Do Dolby Vision FEL discs really look better?

[eddievanhalen]

I recently got an LG OLED A1 (entry level) set 55 which I'm very happy with moreso coming from a Samsung (also entry level but more expensive that what I paid for myLG OLED set) 50'' 4K HDR set from 2017.
To match it with, I got Sony's X800 M2 that has Dolby Vision.
It may be the way my OLED set handles Dolby Vision (Cinema setting is way too dark, I use Home Cinema setting for Dolby Vision material), or how the Sony X800 M2 decodes Dolby Vision, or just Dolby Vision UHD BD's are meant to look dark.
But there's a difference between Dolby Vision UHD BD's, and those are FEL discs, the ones that feature a video layer extension that adds up to the compatible HDR10 stream.
UHD BD's like Gladiator, John Wick 3 or The Fog seem to look better, a bit better, than MEL Dolby Vision discs (the ones that have a plain HDR10 video stream plus just metadata for Tone Mapping on the TV set).
Am I being biased by the addition of FEL or not on Dolby Vision discs or for most of you FEL discs really show an increase on picture quality?

[Geoff D]

"Better" how? If you were comparing the exact same film for MEL and FEL and felt you could still see a difference then fine, but comparing x movie to y isn't gonna work as no two movies will look identical.

The Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark disc has the stunning demo Montage in DV MEL, FEL, HDR10, 10+, HLG, you name it. And on my teevee I literally cannot tell the MEL and FEL versions apart, in fact even the MEL version cleans up some fine chroma noise I can see in certain shots on the HDR10 transfers (which shows the benefits of routing the image through the Dobly processing engine even if there's no full enhancement layer).

[Streetlight]

Compression can be improved on the FEL layer

[Panson]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

I recently got an LG OLED A1 (entry level) set 55 which I'm very happy with moreso coming from a Samsung (also entry level but more expensive that what I paid for myLG OLED set) 50'' 4K HDR set from 2017.
To match it with, I got Sony's X800 M2 that has Dolby Vision.
It may be the way my OLED set handles Dolby Vision (Cinema setting is way too dark, I use Home Cinema setting for Dolby Vision material), or how the Sony X800 M2 decodes Dolby Vision, or just Dolby Vision UHD BD's are meant to look dark.
But there's a difference between Dolby Vision UHD BD's, and those are FEL discs, the ones that feature a video layer extension that adds up to the compatible HDR10 stream.
UHD BD's like Gladiator, John Wick 3 or The Fog seem to look better, a bit better, than MEL Dolby Vision discs (the ones that have a plain HDR10 video stream plus just metadata for Tone Mapping on the TV set).
Am I being biased by the addition of FEL or not on Dolby Vision discs or for most of you FEL discs really show an increase on picture quality?

Brightness is not OLEDs strong suit. The LG A1 is capable of a little over 500 nits.

Your TV's nits capability should work better with the brighter HDR10. Re Dolby Vision, I would think MEL has a better chance than FEL. Regardless, you should probably be concentrating on HDR10.

Also, there can be HDR issues in general depending on streaming network and/or program.

That said, you might try the LG A1 calibration settings provided by rtings (linked), to see if they make a difference.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/a1-oled/settings

Related:

https://avdisco.com/t/demystifying-d...els-mel-fel/95

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

"Better" how? If you were comparing the exact same film for MEL and FEL and felt you could still see a difference then fine, but comparing x movie to y isn't gonna work as no two movies will look identical.

The Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark disc has the stunning demo Montage in DV MEL, FEL, HDR10, 10+, HLG, you name it. And on my teevee I literally cannot tell the MEL and FEL versions apart, in fact even the MEL version cleans up some fine chroma noise I can see in certain shots on the HDR10 transfers (which shows the benefits of routing the image through the Dobly processing engine even if there's no full enhancement layer).

Thanks for your answer Geoff. I own a "new to me" Sony X800M2 and with that player one can switch Dolby Vision on and off. Than means I can play a Dolby Vision as HDR10, so I'm comparing the same UHD BD's played with and without Dolby Vision.
I didn't know that Dolby Vision had a "Special Souce" to decode/process HDR streams, with or without extension layer.
I'll try to find out about its propietary processing on line.

[David M]

The point of the extra pixel data in FEL is to increase the bit depth to 12 bits. Dolby has always been vocal about 12 bits being necessary to avoid banding in HDR video. My personal view: I imagine that would be most apparent for content like CG animation, or other very noise-free digital video at high luminance levels. Dolby's POV makes total sense when you keep in mind that PQ/st2084 is future-proofed beyond current display technologies, and specifies a max luminance of 10,000 nits.

