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

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Here are two sample crops.

1. Sorry they don't perfectly match.
2. They are in PQ, so the colors and look are not going to look correct on a computer monitor.

Current Disc




New Grade


Take a look at the door on the lower right. It is correct in the new grade.

The lower left should be purple.

Also look at the detail different in the top of the building. Detail was starting to clip in the old grade.

I didn't notice the purple door, I'll take a look at it this moring. I did notice the clipped eagle beak. I've been switching my player back and forth between YCbCr and RGB, I was worried that RGB would introduce some hue and saturation issues, but it was quite the opposite.

I now have more time to spend testing with the chroma alignment patterns. Color clipping patterns as well.

[Stacey Spears]

I don't recall if it was this forum or another asking for us to create new music for the montage. We are now looking into hiring someone to create a 9.1.6 Atmos mix w/ audio effects (nature sounds) as well. We just started the discussion. Hopefully it works out. We are really excited with who is involved. Music composition runs in their family. Assuming we can afford it.

What kind of audio do you want from music that goes with the montage?

Also found a way to signal HLG to the display so that the display actually goes into HLG mode on disc w/o user interaction. That bad news is that this does not work on the OPPO player. We can't use the normal transfer function flag as that is blocked by the mux since it is not supported on Blu-ray. We are using the SEI message. This does appear to work on Panasonic UB9000.

If all goes well, it will also include an SL-HDR2 version. I don't know if any players actually support it. If anyone has a Philips, Sony or LG UHD BD player, there is a test you can run with the disc to find out if it supports SL-HDR2. OPPO and Panasonic don't seem to support it, so looking for a player that might to test it.

From the configuration menu, highlight the P3D65|BT.2020 option. Then press the right arrow 5 times. This will take you to a hidden info page. Let me know if you see a check next to SL-HDR2 in the left column.

We have a brand new hand graded SDR version this time around as well. The previous SDR was derived from Dolby Vision.

I have been working on the ticker, xXx and motion interpolation pattern updates.
1. It turns out the text on the different nit levels of the ticker were all at 100 nits. I don't recall if this was intentional or an oversite. At the time, I did not realize how luminance impacted judder. Only the burst and images changed nits between the different versions. This has now been fixed. The text is also at the various nit levels.
2. We swapped out the five images on the bottom. They are now from the new grade. They are actually in the order they show up in the montage. Two shots are different since one is not in the montage anymore.
3. There are now 60p version of each as well.

We have long used the crossed gray steps pattern for the generic grayscale / color temp pattern under video setup. We have something brand new that we think is an improvement. All I will say is that you will think it is backwards at first glance. It really is not. To use it, you really need something like an optical comparator or gray card and D65 light source. Basically a reference.

There are now four different Dolby Vision versions.
2 x MEL
2 x FEL
One with 2020 trims and one with P3 trims.

This time around I encoded the Dolby Vision encodes and they are better.

At this point all of the test patterns have been designed. Just need to render and encode them. That will happen after all the montages are encoded.

The Atmos audio tones are done. Once stay-at-home is lifted, we hope DTS can be done. The long pole now will be the new montage audio. However, it can be dropped in at the last minute, but that work may not be done until August since they have movies and TV shows to mix.

And we would like to say thank you to all of those that have provided feedback. This feedback has gone into improving some of the existing patterns as well as brand new patterns.

And finally, we are working on help text for almost every pattern. I say almost because the window patterns will not include help text. For those that have the gear to use them, we expect you to know how to use them.

[p5browne]

I came up with the idea of changing the back ground music. This has been a learning experience, in that I didn't know using someone else's music composition is on a cost on a per second basis! In other words, it helps if you're musically inclined and can compose and create your own backgrounds. What about ye old classics? I thought that they were now fee free ? Plus, if you're personally involved with creating the music, all the better.

I can see where today's artists are up against a constantly changing audio and video scenarios. Use to be, changed every 2 years, now we're down to every 6 months, or less. Avatar sequel - how many times has that gone back to be upgraded to the new technology? Now, despite 8K just showing it's presence, already seeing people talking 16K ! Next - halo decks! (Definitely will have to be auto calibrated!)

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I don't recall if it was this forum or another asking for us to create new music for the montage. We are now looking into hiring someone to create a 9.1.6 Atmos mix w/ audio effects (nature sounds) as well. We just started the discussion. Hopefully it works out. We are really excited with who is involved. Music composition runs in their family. Assuming we can afford it.

What kind of audio do you want from music that goes with the montage?

Also found a way to signal HLG to the display so that the display actually goes into HLG mode on disc w/o user interaction. That bad news is that this does not work on the OPPO player. We can't use the normal transfer function flag as that is blocked by the mux since it is not supported on Blu-ray. We are using the SEI message. This does appear to work on Panasonic UB9000.

