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

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

BTW, WordPefect still exists or are you just running a really old copy?

Started with 4.2 in the 80's, currently using Version 18. The WordPerfect symbol set is > 1500 but many of them will not translate to the Unicode symbol set. As Geoff D noted, I use the Windows Charter Map to find the Alt + (value) for some symbols for various fonts. As before, many of these will not paste or display correctly on many of the BBS’s forums.

Apparently some members are allowed to post with HTML turned on because they will post tables and other formatting that shows correctly. My posting privileges has everything turned On except HTML.

BTW, good to see you have your stone problem cleared up. Mine made me very ill and took some time to get over.

[Scenic Labs]

The disc that you'd get is the same one that the professionals get, which is to say that some of the content is accessible to a casual user, but much of it will not be of much use without instrumentation, at least from a calibration perspective. Some of the material will show the limitations of your setup. In some cases, there won't be anything you can do other than replace equipment. In other cases, it might help to identify weak links in the chain where data is lost.

At launch, instructions are still scant, but we're working on both online tips for casual users in the shorter term and a more exhaustive downloadable manual for advanced users over the summer. The disc will become more usable to the novice over time as more of this is made available.

Jason

Originally Posted by Vilya

How easy will this test disc be to use for those of us that are not extremely knowledgeable about all of these fine points? Will this disc be of benefit to a less informed 4K TV owner or will it instead make them feel woefully ignorant?

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

How easy will this test disc be to use for those of us that are not extremely knowledgeable about all of these fine points? Will this disc be of benefit to a less informed 4K TV owner or will it instead make them feel woefully ignorant?

Just IMHO, if you only use it to check for luminance and chroma response, ringing, shading errors, etc., makes it worth the price.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Vilya

How easy will this test disc be to use for those of us that are not extremely knowledgeable about all of these fine points? Will this disc be of benefit to a less informed 4K TV owner or will it instead make them feel woefully ignorant?

The best advice and I can give is to read our current articles and see how comfortable you feel.

We would hate for you to buy something that you are unhappy with, so those articles will give you some insight. As Jason mentioned, instructions will come later as we work on them.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Jesus, it regularly peaks at well over 4k nits. That montage is a beast.

I had three goals with the montage:
1. Shoot and finish in 8K. Check
2. Have content that goes to 10,000 nits. Check
3. Have content that will utilize the full 2020 gamut. Check.

While we do want something to look good, we also wanted something that would challenge current systems. Everyone has focused tone mapping around 1000 - 4000 nits.

The 4000 nit versions are all hard clipped at 4000, so you can visually see what goes above 4000 because it will be clipped.

The 2000, 1000, 600 and 100 are the Dolby trim pass options and so those were all offline rendered using the Dolby SoftCMU engine in Transkoder. The idea was that you can use those as approved versions and compare them against what your display is producing.

If you use the static tone mapping with the LG, the 1000 clips in some spots. (horses in snow) If you enable their dynamic tone mapping, the clipping goes away. I would have hoped that the static would not have clipped on the 1000 version since it is the capability of the X300 and X310. The X300 dims fully on that shot. X310 maintains brightness, but its off axis performance is less than the X300. Anything using the dual LCD approach will have off axis issues.

It was graded on the Pulsar, which does not really clip at 4000. Probably varies from unit to unit. We intentionally made some items 10,000 knowing they would clip and one day we could see them. Shane, the colorist, actually created a fake sun in one shot. In another, he plugged the hole in this rock formation, though that was just as a joke and we did not use it. I think he wanted to see if I would notice.

The one version not on the disc is SL-HDR2 and that is because we don't know how to create it today. Perhaps that will make the add-on. The HLG was flagged as SDR, so your display needs to have a manual option to force HLG, which the Z9D has. When you do, it becomes HDR. The HLG is based on the Dolby 1000 trim pass.

The butterfly is based on the Dolby 1000 and Dolby SDR 100 709. We used Transkoder to map the SDR100 into HDR and to create the butterfly. The debate that will ensue is using 100 vs something else. Lots of people argue that no one watches SDR at 100. I understand that point. But was it meant to be viewed at 300 nits? I would argue no. We had included a hidden 1000/200, but ran out of disc space.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

The best advice and I can give is to read our current articles and see how comfortable you feel.

We would hate for you to buy something that you are unhappy with, so those articles will give you some insight. As Jason mentioned, instructions will come later as we work on them.

Thank you and Scenic Labs for your replies.