For content scanned from film, where the grain effectively acts as a dither, and the levels rarely go above a few hundred nits, 10 bit should be enough to be banding free.

Some people have noticed titles with compression artefacts in the base layer which the enhancement layer fills in to some extent. That’s a happy accident and relates to how the enhancement layer is constructed by referring back to the master minus the base layer encode.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark disc has the stunning demo Montage in DV MEL, FEL, HDR10, 10+, HLG, you name it. And on my teevee I literally cannot tell the MEL and FEL versions apart, in fact even the MEL version cleans up some fine chroma noise I can see in certain shots on the HDR10 transfers (which shows the benefits of routing the image through the Dobly processing engine even if there's no full enhancement layer).

I have one question for you Geoff: if Dolby Vision, regardless MEL or FEL discs has a propietary and better way to process/decode HDR streams on discs, would there be any benefit of playing (as it can be turned on or off on the Sony X800 M2) plain HDR10 discs as Dolby Vision on my new LG OLED TV that can decode Dolby Vision? That would get decode the video stream on plain HDR10 discs using supposedly better performing Dolby Vision algorithm.

I've tried that with some great looking UHD BD's like Sully, Lucy, Rogue One or the latest Dr. Strange movie. I don`t see any improvement in picture qualty, I know I'm loosing any kind of Tone Mapping but one thing I noticed is that HDR10 discs played as Dolby Vision don't look as dark as actual Dolby Vision discs played as such.

[Geoff D]

The DV pipeline could in theory provide betterer performance for an HDR10 source but it can’t create what isn’t there, if you get my drift. The interesting thing about that Montage example is that the noisier HDR10 stream on the disc isn’t the base layer of the Dobly, Stacey Spears did a standalone HDR10 encode because he didn’t like the way the HDR10 base layer looked vs his own separate encode. And yet the separate encode still had more chroma noise.

But people with much earlier HDR displays have reported big improvements when forcing Dobly because of the tone mapping; the forced DV isn’t doing anything dynamically (again, can’t create what isn’t there) it’s just using a stock tone map for PQ content that’s superior to the stock tone mapping of that TV manufacturer. It’s also going through that 12-bit pathway so even though it’s only being uprezzed from 10-bit it sometimes proved superior to the internal processing of whatever TV, resulting in less banding.

You’ve hit the nail on the head though: with a far more capable modern TV then both the tone mapping and internal processing is much improved and is essentially a match for forced DV.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The DV pipeline could in theory provide betterer performance for an HDR10 source but it can’t create what isn’t there, if you get my drift. The interesting thing about that Montage example is that the noisier HDR10 stream on the disc isn’t the base layer of the Dobly, Stacey Spears did a standalone HDR10 encode because he didn’t like the way the HDR10 base layer looked vs his own separate encode. And yet the separate encode still had more chroma noise.

But people with much earlier HDR displays have reported big improvements when forcing Dobly because of the tone mapping; the forced DV isn’t doing anything dynamically (again, can’t create what isn’t there) it’s just using a stock tone map for PQ content that’s superior to the stock tone mapping of that TV manufacturer. It’s also going through that 12-bit pathway so even though it’s only being uprezzed from 10-bit it sometimes proved superior to the internal processing of whatever TV, resulting in less banding.

You’ve hit the nail on the head though: with a far more capable modern TV then both the tone mapping and internal processing is much improved and is essentially a match for forced DV.

Thanks for your reply Geoff.
I've been doing more testing with HDR10 forcing Dolby Vision with the X800 M2. This discs are Star Wars Revenge Of The Sith (not exactely demo material as it was shot on early CineAlta cameras ended on a DI of 1080P) but the final scenes on Mustafar with all those different shades of red look better played as forced Dolby Vision.
The Same happens with Prometheus, Alien Covenant and Elysium, they look cleaner, I don't know how to describe it (English is not my mother languaje, as you Know), but color looks more natural, less "video like".
There's a scene on Prometheus early on the movie where Dr. Shaw is inside a cave showing him her new discoveries with a lantern. The light of the lantern shows some banding when played as it was meant to be, as HDR10. When this scene is played forcing Dolby Vision, all banding is gone. Why or how. What is Dolby Vision processing doing? I have no idea.
As always, thanks for your knowledge with us.