If all goes well, it will also include an SL-HDR2 version. I don't know if any players actually support it. If anyone has a Philips, Sony or LG UHD BD player, there is a test you can run with the disc to find out if it supports SL-HDR2. OPPO and Panasonic don't seem to support it, so looking for a player that might to test it.

From the configuration menu, highlight the P3D65|BT.2020 option. Then press the right arrow 5 times. This will take you to a hidden info page. Let me know if you see a check next to SL-HDR2 in the left column.

We have a brand new hand graded SDR version this time around as well. The previous SDR was derived from Dolby Vision.

I have been working on the ticker, xXx and motion interpolation pattern updates.
1. It turns out the text on the different nit levels of the ticker were all at 100 nits. I don't recall if this was intentional or an oversite. At the time, I did not realize how luminance impacted judder. Only the burst and images changed nits between the different versions. This has now been fixed. The text is also at the various nit levels.
2. We swapped out the five images on the bottom. They are now from the new grade. They are actually in the order they show up in the montage. Two shots are different since one is not in the montage anymore.
3. There are now 60p version of each as well.

We have long used the crossed gray steps pattern for the generic grayscale / color temp pattern under video setup. We have something brand new that we think is an improvement. All I will say is that you will think it is backwards at first glance. It really is not. To use it, you really need something like an optical comparator or gray card and D65 light source. Basically a reference.

There are now four different Dolby Vision versions.
2 x MEL
2 x FEL
One with 2020 trims and one with P3 trims.

This time around I encoded the Dolby Vision encodes and they are better.

At this point all of the test patterns have been designed. Just need to render and encode them. That will happen after all the montages are encoded.

The Atmos audio tones are done. Once stay-at-home is lifted, we hope DTS can be done. The long pole now will be the new montage audio. However, it can be dropped in at the last minute, but that work may not be done until August since they have movies and TV shows to mix.

And we would like to say thank you to all of those that have provided feedback. This feedback has gone into improving some of the existing patterns as well as brand new patterns.

And finally, we are working on help text for almost every pattern. I say almost because the window patterns will not include help text. For those that have the gear to use them, we expect you to know how to use them.

My LG UP970 does not support SL-HDR2.

[Geoff D]

Checked the Sony X800, it doesn't show a single tick in the player compatibility column, so no SL-HDR2, no nuthin'

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by p5browne

I came up with the idea of changing the back ground music. This has been a learning experience, in that I didn't know using someone else's music composition is on a cost on a per second basis! In other words, it helps if you're musically inclined and can compose and create your own backgrounds. What about ye old classics? I thought that they were now fee free ? Plus, if you're personally involved with creating the music, all the better.

I can see where today's artists are up against a constantly changing audio and video scenarios. Use to be, changed every 2 years, now we're down to every 6 months, or less. Avatar sequel - how many times has that gone back to be upgraded to the new technology? Now, despite 8K just showing it's presence, already seeing people talking 16K ! Next - halo decks! (Definitely will have to be auto calibrated!)

I am happy you read and responded. Can you provide some opinon on what style of music you would like?

Do you want heave use of the surrounds and overheads? Do you want some crazy amount of bass? How about the mixture of nature sounds with the music? e.g. There is a marmot in the new montage. Here is the current shot list: https://www.dropbox.com/s/or4xdo892d...1_20.xlsx?dl=0

The marmot is shot 9. He does bark at some point and I thought hearing the bark might be a good thing. Shot 26 has the water break at the end and seems like something that might be fun to hear. Shot 41 has the four quantom dot viles. I thought as each one lit up some type type of rising scale occurs as each turns on. Shot 54, which is still one of my favorites. I call this C.W.A. or Cows with Attitude. A crazy mother heifer named beef cube, from the herd called cows with attitude is what goes through my head when I see it. Shot 60 has the hawk speaking. And shot 69 should have some type of tick as the stop watch counts down.

Would love to hear more so that I can provide that info to the music and sound editor/mixer.

To share an example of costs. The one-day skin tone shoot was $15,000. And that with with Sony and Colorfront loaning us hardware and people. We got the models at what I consider a steal.

Any guidance or even examples from real movies on what you would like to hear with the montage would help out.

I am just happy that we might be able to make this happen. And had you not asked, we probably would not have even considered it, so thank you!

PM me your real name and info as I plan to include you in the credits and would like to send you the disc as a thank you when its ready.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Checked the Sony X800, it doesn't show a single tick in the player compatibility column, so no SL-HDR2, no nuthin'

Thank you for checking.

One thing to note. Using Dolby Vision as an example, if the displays supports DV but the player does not, then you will not see a check in the display column. It seems the player has to support a technology before it will even show anything in the display side.

That hidden menu is the logic to decide when to show the warning logo on the demo material page itself.

I was fine making it less hidden, but David wanted it hidden. Makes a cool Easter egg. Had it not been hidden, we would probably get a lot of support emails asking questions.