I am not entirely a novice here, but I am nowhere near to having a doctorate in this field, either. I am happy to learn more also. I just wanted to get a feeling for how wide a market your product was intended to reach; there are a lot more novices than experts afterall.

[jibucha]

probably not, however i do and have for over thirty years (always will)
however, unwilling to argue the point
after all, that's the standard

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Lots of people argue that no one watches SDR at 100. I understand that point. But was it meant to be viewed at 300 nits? I would argue no. We had included a hidden 1000/200, but ran out of disc space.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by jibucha

probably not, however i do and have for over thirty years (always will)
however, unwilling to argue the point
after all, that's the standard

I do too! At least I know there is one more out there. haha.

One thing the butterfly shows is the perceived sharpness difference between HDR and SDR. The Ferris Wheel shot in Seattle has these LEDs in the middle. They look soft and almost out of focus in SDR. They are the same resolution and went through the same process from 4320p to 2160p.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Thank you and Scenic Labs for your replies.

I am not entirely a novice here, but I am nowhere near to having a doctorate in this field, either. I am happy to learn more also. I just wanted to get a feeling for how wide a market your product was intended to reach; there are a lot more novices than experts afterall.

We had a goal of making animated tutorials for the basic stuff on this and did not get it done in time. That will help extend the market to those with less knowledge.

The disc covers several markets including consumers (end users), calibrators, reviewers and CE companies. In a perfect world, there would probably be a different disc per market. The problem is the cost to author prevents that, so we have one disc that serves all markets. Otherwise we would have to charge $1000+ for the CE company version since it would sell so few.

My first experience with this was in 1992 when I bought a Video Standard on Laserdisc. It was a head scratcher, but it did include a really nice booklet. Something that does not exist today, but we are going to be working on and will have before the end of summer.

[DisplayCalNoob]

@Stacey Spears The anticipation, for your disc is greater than any film release, at least for me it is.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I had three goals with the montage:
1. Shoot and finish in 8K. Check
2. Have content that goes to 10,000 nits. Check
3. Have content that will utilize the full 2020 gamut. Check.

While we do want something to look good, we also wanted something that would challenge current systems. Everyone has focused tone mapping around 1000 - 4000 nits.

The 4000 nit versions are all hard clipped at 4000, so you can visually see what goes above 4000 because it will be clipped.

The 2000, 1000, 600 and 100 are the Dolby trim pass options and so those were all offline rendered using the Dolby SoftCMU engine in Transkoder. The idea was that you can use those as approved versions and compare them against what your display is producing.

If you use the static tone mapping with the LG, the 1000 clips in some spots. (horses in snow) If you enable their dynamic tone mapping, the clipping goes away. I would have hoped that the static would not have clipped on the 1000 version since it is the capability of the X300 and X310. The X300 dims fully on that shot. X310 maintains brightness, but its off axis performance is less than the X300. Anything using the dual LCD approach will have off axis issues.

It was graded on the Pulsar, which does not really clip at 4000. Probably varies from unit to unit. We intentionally made some items 10,000 knowing they would clip and one day we could see them. Shane, the colorist, actually created a fake sun in one shot. In another, he plugged the hole in this rock formation, though that was just as a joke and we did not use it. I think he wanted to see if I would notice.

The one version not on the disc is SL-HDR2 and that is because we don't know how to create it today. Perhaps that will make the add-on. The HLG was flagged as SDR, so your display needs to have a manual option to force HLG, which the Z9D has. When you do, it becomes HDR. The HLG is based on the Dolby 1000 trim pass.

The butterfly is based on the Dolby 1000 and Dolby SDR 100 709. We used Transkoder to map the SDR100 into HDR and to create the butterfly. The debate that will ensue is using 100 vs something else. Lots of people argue that no one watches SDR at 100. I understand that point. But was it meant to be viewed at 300 nits? I would argue no. We had included a hidden 1000/200, but ran out of disc space.

Yes, I figured that you wanted to do a montage that didn't just reach the limit of current tech but which blows past it, and would be a challenge even for x theoretical super monitor in the future to display properly.

As for SDR, I'm another one of the loonies who watches it in the ~100 nit realm (140 in my case, SMPTE say 120 so I nudge it just a wee bit higher).

[Stacey Spears]

We are hoping to get the current articles updated in a 3rd edition section as well as the dealer list updated on 7/1.

[LordoftheRings]

With fireworks in time for the 4th. ☄

[Scenic Labs]

I've confirmed units were received in Germany and Australia and I'll be able to update links once those pages are active. It's already appearing on some EU Amazon pages. They are still inbound to UK, and while they've cleared US customs, I haven't seen an update on delivery for the pallets. It should arrive today. Fingers crossed.

