Are there titles in which Dolby Vision makes significant difference over HDR?

[Angry Virginian]

Out of curiosity, are there titles in which Dolby Vision makes significant difference over HDR? I have tried watching some titles (Overlord, Skyscraper, Gemini Man) in both DV and HDR (turning DV settings on and off) and I have yet to be able to tell the difference. The only title that I saw marked improvement on is Eurovision on Netflix (started withing on Roku then switched to Xbox One X) but that is a streaming title.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Angry Virginian

Out of curiosity, are there titles in which Dolby Vision makes significant difference over HDR? I have tried watching some titles (Overlord, Skyscraper, Gemini Man) in both DV and HDR (turning DV settings on and off) and I have yet to be able to tell the difference. The only title that I saw marked improvement on is Eurovision on Netflix (started withing on Roku then switched to Xbox One X) but that is a streaming title.

Basically it depends on how well the TV maps HDR10 and whether your DV settings are materially different from your HDR10 settings, like a different colour temp or colour space or increased brightness/contrast/colour etc. The underlying grades should be all but identical.

TBH I see more of a difference in the compression of some UHDs in Dobly vs HDR10, one of the advantages of the 'full enhancement layer' (FEL) DV version is that it can help to rectify poor compression in the base layer, although if the FEL layer has compression errors than that can impinge on the picture in the form of ghosting.

[lgans316]

I am able to discern subtle differences between DV and HDR10 on many films but for this you have to literally pause and check. Its mostly nuanced colours and a wee bit details on the highlights but ultimately it is down to tone mapping on the TV as Geoff said above.

[Farerb]

If the difference is so small why do people make such a big deal out of DV?

[Angry Virginian]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Basically it depends on how well the TV maps HDR10 and whether your DV settings are materially different from your HDR10 settings, like a different colour temp or colour space or increased brightness/contrast/colour etc. The underlying grades should be all but identical.

TBH I see more of a difference in the compression of some UHDs in Dobly vs HDR10, one of the advantages of the 'full enhancement layer' (FEL) DV version is that it can help to rectify poor compression in the base layer, although if the FEL layer has compression errors than that can impinge on the picture in the form of ghosting.

I use LG C9 as my main display. The picture setting for HDR is set to "Cinema." I did not adjust anything in the preset setting. Could that be why I cannot discern the differences between DV & HDR? I read somewhere that the LG OLED Cinema setting is very closed to professionally calibrated TV.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by farerb

If the difference is so small why do people make such a big deal out of DV?

Because they fall for the marketing sizzle and/or have a TV that's got bloody awful tone mapping. I don't doubt that people see the mahoosive differences that they see, just as they shouldn't doubt that I only see a fraction of a difference - if that - with 99% of DV discs, but the difference w/ref to grading is not in the content, it's how the TV is mapping the content.

[lgans316]

I read somewhere that Dolby played a pivotal role with bringing HDR to mass market with their Pulsar.

Personally I would prefer dynamic metadata over static HDR10.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by lgans316

I read somewhere that Dolby played a pivotal role with bringing HDR to mass market with their Pulsar.

Personally I would prefer dynamic metadata over static HDR10.

HDR10 is literally founded on a Dolby invention, it's using Perceptual Quantizer (PQ) ST.2084 standard which they created, well, created after snaffling some IP from some other company a few years ago.

What Dolby did was give out the basic HDR version for free to get the kids hooked and then followed it up with their premium version that you gotta pay for, marketing it to the hilt and promising it as the second coming when we hadn't even had the first coming yet, so the FOMO got started early. (And I don't mean Vincent's glove-wearing doppleganger, lol)

But yes, some form of dynamic metadata or even a standardised 'static' mapping approach across the industry (one that preserved APL and just mapped above what the TV can't handle) would have been sooooooooooo much better than the absolute shitshow of differing mapping approaches that resulted from HDR10.