[Christian Muth]

Originally Posted by David M

The point of the extra pixel data in FEL is to increase the bit depth to 12 bits. Dolby has always been vocal about 12 bits being necessary to avoid banding in HDR video. My personal view: I imagine that would be most apparent for content like CG animation, or other very noise-free digital video at high luminance levels. Dolby's POV makes total sense when you keep in mind that PQ/st2084 is future-proofed beyond current display technologies, and specifies a max luminance of 10,000 nits.

For content scanned from film, where the grain effectively acts as a dither, and the levels rarely go above a few hundred nits, 10 bit should be enough to be banding free.

Some people have noticed titles with compression artefacts in the base layer which the enhancement layer fills in to some extent. That’s a happy accident and relates to how the enhancement layer is constructed by referring back to the master minus the base layer encode.

Yeah, playing back in DV is a Godsend for some of those "less than stellar" Studio Canal encodes, like THE FOG and THE DEER HUNTER among others, which have all sorts of problems in HDR-10 that DV cleans up.

Chris

[Geoff D]

Exactly. I can’t lie and say that I don’t appreciate the dynamic metadata on Sony Light Cannon™️ content because it’s a huge help on my TV, but in the main most stuff doesn’t exceed 1000 nits these days so it’s the reconstructive power of FEL that keeps me coming back to Dobly. We shouldn’t have to have FEL correcting for poor compression, they should be getting it right first time, but it is what it is.

[chip75]

So what happens when you use something like an HDFury? you can convert Dolby Vision into HDR10. Would you have the benefit of the DV stream's goodness over the HDR version.

I know offhand The Fog and Halloween II have noticeable benefits, is there a list of discs that do? tempted to try an HDFury, but I'd watch a few discs first to see how irked I'd get on my non-DV set-up. Halloween II would be a good test, but haven't picked that up yet.

[DisplayCalNoob]

I've been testing some DV content on disc, without the HDMI 2.0a input 444 feature turned on for HDR color.

I'm starting to think it has negative affect on DV when on. DV was designed with HDMI 1.4 support, 2.0/a was never necessary. DV is already, doing its on color processing, so then you add on additional color processing from the display manufacturer.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by chip75

is there a list of discs that do?

When it comes to totally borked HDR10 layers, there's not a clear line, but I'll try (I'm rather familiar since I'm a victim, own most, if not all, and also upgraded every single one where a fix is available):

I'll also include the best and IMO unquestionable buy-another-disc fix, if I know and available.

- The Fog (StudioCanal; fix: Eagle, but I'd wait for and will get the Shout now, also because of the new mono)
- Three Days of the Condor (StudioCanal)
- Halloween II (Shout)
- Le Cercle Rouge (StudioCanal; fix: Criterion)
- Total Recall (StudioCanal; fix: Eagle and even if you have DV)
- Escape From New York (StudioCanal; fix: Shout - having said that, I didn't watch the Shout yet)
- The Limey (L'atelier d'images - I'm not 100% sure right now, if the DV fixes at least the huge blocks here and would have to check back, but I'd think so; fix: hopefully the upcoming Lionsgate)
- Saving Private Ryan (Paramount - really huge chroma blocks in HDR10, fixed with the DV according to trusted members)
- Red Heat (StudioCanal - also not 100% sure, if the DV fixes it, but think so; fix: don't know if the Eagle is, but it lacks English subs at any rate)
- They Live (StudioCanal)
- Prince of Darkness (StudioCanal)
- The Deer Hunter (StudioCanal)
- Cliffhanger (StudioCanal - the line is becoming very blurry, since we're entering general poor compression territory and I also don't know if the DV actually fixes anything; fix: the Eagle is better)

honourable mentions:
- Red Sonja (StudioCanal and only going by reports and caps with rather poor compression in this case; fix: here's waiting for the Eagle)

The French Three Colours trilogy and The Double Life of Véronique most likely belong here as well as the caps are littered with poor chroma, but I don't know, if the DV actually fixes that and also don't own any myself. But best to avoid anything French with DV really I'm afraid...

There might be more, in regard to poor chroma in particular, and the above is really only DV related mind you (which is why there's no Rambos for ex).

[andreasy969]

Do wo know if The Craft (Shout) belongs onto the list as well? Own it, but didn't watch yet, and cannot check properly, if the DV fixes it anyway (didn't take a look at the FEL layer yet either and unless we're talking about huge blocks, I cannot really guess anyway).

