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

[Stacey Spears]

On the C9, blacks are crushed in DV vs. HDR10. You can fix this on the CX and C1 with the shadow detail control in Calman. You are stuck with what it is on the C6/7/8/9.

Out of the box, HDR10 is way too bright near black while DV is crushed on the C9 and CX.

Where DV outperforms HDR10, at least on LG and Sony:
1. Tone mapping. Even w/o the trim pass, Dolby's tone mapping maintains specular highlights up to 10K cd/m² AND it does not make the image overly dark.

If you look at the shot of the fence in the snow, in HDR10, the fence post is very dark. In Dolby Vision, the fence post is much lighter, which is correct.

If you look at the shot with the fake sun (sun on right of image), it has a nice separation from the background. If its almost at the same level, that is not the intended look.

2. Hue. Dolby's tone mapping does a better job maintaining proper hue w/o shifting. e.g. blues become purple, reds become orange and green becomes lime.

On the new montage, the peacock feather, quantum dot vials and the crane in the Space Needle shot all are too purple in HDR10 because of hue shifting while being tone mapped.

3. DV has better/stronger dither that results in less banding. The fade up on the montage is clean in DV but shows concentric bands in HDR10 on the LG. I think the Z9D is clean on HDR10 as well. The content itself does not have banding, it is display induced.

Have not had a chance to evaluate HDR10+ yet, will in a few weeks I hope.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Even with all my eagle-eyedness there are very few artefacts I can see in motion with LLDV when compared to HDR10 and overall image quality is virtually identical aside from slightly dimmer brightness and slightly reduced colour saturation in DV. The only thing I’ve ever seen that impacted on real-world viewing and not torture-test material like Stacey's montage is the opening credits to the Shinning, as the blue letters go up the screen they’re filled with weird digital crud where the improper chroma is making the background bleed into the lettering, while the HDR10 is perfick, no chroma bleed.

Even with those issues I’d never, ever give up DV on the FEL titles that make a dreadfully encoded HDR10 layer look somewhat watchable, there’s not an outboard processor on the planet that can fix what StudioCanal did to the base layer of The Fog. Heck, even on Stacey’s montage both the MEL and FEL DV versions clean up some chroma noise that’s visible in some shots in HDR10.

The montage has a lot of artifacts in DVLL that are not present in DV tunneled (TV-led) or in HDR10. I have called out the shots here where you can see the artifacts: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4q44gk2244...pare.xlsx?dl=0

Can you send me a link to the Shining? I would like to get a copy to look at the credits. I want to see if it goes away in tunneled DV.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

The montage has a lot of artifacts in DVLL that are not present in DV tunneled (TV-led) or in HDR10. I have called out the shots here where you can see the artifacts: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4q44gk2244...pare.xlsx?dl=0

Can you send me a link to the Shining? I would like to get a copy to look at the credits. I want to see if it goes away in tunneled DV.

I mentioned that Shinning artefact to you many moons ago when I was checking those DV test patterns. Just cue up the opening credits on the UHD, no specific time stamps or version is needed, there’s only one UHD.

But yeah, whatever else manifests on the montage I simply don’t see with real world content as I alluded to above, it even improves banding artefacts on some movies compared to the HDR10 (which on the ZD9 is still some of the ‘cleanest’ HDR10 processing around). My theory is that LLDV is basically broken when it deals with extreme content that has not only many thousands of nits of brightness but also thousands of nits of colour, which is maybe why it looks permanently broken to you as the montage was meant to be a torture test. As such, the best looking version of the montage on the ZD9 is still the HLG one

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I mentioned that Shinning artefact to you many moons ago when I was checking those DV test patterns. Just cue up the opening credits on the UHD, no specific time stamps or version is needed, there’s only one UHD.

But yeah, whatever else manifests on the montage I simply don’t see with real world content, it even improves banding artefacts on some movies compared to the HDR10. My theory is that LLDV is basically broken when it deals with extreme content that has not only many thousands of nits of brightness but also thousands of nits of colour, which is maybe why it looks permanently broken to you as the montage was meant to be a torture test. As such, the best looking version of the montage on the ZD9 is still the HLG one

The issue with DVLL is that one of the trim pass controls is completely ignored. I assume this bug only exists on BD. ATV, for example, should not have this bug. In theory! If that trim control is used, then you will have an issue on that shot. That is how we made our DV Quality Check pattern. Here is the pattern in Vincent's video.

I may further update it to just put the X in the FEL and not in the BL, this way HDR10 does not show the X either. Though, I may just block it in HDR10 mode to reduce confusion. If you are in a mode that uses Dolby IQ, like Cinema Home, then you will see the red X in the pass scenario. Because of corner cases like Cinema Home, we are hiding it otherwise too many people will be confused and freaked out by it. I am sure it won't take long for everyone to find it though.

His video makes the pattern look better than it does. There is a faint outline due to 4:2:0. You can't read the text in his video, but the pattern explains it.

[TbeRw01]

@Stacey Spears

thank you so much for all the great info.

Is that pattern(DV Quality Check) available to download somewhere or is it a pattern from the upcoming disc?

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by TbeRw01

@Stacey Spears

thank you so much for all the great info.

Is that pattern(DV Quality Check) available to download somewhere or is it a pattern from the upcoming disc?

Upcoming disc for now.

