Spears & Munsil 4K UHD HDR Benchmark (Test Discs) May 15, 2023

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by mrtickleuk

Finally I have to thank you again for this because only now do I finally understand what the Test Full Band "Quants3D" patterns are doing. They are static grids, with the "Y" component changing over time. Whereas the "Quants2D" patterns are just the static grids with a Y ramp from left-right and either Cr ramp or Cb ramp top to bottom, and I'm now inferring that the non-Cr or non-Cb component is a flat value (128?) for the whole grid in each case.

In 8-bit, it would be 128, which is 512 in 10-bit.

[mrtickleuk]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

In 8-bit, it would be 128, which is 512 in 10-bit.

Ok. So that matches what I thought. But I've got the colours coming out as green to blue but nearly always black (in previous post)

[Blu Titan]

I am going to order the disc of Amazon as I finally installed my 85 inch 4k set. I guess I will have devote a few hours reading this thread.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

I am going to order the disc of Amazon as I finally installed my 85 inch 4k set. I guess I will have devote a few hours reading this thread.

We just posted the first version of the beginner guide on our website.

[p5browne]

It had me worried when you mentioned having the receipt for the copy we just purchased. Apparently I didn't file it under Spears & Munsil. Now there's a copy, now that I found it. So, purchase of the new disc will come from the original vendor we bought from here in Canada ?

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by p5browne

It had me worried when you mentioned having the receipt for the copy we just purchased. Apparently I didn't file it under Spears & Munsil. Now there's a copy, now that I found it. So, purchase of the new disc will come from the original vendor we bought from here in Canada ?

We have not worked out the details yet. I don't know if Jason will want you to go through your original dealer or through a centralized location. Once we start authoring, we will work out the details. I hope that starts in late April.

[Stacey Spears]

I wanted to share a BTS photo from last weeks shoot. People have asked for real people to judge skin tones.



We fed REDWideGamutRGB / Log3G10 out of the camera into the AJA FS-HDR10. From there an HDR signal went into the AJA HDR Analyzer and then into the Sony X310 for HDR monitoring. Then another went into the X300 for SDR monitoring.

[Geoff D]

What do you think of the HX310 vs the X300? Better, worse, or just 'different'?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I wanted to share a BTS photo from last weeks shoot. People have asked for real people to judge skin tones.

[Show spoiler]

We fed REDWideGamutRGB / Log3G10 out of the camera into the AJA FS-HDR10. From there an HDR signal went into the AJA HDR Analyzer and then into the Sony X310 for HDR monitoring. Then another went into the X300 for SDR monitoring.

^ looks comprehensive, model pics on disc for skin tones in 2011 -
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...11#post7591928

seems rather primitive in comparison to what you’re doing, technology/gifted creators march on

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

What do you think of the HX310 vs the X300? Better, worse, or just 'different'?

Just different.

[p5browne]

Hmmm, no bleached blonds with sun tans !

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by p5browne

Hmmm, no bleached blonds with sun tans !

Yes, because they want natural skin tones

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes, because they want natural skin tones

We spent a lot of time discussing this issue. Make-up was one subject and lighting was another. What you see in a movie is never natural. In the end, we went for minimal make-up and flat lightening.

There will be a group shot with all eight, individual shots of each and then a Brady Bunch style grid with all of the individual shots cropped. For the Brady Bunch version, I need to digitally remove the color charts.

The new montage re-grade/edit has fixed all the little things that bothered me, could not be happier. Currently having some VFX sun replacements being done on two shots where the sun was blown out. One is now at 10,000 nits.

The dish Array in New Mexico
Original:


Replaced:


Sun and clouds over the water

[mrtickleuk]

I've thought of an idea for another possible test pattern. Not sure if it's appropriate for such a disc, but I'll explain as best I can.

My LG C8 has a feature which LG calls "Quad Step Noise Reduction" and is lumped in with the "MPEG Noise Reduction" feature. Lucky owners of 2019 or later models have it in a separate "Smooth Gradation" menu option.

It would be nice to have a test pattern to prove if this feature is working normally. (Some firmware updates broke it). I think the pattern would have to have some banding in the pattern, so that the TV's feature would "clean it up". The current problem is that some of the banding patterns are so smooth and subtle that it's not always clear to see the difference.

It may seem odd to target a TV's processing features, as it could be seen as a bit "backwards" from what a test disc is supposed to do. But that's my idea anyway. It could also be used to compare how good successive generations of this feature compare with each other, how well the TV handles 8-bit as well as 10-bit smoothing, compare different manufacturer's attempts, how much detail gets lost as a side effect of the smoothing process. At the moment a lot of these discussions take place in reviews looking subjectively at screenshots.

