The Meg 4K UHD (2018)

[Geoff D]

I tell you what though, thank god for Dolby Vision or, to be more politically correct/format agnostic lest we set mike off on a rant, thank god for dynamic metadata. If I watch The Meg in HDR10 using my go-to settings (which starts to clip at around 2000 nits worth of highlight information) then it looks nuked out to shit. That combined with the brightness still doesn't make me physically uncomfortable but I can certainly see (heh) where peoples are coming from with their "aiieeeeee my eyes!!" comments, it just looks wrong.

I've got another picture mode set to deliver 4000 nits worth of highlight information which is what I'd then revert to in situations like this, and even then it needed tuning down to about 5000 nits to capture everything that's in the highlights in certain scenes in The Meg! The problem with forcibly doing this of course is that it then greatly reduces the intended brightness curve by at least a third, and while this would actually be beneficial for some people it doesn't help if you're trying to objectively assess the brightness of an HDR source, and I don't just mean dem peak nits but also the average picture level e.g. it would make a dim disc look even dimmer. It also impacts colour volume, making the saturation less pronounced.

So, yeah: thank the maker for dynamic metadata because it allows the TV to balance colour volume, highlight retention, peak brightness and average brightness in the most optimal way. I still wave about my TV's HDR10 performance like it's god's gift to HDR and several respects it still is, but - as I always say - we're gonna get certain HDR content that kicks our TV's asses and sometimes there's not much you can do about it without drastically altering its intended look. Now, by that token not everything is graded as weirdly as The Meg so this isn't me throwing away a good couple of years' worth of HDR10 'reviews' on that basis, I stand by every didactic, long-winded and plain old arrogant word of it - but at times like this the benefits of dynamic metadata are so blindingly obvious you'd have to be a complete arse to ignore them.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Yeah it was insanely bright on my modestly bright cinema mode vs Cinema Home which is much brighter on my OLED. But it still retained a lot of highlight detail. It looked really nice. Detail and color depth was very impressive.

[Mierzwiak]

Cinema Home, at least on my B8, is awful. It's not only brighter, but also clips highlight details which should not happen in Dolby Vision.

[ROSS.T.G.]

I always use Cinema, sometimes I’ll switch to Home to see the difference. Don’t see clipping on mine.

[LoSouL]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Not even that. I'm just as pasty as ever.

An HDR panel that emits UV light would be interesting to see at CES.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Patrick Bateman would be down with that.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Cinema Home, at least on my B8, is awful. It's not only brighter, but also clips highlight details which should not happen in Dolby Vision.

If you can adjust any picture settings within those presets then DV is beholden to those settings, just like any other picture mode. For example, when using DV for the very first time on my Sony TV the contrast defaulted to max and this was clearly, obviously wrong as it was blowing out highlight detail. It's only got one DV picture mode so I thought "there's no way in hell I'm leaving it on maximamum!" and had a tinker, using discs which I knew had highlights in excess of 3000/4000 nits to set the contrast level to show those informations.

I eyeballed it to 92 but after doing more testing a few weeks ago with some brightness patterns and a colourimeter this was making content look a touch brighter vs where the PQ EOTF brightness curve should be tracking, so I tucked it down a bit more to 89 and that, as it turned out, was perfect for The Meg as I can see the 4100-nit highlight detail in andreas' caps in the screenshot thread.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by LoSouL

An HDR panel that emits UV light would be interesting to see at CES.

[StingingVelvet]

Well now I'm really interested to see this on my KS8000, since it resolves up to 6,000 nits on test patterns.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

I always use Cinema, sometimes I’ll switch to Home to see the difference. Don’t see clipping on mine.

I tested it on Pacific Rim (Dolby Vision version on iTunes) and holograms, neons and other light sources are much more detailed and less overblown in Cinema mode. Lowering the contrast doesn't seem to bring those details back.

As for The Meg, it looks great in Dolby Vision (just finished watching it), if it's upscale from 2K then it's an impressive one - hard to imagine Statham's face could be more detailed.
Outdoor daylight scenes, especially those in the middle of the ocean are a little bit washed out - obvious CG sky is obvious and looks weirdly flat.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

I tested it on Pacific Rim (Dolby Vision version on iTunes) and holograms, neons and other light sources are much more detailed and less overblown in Cinema mode. Lowering the contrast doesn't seem to bring those details back.