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

I recently got an LG OLED A1 (entry level) set 55 which I'm very happy with moreso coming from a Samsung (also entry level but more expensive that what I paid for myLG OLED set) 50'' 4K HDR set from 2017.
To match it with, I got Sony's X800 M2 that has Dolby Vision.
It may be the way my OLED set handles Dolby Vision (Cinema setting is way too dark, I use Home Cinema setting for Dolby Vision material), or how the Sony X800 M2 decodes Dolby Vision, or just Dolby Vision UHD BD's are meant to look dark.
But there's a difference between Dolby Vision UHD BD's, and those are FEL discs, the ones that feature a video layer extension that adds up to the compatible HDR10 stream.
UHD BD's like Gladiator, John Wick 3 or The Fog seem to look better, a bit better, than MEL Dolby Vision discs (the ones that have a plain HDR10 video stream plus just metadata for Tone Mapping on the TV set).
Am I being biased by the addition of FEL or not on Dolby Vision discs or for most of you FEL discs really show an increase on picture quality?

I would see if there are compatibility issues with HDMI input UHD color or what ever its calles on LG OLED or your particular model. Some older DV enabled displays 2016-18 that are TV-Led can display DV properly without turning on HDMI input UHD color or enhancement.

In my case, my Vizio is TV-Led from 2016 and for 6 years, I've been watching DV with clipped detail, undersaturated colors and other Chroma issues. This is with HDMI 1 Full UHD Color set to on. Unfortunately, I have to turn back on to watch HDR10 content.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by DisplayCalNoob

I would see if there are compatibility issues with HDMI input UHD color or what ever its calles on LG OLED or your particular model. Some older DV enabled displays 2016-18 that are TV-Led can display DV properly without turning on HDMI input UHD color or enhancement.

In my case, my Vizio is TV-Led from 2016 and for 6 years, I've been watching DV with clipped detail, undersaturated colors and other Chroma issues. This is with HDMI 1 Full UHD Color set to on. Unfortunately, I have to turn back on to watch HDR10 content.

Thanks for your message.
The HDMI's inputs on my set are properly set up. The problem with many OLED sets, LG's included, are crushed blacks, but there's a way sort this out up to a certain level.
The Problem I had with Dolby Vision discs is that they looked too dark compared to same disc played as HDR10. Now the same disc looks with the same black levels, black crush is almost gone, or even totally gone with some discs, regardless if I play this disc as HDR10 or Dolby Vision.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

Do wo know if The Craft (Shout) belongs onto the list as well? Own it, but didn't watch yet, and cannot check properly, if the DV fixes it anyway (didn't take a look at the FEL layer yet either and unless we're talking about huge blocks, I cannot really guess anyway).

I think I'm gonna have to buy The Craft to find out.

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

Thanks for your message.
The HDMI's inputs on my set are properly set up. The problem with many OLED sets, LG's included, are crushed blacks, but there's a way sort this out up to a certain level.
The Problem I had with Dolby Vision discs is that they looked too dark compared to same disc played as HDR10. Now the same disc looks with the same black levels, black crush is almost gone, or even totally gone with some discs, regardless if I play this disc as HDR10 or Dolby Vision.

This is what I'm getting at, on every HDR display there is a HDMI input setting for Chroma Subsampling. This was intentionally set up for HDR10 content, without it HDR10 has horrible color banding. Dolby Vision doesn't require this feature, because it does all the color processing.

The negative affect content in Dolby Vision, is that it darkens APL, chroma weight which handles saturation and is also connected to highlights, that detail is gone or cpmpletely clipped. Chroma Alignment is off and color subsampling or color resolution that already being handled by Dolby Vision.

By turning HDMI input based Chroma Subsampling off, you are effectively allowing DV to be played as it was meant to be.

[Waldorf]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

I'll also include the best and IMO unquestionable buy-another-disc fix, if I know and available.

- Le Cercle Rouge (StudioCanal; fix: Criterion)

The problem with Le Cercle Rouge is it is not mastered to anything near a D65 white point. Since the 'Filmmaker/Cinema/Good' modes of TVs are almost all very close to D65 both of the versions (Criterion/SC) look way off. The train being frog green in the opening sequence is a big tip off to this as well as the dried parchment look of the film overall. Switching from the default 'Warm2' to a cooler white point on an LG gives the proper colors.

DV in no way fixes anything about this disc. The typical soft Criterion encode is still there.