iTunes Dolby Vision vs 4k Disc HDR10

[Kage]

Is there a noticeable difference in picture quality in the same movie between the iTunes Dolby Vision version and its counterpart on a 4k Disc that only has HDR10?

[lgans316]

Side by side, yes, there is a difference.

On the DV stream, you see slightly more nuanced colours and minor to moderate expansion of / details on specular highlights over its HDR10 counterparts.

Most people won't care but its not too difficult to discern these differences.

[Tyguy]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Side by side, yes, there is a difference.

On the DV stream, you see slightly more nuanced colours and minor to moderate expansion of / details on specular highlights over its HDR10 counterparts.

Most people won't care but its not too difficult to discern these differences.

Yes, I prefer the iTunes version of Ghostbusters because of it's better contrast and more saturated colors. the color green specifically looks more pleasing to me in ghostbusters. However, this is the only comparison. I also own John Wick in hdr 10 and Itunes, so i will check the differences on that later.

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Tyguy

Yes, I prefer the iTunes version of Ghostbusters because of it's better contrast and more saturated colors. the color green specifically looks more pleasing to me in ghostbusters. However, this is the only comparison. I also own John Wick in hdr 10 and Itunes, so i will check the differences on that later.

John Wick disc is HD10 and iTunes is DV.

The discs smokes the iTunes fair and square in terms of compression (just 15 Mbps). Also the streaming has elevated blacks which I am not sure was fixed recently.

This is why I am keeping the physical version of John Wicks.

[bhampton]

Nice feature -> The physical copy includes the Digital copy so you can compare them.

[Tyguy]

Originally Posted by lgans316

John Wick disc is HD10 and iTunes is DV.

The discs smokes the iTunes fair and square in terms of compression (just 15 Mbps). Also the streaming has elevated blacks which I am not sure was fixed recently.

This is why I am keeping the physical version of John Wicks.

I think dolby vision in general has elevated blacks on apple tv. I know on avs forum they advise dropping brightness from 50 to 49(black level) when using apple tv dolby vision. Perhaps this is why the blacks are elevated? Also, can you see compression artifacts in the stream or are you just comparing numbers?

Here is a post confirming the apple tv 4k still has elevated blacks in dolby vision:
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/sta.../post-60276634

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Tyguy

I think dolby vision in general has elevated blacks on apple tv. I know on avs forum they advise dropping brightness from 50 to 49(black level) when using apple tv dolby vision. Perhaps this is why the blacks are elevated? Also, can you see compression artifacts in the stream or are you just comparing numbers?

Here is a post confirming the apple tv 4k still has elevated blacks in dolby vision:
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/sta.../post-60276634

Not always. 95% of look fine on my Panasonic 65GZ1000 OLED.

The ones with elevated blacks from the top of my head:

1. Blade Runner 1982
2. Run all Night
3. John Wick

Fairly sure there are few more.

[Tyguy]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Not always. 95% of look fine on my Panasonic 65GZ1000 OLED.

The ones with elevated blacks from the top of my head:

1. Blade Runner 1982
2. Run all Night
3. John Wick

Fairly sure there are few more.

It should be with all Dolby Vision titles on Apple TV. The best way to check is watch a movie with black bars. Now check to see if you see any light. For me I have to set brightness on TV to 49 for bars to be true black. I'm using a LG C9 oled for what it's worth.

Just flipped between 4k Blu-ray of John wick and iTunes; I don’t think I could tell them apart in a blind test. With ghostbusters I definitely could.

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Tyguy

It should be with all Dolby Vision titles on Apple TV. The best way to check is watch a movie with black bars. Now check to see if you see any light. For me I have to set brightness on TV to 49 for bars to be true black. I'm using a LG C9 oled for what it's worth.

Just flipped between 4k Blu-ray of John wick and iTunes; I don’t think I could tell them apart in a blind test. With ghostbusters I definitely could.

I don't know mate. Could be due to panel variance too.

[UHDuffer]

There are lots of variations between TVs and the Dolby Vision profiles utilised too.
Panel variance absolutely plays a part though, even subsequent models within the same series usually have different software working BTS.
Dolby would love you to believe that their profiles all work as intended, (that being there is a unification across the various TV lead and Player lead profiles), but that’s not the case.

What’s funny with the LG OLEDs is that when the Apple TV4K unit was first released, it was crushing Blacks on DV content.

[Fiffy]

The elevated black with Dolby Vision over HDMI is a long-standing issue that occurs on some, but not all TVs in combination with the ATV. The 2019 LG models seem to have the issue only with the ATV, while the 2020 models (CX etc.) seem to have it with all HDMI sources. OTOH, I have a Sony TV with DV that does not have the problem.

