it. I guess picture quality isn't a concern for some.

[Jason 831]

Originally Posted by HeatEquation

It's no coincidence that everyone is experiencing this issue across a variety of players and TVs. Dolby will have to get on this quickly.

Still baffling that most people are more than willing to put up with it. I guess picture quality isn't a concern for some.

Everyone? I think you're confusing picture quality with reliability

[Jason 831]

I tried Dolby Vision with the RED UHD and no issues.

TCL P607

LG UP970

[Caleb C.]

Originally Posted by vincentric

I quote grey because the bars don't really turn grey but more like a slightly lighter shade of black (on my end at least) with a sort of pinstripe pattern visible within. It was something that I didn't even notice at first, even in a dark room environment, I had to pause the image and look for it a bit more closely.

Are these pinstripe patterns flickering a bit when you see them? When I first got my TV, I put in the 4K Blu-ray of Logan, and played with the picture settings a bit. I noticed that whenever my brightness setting was at 53 exactly, the black bars would have grey stripe patterns within them that would flicker.

I know that you said you were using the default setting of 50; just trying to better understand what this problem looks like.

[wxman2003]

F8 definitely has elevated black bars at times on my E6 through my 203. If you have any ambient light, you might not notice it, but in a totally dark room, it is there, no doubt about it.

[PRO-630HD]

It is very odd that all the B6 owners here are not able to notice the gray bars on the DV Power Rangers UHD bluray. Some timestamps are 5:10 and 1:08:13. This is blatantly obvious on my C6 even in DV Dark Room mode. For starters make sure you are in a pitch black room. Due to the limited nit value of these displays they are going to shine their best while watching HDR content in a dark room anyway. The only way not to see it is lower brightness to 48 or to 46 in DV Bright Room mode.

Granted it does appear the C6 has more aggressive tone mapping with 4,000 nit content than the B6 according to HDTVTEST.co.uk, but still. The Oleds's should really perform identical so it is bizarre that no one can see this on the B6.

The only other DV title I have is Red so I will look for it on that disc as well. I haven't watched it yet.

[chad_1138]

Originally Posted by gkolb

Just pointing out the obvious, you're only playing the HDR10 base layer into a 1080 tv downscale. The DV layer shouldn't be involved.

I understand that. I am simply pointing out an issue I had with this disc that I have not had with any other 4K disc.