HDR Settings

[Jonathan McLeod]

Got a "proper" HDR-capable TV finally a couple of weeks ago, a Philips OLED 805. So far it's been a massive upgrade on anything I've had before, been watching the Game of Thrones 4K set and the combination of a new TV with the 4K HDR upgrade a been phenomenal.

However, I have been encountering a little niggle with the HDR very occassionally, when either there is a bright sky in the background of the shot (like a lot of Daenerys scenes) or with a dark room where it's obviously being artificially lighted from outside. I'm finding these areas of the screen are getting too bright and I'm losing a bit of detail from the image.

On my TV settings I have everything at factory default, other than if there was any sort of motion processing (I always turn that off as I am far more suspectable to it's effects than any OLED judder that might occur).

I use a Panasonic UB-820 to play my discs and I have enabled the HDR optimiser, which appears to help a little bit but it's still not perfect. Anyone have any recommended settings I should be using to avoid the blown out highlights?

[chip75]

From what I've read the Philips follows the EOTF quite closely with the HDR Perfect Minimum picture mode, but you could experiment by dropping the contrast a few notches or adjusting the slider on the Panasonic's optimizer.

[Jonathan McLeod]

I'll have a check as to what setting it's on and then try the one you suggested. I've only really watched the Game of Thrones set so far too so might experiment with other discs to get a comparison.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by Jonathan McLeod

Got a "proper" HDR-capable TV finally a couple of weeks ago, a Philips OLED 805. So far it's been a massive upgrade on anything I've had before, been watching the Game of Thrones 4K set and the combination of a new TV with the 4K HDR upgrade a been phenomenal.

However, I have been encountering a little niggle with the HDR very occassionally, when either there is a bright sky in the background of the shot (like a lot of Daenerys scenes) or with a dark room where it's obviously being artificially lighted from outside. I'm finding these areas of the screen are getting too bright and I'm losing a bit of detail from the image.

On my TV settings I have everything at factory default, other than if there was any sort of motion processing (I always turn that off as I am far more suspectable to it's effects than any OLED judder that might occur).

I use a Panasonic UB-820 to play my discs and I have enabled the HDR optimiser, which appears to help a little bit but it's still not perfect. Anyone have any recommended settings I should be using to avoid the blown out highlights?

I would try experimenting with the HDR Optimizer Feature on Panasonic 820. Try setting it to OLED. If that doesn't work, set it to either Basic or Super High Luminance and see what results you come up with.

The HDR Optimizer helps tone map HDR content. If your TV is a good tone mapper, the OLED or Super High Luminance settings will do. If not, the Basic setting is the way to go.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by PUsokrJosh305

If your TV is a good tone mapper, the OLED or Super High Luminance settings will do. If not, the Basic setting is the way to go.

If his TV has a good tone mapping then Optimizer should be off. There's no reason to combining two methods of the same thing.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

If his TV has a good tone mapping then Optimizer should be off. There's no reason to combining two methods of the same thing.

True, but he needs to experiment first to see what results he gets. Again, the Optimizer helps the TV tone map where it can't. My LG C9 doesn't tone map higher nit content properly so I have it set at Super High Luminance (1,500 nits.) When I have a movie that has higher nit content, the TV will tone map up to 1,500 nits and then the Optimizer takes over and tone maps the rest. That's how the Optimizer works.

Now, if his TV tone maps perfectly, then by all means it should be left off but I haven't heard of a perfect tone mapping TV yet. Geoff's TV is a great TV but even he has to put the Optimizer on for some movies. I have chosen to leave it on because it doesn't make a difference until I have a movie that has HDR content over 1,500 nits. Again, these are my experiences. Each TV is different and handles tone mapping differently so his settings would be different from yours or mine.

[Jonathan McLeod]

Thank you all for your advice. I made several more adjustments, turned down the gamma a little bit which helped. Offset it to -2 I think. It did make one or too scenes a bit too dark IMO, but I much preferred it overall.

It also appears that some of the problem was actually the source too, as some of the episodes feature scenes where light is being flooded into the room through small windows, etc. This is reduced in later seasons (instead the scenes are just left super dark!).

I also made a n00b mistake with the Panasonic 820 and inadvertently watched the whole thing with HDR10 rather than Dolby Vision. Only discovered this once I had finished the entire series. I went back and sampled some scenes with Dolby Vision enabled and it didn't look much different, which hopefully indicates my TV was doing an alright job of tone-mapping in the first place.

Now I've got Dolby Vision up and running I'll have to investigate if any further tweaking is required.