[Geoff D]

I agree re: banding patterns often being too subtle, or maybe it's just that the ZD9 aces everything. It's a good idea, perhaps they could include a 'control' pattern that shows what it should look like when properly dithered, so you can compare it back and forth with the 'smooth gradation' applied to the intentionally borked pattern.

[Kris Deering]

Just had the chance to evaluate the new montage. Stacey sent me the MEL grade. Looks great, and the new additions look fantastic. I also got to watch all the skin tone clips and compilation.

Stacey also sent me some new Dolby Atmos renderings that do a really nice job with pans from different parts of the room to another. Gives you a really nice test to see where you have some nulls in your coverage due to speaker separations.

All in all, some nice additions to the upcoming disc.

[Geoff D]

He didn't send it to me, I guess I'm only good for helping to evaluate low latency DV clips. Boo-urns

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by mrtickleuk

I've thought of an idea for another possible test pattern. Not sure if it's appropriate for such a disc, but I'll explain as best I can.

My LG C8 has a feature which LG calls "Quad Step Noise Reduction" and is lumped in with the "MPEG Noise Reduction" feature. Lucky owners of 2019 or later models have it in a separate "Smooth Gradation" menu option.

It would be nice to have a test pattern to prove if this feature is working normally. (Some firmware updates broke it). I think the pattern would have to have some banding in the pattern, so that the TV's feature would "clean it up". The current problem is that some of the banding patterns are so smooth and subtle that it's not always clear to see the difference.

It may seem odd to target a TV's processing features, as it could be seen as a bit "backwards" from what a test disc is supposed to do. But that's my idea anyway. It could also be used to compare how good successive generations of this feature compare with each other, how well the TV handles 8-bit as well as 10-bit smoothing, compare different manufacturer's attempts, how much detail gets lost as a side effect of the smoothing process. At the moment a lot of these discussions take place in reviews looking subjectively at screenshots.

What content is your source frames from? I have never seen their smoothing do anything at all, even on the Quant pattern of ours. I just turn it off.

On the Z9D, their smoothing can even smooth out most of the 8-bit simulated section. So it at least does something, though I have turned it off too.

I have not found an OLED that shows the flashing on the patterns we have created. I think the luma lag is interesting and need to test that on a recent Panasonic when I can get near one.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Just had the chance to evaluate the new montage. Stacey sent me the MEL grade. Looks great, and the new additions look fantastic. I also got to watch all the skin tone clips and compilation.

Stacey also sent me some new Dolby Atmos renderings that do a really nice job with pans from different parts of the room to another. Gives you a really nice test to see where you have some nulls in your coverage due to speaker separations.

All in all, some nice additions to the upcoming disc.

Slight correction, it was FEL, not MEL. What I sent was with FEL using deblock and FEL w/o deblock. Not sure which is better since the FEL is not really an image but data. Same with the intra smooth feature of x265.

Several improvements have gone into the new edit along with changes. Some stuff in purple on the current montage that are now blue in the new as they should be. The eagles beak is really clipped on the current that is now fixed.

LA Skyline:
-There is a door with a blue light around it that turned purple
-The building on the right with the three levels of glowing windows was clipped, so you could barely make out the slits between the windows. Now you can clearly see them.
-Sharper overall

Seattle Skyline (Space Needle)
-Crane on right should be blue but is purple on current disc

Seattle Ferris Wheel
-Neon sign with wings should be three colors and is two on current disc.

Quantum Dot
-Far right vile is not the correct hue on current and is now a darker blue as it should be

Lots of stuff like the above all throughout. Two major things occurred:
1. Resolve's color management does not properly pull in all colors outside of the output gamut. These were clipped in the last one. This time we exported linear EXRs that contained the negative pixel values.
2. Transkoder had caused some hue shifts while repairing the clipped gamut. It now had negative values to use and they improved the algorithm.

In addition, the deconvolution algorithm was improved and we used a optimized setting for every shot to get the most out of it vs. using a fixed setting for the entire thing. Was a lot more work.

Ran dozens of encodes for the base layer. Some interesting discoveries along the way. Same for the FEL. So compression using x265 is better than the Sony encoder used on the current disc. Sony's encoder always came in under our target bitrate by several Mbps.

Right now I am rendering the graded vs. ungraded version. Should be done compositing the two this time tomorrow and then I can start the slow encode. This will let you see the hot pixels, dust blobs, VFX suns, etc... Hopefully this will give people an insight into what a colorist brings to the table.

[dcforsyth]

Stacey Spears,

Any idea when the new disc will be available?

Thanks