Black level mastered at 0.005 discussion and Titles affected

[Staying Salty]

This is an issue that generates a lot of discussion and frustration across various threads. I think it would be beneficial to the members if there was one go to thread. I suppose that you could calibrate a HDR10 .005 mode to get the proper blacks fairly easy. At least you can manually adjust your display to match the disc.

As far as the actual settings for the various TVs, you would have to view the posts and decide what the consensus is.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's worth mentioning that displays which actually read the metadata and adjust their mapping accordingly are already correcting for this, as explained by Kris Deering, but those which discard the metadata are having this problem.

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Interesting thought, though I haven't heard of a movie reporting 0 for black that was actually mastered on the Pulsar. I've seen plenty with 1000 for white that were done with the Pulsar. I know for Universal they did this because the UHD Blu-ray group said that titles should be limited to 1000 nits initially, so they did what they were told to do while others stayed with 4000.

I just had a talk with Stacey on this. He said that displays should be tone mapping the .005 to their true black. With Dolby Vision or VS10 (dolby tone mapping for HDR10) this would not be an issue, but HDR10 based displays are typically only tone mapping the top end only. He said that they could have also told the encode to do black at 64 despite the displays true black.

Basically, more issues for getting the picture right that will leave most scratching their head.

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

I think you guys are confusing the issue. The issue isn't whether a movie looks contrasty or their use of blacks/grays in the image. You'll see huge variations in that depending on the look they were trying to achieve. This is to test if the black floor is actually black or not, and comparing it to other versions that were truly black (like BD). Whether a movie goes to a true black or not has nothing to do with HDR or non-HDR, so it should be the same. This can only be tested with a true black out in a movie.

The issue, ^ is the disc encoded at 0.005 or 0 black level? After that is determined, then you can determine if your TV automatically adjusts if it is 0.005 or do you have to make a manual adjustment.

In below post I will list the Titles that the community comes to a consensus that need this adjustment to get the most accurate/best picture.

[Staying Salty]

Lionsgate:



Sony:
Amazing Spiderman 2



Universal:
Lucy
Oblivion


Lionsgate, Sony and Universal studios are the most consistent offenders. Below will be a list of their Titles that don’t have this problem:

Lionsgate:
Ex Machina

Sony:


Universal:
Split

[Geoff D]

A good test for this is Oblivion. Go to chapter 9 and let it run until Jack is being held underground, as Morethan Freeman starts speaking it cuts to a wide shot behind Cruise with just a spotlight shining on him at 53m52s. The darkness that surrounds him in that shot should be letterbox black as per the Blu-ray but on the UHD, with a display set to output black at 0 (10-bit video level 64), the surrounding darkness is noticeably brighter. But once corrected for 0.005 mastering (10-bit video level 79), the darkness on the UHD is now letterbox black.

The movie still has lots of moments of darkness which don't extend this low and they look just as grey as they should do, like in the immediate shot after the above: the reverse on Cruise is plenty thin for black levels but then the same is true of the BD here also.

[Mierzwiak]

Blade Runner
Dredd
Mad Max: Fury Road

Any of these has brightened blacks?

[Geoff D]

You're okay with any Warners titles, if anything Fury Road actually crushes black slightly vs the Blu-ray. Dunno about Dredd but the 4K looks so shite anyway it doesn't really matter and there's no concurrent source to compare it to anyway, the UHD having been uniquely derived from a 35mm filmout of the 2K master.

Broad initial analysis seems to indicate that most - but not all - titles from Universal, Lionsgate and Sony are affected by the 0.005 mastering. Titles from Paramount, Fox and Warners appear to be fine.

TBH it'd probably be easier to create a list of Uni/Lions/Sony titles that AREN'T affected rather than ones that are, e.g. Split from Universal is correctly mastered and so is Ex Machina from Lionsgate.

[trekky76]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

A good test for this is Oblivion. Go to chapter 9 and let it run until Jack is being held underground, as Morethan Freeman starts speaking it cuts to a wide shot behind Cruise with just a spotlight shining on him at 53m52s. The darkness that surrounds him in that shot should be letterbox black as per the Blu-ray but on the UHD, with a display set to output black at 0 (10-bit video level 64), the surrounding darkness is noticeably brighter. But once corrected for 0.005 mastering (10-bit video level 79), the darkness on the UHD is now letterbox black.

