Is it normal that..,

[cash_black]

Is it normal that all the films I’ve upgraded to uhd look so much darker than the blu rays did ?

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by cash_black

Is it normal that all the films I’ve upgraded to uhd look so much darker than the blu rays did ?

It's not suppose to. What's the settings, type and brand of your TV and Blu-ray player? If all of your 4K movies look that much darker than the standard blu-rays, then something is wrong.

[avs commenter]

Some films will look darker in UHD

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by cash_black

Is it normal that all the films I’ve upgraded to uhd look so much darker than the blu rays did ?

The backlight should be maxed out for HDR. How many nits can your tv max out at?

[avs commenter]

Originally Posted by gkolb

The backlight should be maxed out for HDR. How many nits can your tv max out at?

No

[crackedknee]

Originally Posted by cash_black

Is it normal that all the films I’ve upgraded to uhd look so much darker than the blu rays did ?

Originally Posted by avs commenter

Some films will look darker in UHD

As avs commenter is possibly alluding to, is that overall, and generally, the overall picture will "look" darker in UHD (with HDR or DV). Because in HD colors are often over-saturated (if that would be the correct way of describing it), apparently to achieve the "pop" that is not achieved by definition alone.

But in UHD, there is more info available for both definition and color grading, and so there is less need to make the image "pop" like with HD. So the color grading will be more subtle and precise in the overall effect of presenting the image colors (and thereby seem "darker").

So compare a BD to the corresponding 4K disc, and the BD will have colors that look brighter.

[nick4Knight]

Still waiting to hear the answer to the key questions what display and player and settings... As only a handful of UHD look "darker" average picture brightness by design. Also key to mention that its built into HDR the low dynamic range has new detail there... some scenes and shots are meant to look darker than a typical blu-ray of the same source but that technology couldn't pull it off!

But if it all your discs look darker? The people who have those experiences unfortunately that's an HDR limitation you got likely poor tone mapping in your display.

[koberulz]

Or the OP is used to watching SDR in torch mode.

[cash_black]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

Still waiting to hear the answer to the key questions what display and player and settings... As only a handful of UHD look "darker" average picture brightness by design. Also key to mention that its built into HDR the low dynamic range has new detail there... some scenes and shots are meant to look darker than a typical blu-ray of the same source but that technology couldn't pull it off!

But if it all your discs look darker? The people who have those experiences unfortunately that's an HDR limitation you got likely poor tone mapping in your display.

Sorry have been at work since posting
I have a oppo udp-203 Player and a 65 inch Samsung series 8, i calibrated the movie setting based on some the website ratings.com suggestions for calibration for this model which stopped the soap opera effect and was supposed to be the best calibration for watching movies. So everything looks filmic but no matter whether i have it on my Calibrated movie setting or on standard they all lo darker. I’ve noticed on cap a holiday that the caps are always darker too. I got the doors uhd today and found the beach scenes pretty dim in comparison to
What I’m used to. I remember the deer hunter being much darker than expected top, some other discs it’s not as noticeable but still darker . I have about 25 uhd discs.

[cash_black]

Originally Posted by crackedknee

As avs commenter is possibly alluding to, is that overall, and generally, the overall picture will "look" darker in UHD (with HDR or DV). Because in HD colors are often over-saturated (if that would be the correct way of describing it), apparently to achieve the "pop" that is not achieved by definition alone.

But in UHD, there is more info available for both definition and color grading, and so there is less need to make the image "pop" like with HD. So the color grading will be more subtle and precise in the overall effect of presenting the image colors (and thereby seem "darker").

So compare a BD to the corresponding 4K disc, and the BD will have colors that look brighter.

Thanks, I guess I’ll get used to it

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by avs commenter

No

Yes

[cash_black]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes

The calibration site I used suggested setting backlight to 11

[cash_black]

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sa...u8000/settings

This was the calibration page I used for my set up if anyone’s interested

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by cash_black

The calibration site I used suggested setting backlight to 11

It does indeed. But that level of 11 is for setting it to SDR output of 100 nits, NOT for setting HDR luminance. Your TV can do peaks of almost 900 nits in HDR but the backlight must be set to maximum in order for this full range to be exploited by the TV.

from the HDR section, a bit further down:

For HDR content, it is also preferable to set the 'Backlight' to maximum, set 'Local Dimming' to 'High' and set the 'Color Space Settings' to 'Auto'.

As was said: get that backlight up to maximum for HDR, stat!!

[avs commenter]

It must vary by brand. I know for Vizio, they don't recommend a max backlight for HDR.

[Geoff D]

Fair enough. But for your Sonys and your Samsungs then backlight for HDR really does need putting up to maximum, not because it's pumping EVERYTHING up in brightness but simply due to the way that HDR works with its absolute luminance, often presenting content with very SDR-esque average light levels and much brighter highlights. To represent that range of brightness is why the backlight needs maxing out, so it can hit the highs when needed but to also keep the APL at its intended level. Turn the backlight down and that SDR-style average becomes something much too dark and dim, even when taking HDR's darker look into account.

[gooseygander2001]

I think many UHD's can superficially look darker but in the same way that many of the criterion or arrow blu rays looked darker than previous, earlier transfers, I believe often this is closer to the original presentation intended by the filmmakers and not artificially boosted.

Displays can play a huge part though....on my Panasonic Oled TV many Sony 4K's can actually look a little unnaturally bright and strange in their grain presentation, in skies for example, if I don't engage Dynamic Tone Mapping. Whereas, some discs like Fox's Predator can look a little dim overall with the optimiser on....so now I tend to judge whether to use the optimiser on a title by title basis.

[Geoff D]

Several of them do indeed have a darker APL than the SDR, or at least the equivalent which is then hit by the tone mapping, but if the OP has his backlight set to 11 for HDR then I think it's safe to say that that's the main cause of HDR looking so dark on his TV.

[RJ MacReady]

On some lower-nit TVs, like my LG 65UH8500, it's helpful to set Dynamic Contrast to "low" for HDR to brighter up darker scenes, even though that's almost always better set to off for SDR. Might be worth a try.

For example, the dimly-lit final scene of Unforgiven on UHD was practically unwatchable for me until I did this.

According to AVSForum:

Dynamic Contrast: This applies special post-processing to increase contrast of the image. This behaves very differently when receiving SDR vs. HDR content. For SDR content, it is recommended that you set this to Off or Low, as higher values will cause loss of definition in dark/bright areas. For HDR content, Dynamic Contrast will make the image brighter. For HDR, recommend values are Low or Medium; Off will likely make the image too dark, while High may make the image too bright.

[Geoff D]

Do you not get any flickering brightness levels with Dynamic Contrast set to on? I tried it with my Sony once and the amount of backlight pumping with darker content was vile, the brightness would visibly 'jump' as the algorithm tried to keep up with shot changes.