[Admiral]

I can confirm I havent seen any elevated blacks on Bladerunner or any other titles on my Sony OLED.

[Tyguy]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

The elevated black with Dolby Vision over HDMI is a long-standing issue that occurs on some, but not all TVs in combination with the ATV. The 2019 LG models seem to have the issue only with the ATV, while the 2020 models (CX etc.) seem to have it with all HDMI sources. OTOH, I have a Sony TV with DV that does not have the problem.

For me I just set my 2019 oled to 49 brightness on the input for the apple tv for the dolby vision picture profile and it solves the issue. The internal webos atv app doesn't have this issue, but people are reporting apple is giving less bandwidth to non apple tvs through iTunes...

[Tyguy]

Here is why some tvs have raised blacks with apple tv in dolby vision while others do not:

"Dolby Vision Raised Black on all the devices I have tested (quite a few) is only, and I mean only, occuring with the ATV4k. WebOS apps absolutely do not suffer from this. WebOS use TV-LED DV decoding directly from the source content.

The 2019 LG's are capable of both TV-LED and Player-LED Dolby Vision. TV-LED means the on board Dolby Processing takes care of it. Player-LED means the source device decodes the signal and sends the decoded signal over HDMI. The ATV4K supports both and it is supposed to recognise what the display is capable of via the EDID information during the HDMI handshake, and if the display shows it is TV-LED it should send the signal wrapped in an 8bit RGB container for the TV to decode. Something is happening with the ATV which means this is not happening correctly. You can fix the raised black by dropping Brightness to 49, but once again black is then clipped from 0% up to 2.3%.

I can play the same content from ATV4k and then from the UHD Disk from my Panasonic UB820 and only the ATV shows the problem. I have repeated the test from many devices and others have done so too. The easiest way to see it is to play any DV content that has black bars above and below the main image, and the black bars glow significantly.

It's been reported to Apple many times for over a year (happens on the 2018 LG's too) and some have received replies saying it's been looked into (including me) but nothing has been said about a fix. This does not happen on Sony OLED's, and Sony TV's only ever accept Player-LED Dolby Vision.

Some of us have been investigating this for a long time trying to figure out what is happening, and in fact we were looking at it again earlier. It is baffling. With DV being a closed proprietary version of HDR, without specific tools and licenses (which costs thousands) there is no real way to test and inspect the signal, and even if I had the tools, it is above my knowledge to know what to look for."

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Tyguy

Here is why some tvs have raised blacks with apple tv in dolby vision while others do not:

"Dolby Vision Raised Black on all the devices I have tested (quite a few) is only, and I mean only, occuring with the ATV4k. WebOS apps absolutely do not suffer from this. WebOS use TV-LED DV decoding directly from the source content.

The 2019 LG's are capable of both TV-LED and Player-LED Dolby Vision. TV-LED means the on board Dolby Processing takes care of it. Player-LED means the source device decodes the signal and sends the decoded signal over HDMI. The ATV4K supports both and it is supposed to recognise what the display is capable of via the EDID information during the HDMI handshake, and if the display shows it is TV-LED it should send the signal wrapped in an 8bit RGB container for the TV to decode. Something is happening with the ATV which means this is not happening correctly. You can fix the raised black by dropping Brightness to 49, but once again black is then clipped from 0% up to 2.3%.

I can play the same content from ATV4k and then from the UHD Disk from my Panasonic UB820 and only the ATV shows the problem. I have repeated the test from many devices and others have done so too. The easiest way to see it is to play any DV content that has black bars above and below the main image, and the black bars glow significantly.

It's been reported to Apple many times for over a year (happens on the 2018 LG's too) and some have received replies saying it's been looked into (including me) but nothing has been said about a fix. This does not happen on Sony OLED's, and Sony TV's only ever accept Player-LED Dolby Vision.

Some of us have been investigating this for a long time trying to figure out what is happening, and in fact we were looking at it again earlier. It is baffling. With DV being a closed proprietary version of HDR, without specific tools and licenses (which costs thousands) there is no real way to test and inspect the signal, and even if I had the tools, it is above my knowledge to know what to look for."

One real way to test is using your eyesight and experience. I am very sensitive to elevated blacks plus DNR/EE/Macroblocking.

Panasonic OLEDs comes on top with respect to near black handling and so far, I have noticed elevated blacks on the films I had mentioned above plus Divergent and Ender's Game.

Maybe the Studios fixed some of these but need to revisit them.