BTW, this latest version will actually show the advantage of ICtCp over YCbCr. In a lot of our reds (tulips for example) you can see some noise in the red tulips near the bottom of the screen. in SDR, ICtCp and 1000 nit HDR, they are not really present. Same with the purple noise in the peacock feather.

Netflix published a paper that we think may help reduce this in YCbCr. What the paper does not go into is what happens after compression is applied. Does it then break the trick. It may undo it. Here is a sample paper example https://norkin.org/pdf/SPIE_2016_HDR...on_metrics.pdf

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by DisplayCalNoob

My LG UP970 does not support SL-HDR2.

Thank you for checking.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Thank you for checking.

One thing to note. Using Dolby Vision as an example, if the displays supports DV but the player does not, then you will not see a check in the display column. It seems the player has to support a technology before it will even show anything in the display side.

That hidden menu is the logic to decide when to show the warning logo on the demo material page itself.

I was fine making it less hidden, but David wanted it hidden. Makes a cool Easter egg. Had it not been hidden, we would probably get a lot of support emails asking questions.

BTW, this latest version will actually show the advantage of ICtCp over YCbCr. In a lot of our reds (tulips for example) you can see some noise in the red tulips near the bottom of the screen. in SDR, ICtCp and 1000 nit HDR, they are not really present. Same with the purple noise in the peacock feather.

Netflix published a paper that we think may help reduce this in YCbCr. What the paper does not go into is what happens after compression is applied. Does it then break the trick. It may undo it. Here is a sample paper example https://norkin.org/pdf/SPIE_2016_HDR...on_metrics.pdf

Not to contradict the professional - it's my thing today - but the reason why I mentioned there were no ticks in the player compatibility column specifically is because there are ticks in the display column. I mean, HDR10 and 2160p rez are a given but the menu is showing Dolby Vision display compatibility even though the Sony X800 does not support it. Pretty cool huh?

[DisplayCalNoob]

@sspears Is it just a matter of using ICtCp during the grading process or both color grading and the encode?

Does HDR10 benefit?

[Geoff D]

Same question: the discs can't actually be encoded in ITP...can they?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

.....Netflix published a paper that we think may help reduce this in YCbCr. What the paper does not go into is what happens after compression is applied. Does it then break the trick. It may undo it. Here is a sample paper example https://norkin.org/pdf/SPIE_2016_HDR...on_metrics.pdf

Andrey is bright, helpful, hard-working and produces -
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...y#post13192703
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...y#post13193842

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Same question: the discs can't actually be encoded in ITP...can they?

Sadly, no, not that I am aware of. I suppose we can do a mux test and see what happens.

[Geoff D]

Cheers. Apologies for what might seem like dunderheaded questions, but what are the 'Smooth Transition' and 'Tone Mapping Control' features listed on the player side?

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Sadly, no, not that I am aware of. I suppose we can do a mux test and see what happens.

Since ITP isn't part of UHD BD spec, I was wondering how the differences will be presented on disc.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Cheers. Apologies for what might seem like dunderheaded questions, but what are the 'Smooth Transition' and 'Tone Mapping Control' features listed on the player side?

I have no idea! :-) They were part of the of the spec and David implemented them in the UI. LOL

I have yet to see a display where a check shows up next to the 3D option and I know the player and display support 3D, so I will remove that next time.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by DisplayCalNoob

Since ITP isn't part of UHD BD spec, I was wondering how the differences will be presented on disc.

We would not use it on disc, we would offer it as a download to play from a USB stick, for example.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I have no idea! :-) They were part of the of the spec and David implemented them in the UI. LOL

I have yet to see a display where a check shows up next to the 3D option and I know the player and display support 3D, so I will remove that next time.

Hah! For what it's worth, the OPPO 203 has a tick for Smooth Transition for Dolby Vision but not HDR10+, whereas the Panasonic 820 has a tick for Smooth Transition for HDR10+ but not Dolby Vision, even though both players support both formats.

[David M]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Cheers. Apologies for what might seem like dunderheaded questions, but what are the 'Smooth Transition' and 'Tone Mapping Control' features listed on the player side?

They relate to the ability of the BD player to override the content's own tone mapping. This was a later addition to the spec. The idea is that you can turn off tone mapping when the popup menu is displayed over the film, so sudden luminance changes in the content don't cause your menu graphics to jump around in brightness.

"Smooth Transition" just means that the handoff between content tone mapping vs the player turning the tone mapping off, is smoothed out rather than a sudden jump.

[mrtickleuk]

Originally Posted by David M

They relate to the ability of the BD player to override the content's own tone mapping. This was a later addition to the spec. The idea is that you can turn off tone mapping when the popup menu is displayed over the film, so sudden luminance changes in the content don't cause your menu graphics to jump around in brightness.

"Smooth Transition" just means that the handoff between content tone mapping vs the player turning the tone mapping off when the menu is displayed is smoothed out rather than a sudden jump.

Excellent answer! Thanks!