[Geoff D]

I see someone's put a listing up for it on amazon.co.uk, seems to be a German seller (which would tally with them getting it first) but £50 is very steep. Shirley a UK seller won't charge that much for it? He asked, hopefully.

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I had three goals with the montage:
1. Shoot and finish in 8K. Check
2. Have content that goes to 10,000 nits. Check
3. Have content that will utilize the full 2020 gamut. Check.

While we do want something to look good, we also wanted something that would challenge current systems. Everyone has focused tone mapping around 1000 - 4000 nits.

The 4000 nit versions are all hard clipped at 4000, so you can visually see what goes above 4000 because it will be clipped.

The 2000, 1000, 600 and 100 are the Dolby trim pass options and so those were all offline rendered using the Dolby SoftCMU engine in Transkoder. The idea was that you can use those as approved versions and compare them against what your display is producing.

If you use the static tone mapping with the LG, the 1000 clips in some spots. (horses in snow) If you enable their dynamic tone mapping, the clipping goes away. I would have hoped that the static would not have clipped on the 1000 version since it is the capability of the X300 and X310. The X300 dims fully on that shot. X310 maintains brightness, but its off axis performance is less than the X300. Anything using the dual LCD approach will have off axis issues.

It was graded on the Pulsar, which does not really clip at 4000. Probably varies from unit to unit. We intentionally made some items 10,000 knowing they would clip and one day we could see them. Shane, the colorist, actually created a fake sun in one shot. In another, he plugged the hole in this rock formation, though that was just as a joke and we did not use it. I think he wanted to see if I would notice.

The one version not on the disc is SL-HDR2 and that is because we don't know how to create it today. Perhaps that will make the add-on. The HLG was flagged as SDR, so your display needs to have a manual option to force HLG, which the Z9D has. When you do, it becomes HDR. The HLG is based on the Dolby 1000 trim pass.

The butterfly is based on the Dolby 1000 and Dolby SDR 100 709. We used Transkoder to map the SDR100 into HDR and to create the butterfly. The debate that will ensue is using 100 vs something else. Lots of people argue that no one watches SDR at 100. I understand that point. But was it meant to be viewed at 300 nits? I would argue no. We had included a hidden 1000/200, but ran out of disc space.

...as the "colorist" Stacey mentions, I would also add, that one of the grading concepts was to guide the image toward the feeling or sense of "being there" rather than just making bright images because we could on the Pulsar.

This was welcomed for my sensibilities having graded HDR content since 2011, some at 20,000nits and very forward thinking on Stacey's part as a lot of HDR content today does not push that far into the 10,000nit container with much other than specular highlights. Go outside, measure the luminance around you, you'll discover reality offers tremendous ratios and is quite dynamic and often bright.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by ShaneMario

Go outside, measure the luminance around you, you'll discover reality offers tremendous ratios and is quite dynamic and often bright.

http://shanemario.com/archives/406

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by ShaneMario

Go outside, measure the luminance around you, you'll discover reality offers tremendous ratios and is quite dynamic and often bright.

At NAB one year, Tyler was running around with my LS-100. He measured a white towel next to the pool, on the roof of our hotel, at 50,000 nits. It was a bright day!

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by ShaneMario

Go outside, measure the luminance around you, you'll discover reality offers tremendous ratios and is quite dynamic and often bright.

I've always been a bit skeptical on this mindset Shane. While I agree completely with the fact that real life has luminance levels that are much higher than even HDR delivers, it is a completely different environment than watching a display. We are immersed in that environment completely, not watching it on a display that only takes up a certain percentage of our viewing field. We also don't make it a habit of switching quickly from one type of environment to another (really dark to really bright, or vice versa) without all the grumbling that comes with it (think walking out of movie theater into bright afternoon sunlight). And this doesn't even account for the sunglasses that most people wear on a daily basis as well.

I'm not trying to disparage HDR, but trying to achieve real life luminance levels shouldn't be the goal. If you want that goal, go outside and experience it unfiltered with no display limitations! But for at home viewing, sometimes there can be too much of a good thing and it can become tedious or even uncomfortable (think bad 3D that tried too hard to give you that "I can touch you" feeling).

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I see someone's put a listing up for it on amazon.co.uk, seems to be a German seller (which would tally with them getting it first) but £50 is very steep. Shirley a UK seller won't charge that much for it? He asked, hopefully.

Jason will follow-up on the price for the UK as soon as the dealer there has them ready to go.