I'm still amazed that HDR has actually survived for this long considering how many dodgy supermarket special TVs are still out there (plus many good TVs with bad mapping) and how many misunderstandings, misconceptions and downright falsehoods have been perpetuated by 'trusted sources' as to what HDR is and does. In 2021 it'll have been five years since UHD Blu first launched, wow has that time flown

[Mierzwiak]

Where there's banding and poor color gradation in HDR10, Dolby Vision looks smooth and bee-you-tea-fool. Depending on tje title it can be a little bit more contrasty and pleasing.

It might be a fault of my TV, but to me the difference is clear so I always look forward to DV being on the disc.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Where there's banding and poor color gradation in HDR10, Dolby Vision looks smooth and bee-you-tea-fool. Depending on tje title it can be a little bit more contrasty and pleasing.

It might be a fault of my TV, but to me the difference is clear so I always look forward to DV being on the disc.

See the first line of post #2

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

See the first line of post #2

Well, yeah, but instead of thinking how my TV is not perfect I prefer to focus on the solution for it and Dolby Vision is one

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Well, yeah, but instead of thinking how my TV is not perfect I prefer to focus on the solution for it and Dolby Vision is one

I'm just yanking your crank, and I feel the same way about Dobly when it corrects some gash base layer encode and makes it look less like a VCD; it shouldn't be like that in the first place but I'm glad it's there.

[DR Herbert West]

The Fog

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Where there's banding and poor color gradation in HDR10, Dolby Vision looks smooth and bee-you-tea-fool. Depending on tje title it can be a little bit more contrasty and pleasing.

It might be a fault of my TV, but to me the difference is clear so I always look forward to DV being on the disc.

I have the same TV as you yet can barely tell the difference between HDR10 and DV usually, if I'm honest. Maybe you just have some discs that are bad HDR examples? All are certainly not equal.

There's certainly nothing wrong with your player either! Top-quality stuff.

I have Dynamic HDR/Tone Mapping switched on normally, but have come across the odd disc (Gremlins is one) where I preferred how it looked without, as the TV was making it look overbaked (to my eyes).

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

I have the same TV as you yet can barely tell the difference between HDR10 and DV usually, if I'm honest. Maybe you just have some discs that are bad HDR examples? All are certainly not equal.

Of course it's not every disc! The biggest difference I saw to this day is still between Blade Runner 2049 HDR10 on UHD and its Dolby Vision version on iTunes. Not only in DV the contrast seems to be higher (it looks a little bit more like real HDR lol), at least to me, but the ugly banding from the disc is almost entirely gone.
The Dark Knight on the other hand looks basically the same and I couldn't tell a diffference between HDR10 and DV.

If you want to check it on the same disc, watch 1917; in HDR10 (which I enabled by disabling DV in player's settings) around 00:20:30 mark there's - at least on my TV - not so pretty banding on the sky (actually it's there through that almost entire sequence); I can't see it from my normal viewing distance, but it's there if I look closely. In Dolby Vision, though, the sky is perfectly clear.

[Captain.Monkey]

Do you guys turn on dolby vision for any discs with HDR10+? I read somewhere on another site where the reviewer said that you can turn on Dolby Vision for players that don't support HDR10+.

[tcripe]

Ive said many of times that TLJ looks better with DV compared to HDR but people call me crazy.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by tcripe

Ive said many of times that TLJ looks better with DV compared to HDR but people call me crazy.

You're not crazy, you're seeing the effect of a TV trying to tone map one of the hardest things to map - SDR in an HDR container - versus the content-led dynamic mapping of DV. The underlying source grade isn't changing but the way the TV is handling it most definitely is, and that's DV vs HDR10 in a nutshell.

[slimdude]

I am not going to favor one over the other because both HDR10 and Dolby Vision looks good. If a 4K UHD disc doesn't have Dolby Vision, then there is no other choice but to view the movie in HDR anyway.

[NewAgeYankee]

I have a high end tv with excellent tone mapping and colour management so the differences are pretty small for me. I feel,DV releases have more stable uniformity due to the metadata but its not the gamechanger some make it out to be.