The movie still has lots of moments of darkness which don't extend this low and they look just as grey as they should do, like in the immediate shot after the above: the reverse on Cruise is plenty thin for black levels but then the same is true of the BD here also.

I never noticed any issues there on my E6 and still don't. Black levels are very good here and that particular scene looks good too. There is some light in the room so I don't see how you'd expect inky black background.
This run with default brightness of 50 on my E6.

PS. For me Lionsgate, Sony and Universal are the best. Obviously Disney too based on their one release. Paramount, Fox and Warner are very inconsistent. But they all have exceptions.

[HeatEquation]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Blade Runner

Any of these has brightened blacks?

Not even close. Brilliant blacks throughout in Blade Runner. So much depth and detail in the dark, too.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by trekky76

I never noticed any issues there on my E6 and still don't. Black levels are very good here and that particular scene looks good too. There is some light in the room so I don't see how you'd expect inky black background.
This run with default brightness of 50 on my E6.

It's worth mentioning that displays which actually read the metadata and adjust their mapping accordingly are already correcting for this, as explained by Kris Deering, but those which discard the metadata are having this problem.

OP, you might wanna add this distinction to the first post.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

the UHD having been uniquely derived from a 35mm filmout of the 2K master

What on Earth?!

[Geoff D]

It's true, it's true. But lest this thread get derailed after it was started to avoid other thread derailments with the 0.005 issue (oh, sweet irony) then you can check the Dredd thread for the details.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's true, it's true. But lest this thread get derailed after it was started to avoid other thread derailments with the 0.005 issue (oh, sweet irony) then you can check the Dredd thread for the details.

Thanks! I bet that thread won't be able to answer my one question, though...


WHYYYYYYYYYY?

[Geoff D]

We've all wondered about that, mate!

[Cook]

I dont want to derail the thread. A simple answer will do and Ill move on. What does "derived from a 35mm filmout of the 2K master" mean exactly? And why is it bad? Sorry. Im just a layman with this stuff. Ive only watch the Dredd UHD once but I thought it looked really good. Guess I need to give it another look.

As for the topic of the thread, why are studios screwing up black levels on UHDs?

[BenjaminG]

Originally Posted by Cook

I dont want to derail the thread. A simple answer will do and Ill move on. What does "derived from a 35mm filmout of the 2K master" mean exactly? And why is it bad? Sorry.

They've taken the 2K digital source, then printed it out to 35mm film, then scanned it again. It's bad because it's a generation down from the master, and invariably lower quality. The real question is why on earth they would do that... to that I have no answer!

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Cook

What does "derived from a 35mm filmout of the 2K master" mean exactly?

It means that the UHD master was made by scanning a film print that was made from the digital master rather than using the digital master, itself, with no intermediary.

Originally Posted by Cook

And why is it bad?

The UHD went through a couple of unnecessary (and potentially lossy) optical processes instead of using the exact original image information.

[Laserdisk]

HDR was a mistake

[Cook]

Originally Posted by BenjaminG

They've taken the 2K digital source, then printed it out to 35mm film, then scanned it again. It's bad because it's a generation down from the master, and invariably lower quality. The real question is why on earth they would do that... to that I have no answer!

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

It means that the UHD master was made by scanning a film print that was made from the digital master rather than using the digital master, itself, with no intermediary.



The UHD went through a couple of unnecessary (and potentially lossy) optical processes instead of using the exact original image information.

Thanks for the answers.

[eddievanhalen]

Sorry for this question but what movie that got a 2K DI was printed to 35 mm and then scanned back? Looks like a dumb process.

[Caleb C.]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

Sorry for this question but what movie that got a 2K DI was printed to 35 mm and then scanned back? Looks like a dumb process.

Dredd

[PRO-630HD]

The vast majority of titles are mastered at a .0005 black level. There are a few at 0 mll mostly from Lionsgate. When I get time I will go through my 80 title collection and report back using my Oppo-203. As well I know for a fact all titles mastered at 4,000 nits have a black level of .005

As a general rule WB and Sony titles are all mastered at 4,000 nits with a .005 black level.

Universal, Fox, Disney and Paramount are all mastered at 1,000 nits with a .005 black level.

Lionsgate shows the most Variance and are the only titles I have seen mastered at a 0 mll black level in certain cases. Some of their titlers are mastered at 1,000 nits and some at 4,000 nits as well as being the company offering the most titles on BD-100's.