As for The Meg, it looks great in Dolby Vision (just finished watching it), if it's upscale from 2K then it's an impressive one - hard to imagine Statham's face could be more detailed.
Outdoor daylight scenes, especially those in the middle of the ocean are a little bit washed out - obvious CG sky is obvious and looks weirdly flat.

I’ll have to check it out further but I don’t see clipping, I’m very sensitive to clipping. I always watch in the standard Cinema mode for UHD and use Cinema Home for Netflix with ambient light. Could be your later model OLED is different.

[bradnoyes]

I vastly prefer Cinema on most content with my E8 but I will use Cinema Home now and again, particularly if I’m watching something during the day and the room is bright. It also works well with some animated UHDs. Not sure if clipping is an issue but generally I find that Cinema Home does blow things out a bit. Regular old Cinema just feels right.

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

I tested it on Pacific Rim (Dolby Vision version on iTunes) and holograms, neons and other light sources are much more detailed and less overblown in Cinema mode. Lowering the contrast doesn't seem to bring those details back.

As for The Meg, it looks great in Dolby Vision (just finished watching it), if it's upscale from 2K then it's an impressive one - hard to imagine Statham's face could be more detailed.
Outdoor daylight scenes, especially those in the middle of the ocean are a little bit washed out - obvious CG sky is obvious and looks weirdly flat.

I thought the level of detail was amazing on this one.

[Geoff D]

One last little comment re: the self-tanning potential of HDR and The Meg is that if people are getting a wall of white in the brighter exteriors due to the mapping then it's no wonder it'll look as uncomfortably bright as it does, pumping out a ****ton of nits all over the screen. But the point with the proper mapping even on a TV than can hit near enough 2000 nits peak is that it'll direct that brightness in a more selective way, reserving it for the parts of the image that actually hit those levels, so if you're seeing blue skies and clouds then the clouds will be brighter, but if it's nuked out to shit then everything's going to look really bright and fubar. Doesn't just apply to The Meg either.

[StrayButler91]

Viewed the disc in Dolby Vision on my LG OLED. Some shots looked slightly nuked, and the daytime scenes are certainly bright, but I didn't have an issue with it. I still had a lot of fun with the flick, too.

[K1NG J0RDAN]

I turned the brightness down slightly on my LG OLED, to 48 while viewing in HDR10. That seemed to help things look more natural. The HDR is pretty incredible on this disc. The audio is spectacular too. Really gives the subwoofer a workout!

[StingingVelvet]

Wow, this is pure HDR demo material all the way. I didn't notice any clipping in HDR 10 really. I thought I did on a couple scenes but I put the BD in after and they looked about the same, so I think it's those scenes. In stuff like the pics shows on here I resolved the detail quite well. My Samsung has plenty of flaws but it has good tone-mapping, so I guess that helps. In any event the HDR in all scenes was pretty amazing, from the underwater lights to the explosions and daytime sunshine. Just jaw-dropping stuff. Detail ain't bad either.

Movie seems to getting the usual bashing from most people on the internet, but I found it perfectly enjoyable. Statham has undeniable screen presence and the effects (in HDR anyway) looked great. No one would ever call it a classic but it's solid blockbuster entertainment IMO. Glad I got it on a whim at Best Buy when I stopped for something else.

[ltb2.0]

I agree this is a gorgeous disc.

[levcore]

I couldn't get on with this at all. The underwater/ interior stuff looked gorgeous and the detail, sharpness and colour is excellent but the daytime exterior stuff was way too blown out with the skies, it was just pure blinding white and made everything look extra distracting and artificial. Such a disappointing as aside from the insane brightness it's a stunning looking disc. I'll have to side with the 3D disc on this one as that delivers great depth and layers. and a few fun pop outs but without such extreme brightness in the outdoor scenes.

[lgans316]

This is AV porn.

WB really pushed the brightness way so high that I had to reduce light and contrast to just 55 to avoid burning my eyes.

The sound was jawsome and I had dialled it up just like the video so much that my neighbour texted us to understand why there was so much vibration from the washing machine for a long time lol.

It would be great if the sound engineers at WB visits Disney and teach them how it should be done.