The issue with download is format and device. I can make profile 7 that will play on OPPO but not on any other player or newer displays. (e.g. CX or newer) I can make a Profile 8 file that will play on a display, but that won't play on OPPO.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

The issue with DVLL is that one of the trim pass controls is completely ignored. I assume this bug only exists on BD. ATV, for example, should not have this bug. In theory! If that trim control is used, then you will have an issue on that shot. That is how we made our DV Quality Check pattern. Here is the pattern in Vincent's video. Go to 9m 57s since the forum seems to strip the ability to play from a certain point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=596&...ature=youtu.be

I may further update it to just put the X in the FEL and not in the BL, this way HDR10 does not show the X either. Though, I may just block it in HDR10 mode to reduce confusion. If you are in a mode that uses Dolby IQ, like Cinema Home, then you will see the red X in the pass scenario. Because of corner cases like Cinema Home, we are hiding it otherwise too many people will be confused and freaked out by it. I am sure it won't take long for everyone to find it though.

His video makes the pattern look better than it does. There is a faint outline due to 4:2:0. You can't read the text in his video, but the pattern explains it.

Re: the ignoring of the trim control, is that why the shot of the horsies in the snow (which I think you said was ~5000 nits?) looks blown out to shit in LLDV? And yet I don’t see much of anything like that with real world viewing EXCEPT for some clipped highlights in The Meg which - surprise surprise - goes out to and beyond 4000 nits in the highlights in the affected scenes (though it still retains far more highlight information than running my default HDR10 viewing mode). Admittedly it’s more by luck than judgement that this omission of one of the controls doesn’t badly affect 99% of DV content I’ve watched.

Pity you can’t get hold of a Panasonic OLED though Stacey, I’d love it if you’d give it a good going over.

[TbeRw01]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Upcoming disc for now.

The issue with download is format and device. I can make profile 7 that will play on OPPO but not on any other player or newer displays. (e.g. CX or newer) I can make a Profile 8 file that will play on a display, but that won't play on OPPO.

I see thank you.
FYI , the profile 7 black pattern mp4 you shared a while ago plays fine in my Sony x700 and also with the internal app of my C8.

I also stripped out the EL and made a profile 8 version of it which plays fine on all my devices: Nvidia Shield, Chromecast, Sony x700, C8, and cheap Vizio TV.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Re: the ignoring of the trim control, is that why the shot of the horsies in the snow (which I think you said was ~5000 nits?) looks blown out to shit in LLDV? And yet I don’t see much of anything like that with real world viewing EXCEPT for some clipped highlights in The Meg which - surprise surprise - goes out to and beyond 4000 nits in the highlights in the affected scenes (though it still retains far more highlight information than running my default HDR10 viewing mode). Admittedly it’s more by luck than judgement that this omission of one of the controls doesn’t badly affect 99% of DV content I’ve watched.

Pity you can’t get hold of a Panasonic OLED though Stacey, I’d love it if you’d give it a good going over.

No, I think that is a bad value in the EDID. For DVLL, the display reports the nit level the source should tone map to. I think they set the value incorrectly in the EDID on the Z9D, which is why that shot blows out. On a newer Sony LCD, that shot was fine with the default picture settings using DVLL.

There is one at the Portrait office. I plan to go check it out at some point. But yes, it sucks not being able to buy the latest Panasonic OLEDs in the US.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by TbeRw01

I see thank you.
FYI , the profile 7 black pattern mp4 you shared a while ago plays fine in my Sony x700 and also with the internal app of my C8.

I also stripped out the EL and made a profile 8 version of it which plays fine on all my devices: Nvidia Shield, Chromecast, Sony x700, C8, and cheap Vizio TV.

Good to know about the x700, thank you. I have the x800M2, so I should test it. Do you know if the x700 is using MediaTek like the 800M2?

LG removed support for Profile 7 starting in the CX. Profile 7 requires dual decoders. I assume you then moved the Dolby metadata from the EL to the BL?

Panasonic does not seem to support DV in 7 or 8 via USB.

[TbeRw01]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Do you know if the x700 is using MediaTek like the 800M2?

I don't know.

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I assume you then moved the Dolby metadata from the EL to the BL?

yes I used a python script that convert profile 7 to profile 8 (BL +RPU).

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

No, I think that is a bad value in the EDID. For DVLL, the display reports the nit level the source should tone map to. I think they set the value incorrectly in the EDID on the Z9D, which is why that shot blows out. On a newer Sony LCD, that shot was fine with the default picture settings using DVLL.

There is one at the Portrait office. I plan to go check it out at some point. But yes, it sucks not being able to buy the latest Panasonic OLEDs in the US.

Ah, right. Thanks Stacey. Is the missing trim control the chroma weight, I seem to recall?

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears View Post
The issue with DVLL is that one of the trim pass controls is completely ignored. I assume this bug only exists on BD. ATV, for example, should not have this bug. In theory! If that trim control is used, then you will have an issue on that shot. That is how we made our DV Quality Check pattern. Here is the pattern in Vincent's video. Go to 9m 57s since the forum seems to strip the ability to play from a certain point.

Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...cJHJz8#t=9m56s

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by LordoftheRings

Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...cJHJz8#t=9m56s

That worked, thank you. I updated my post.

[Stacey Spears]

David has been busy doing some re-arranging and cutting to try and get it all to still fit on 3 discs.

I grossly miscalculated the AV Sync stuff. What was 2.8 GB morphed into 21 GB due to all of the audio. We are cutting all of the different nit levels, since that does not matter for AV sync. We are just keeping 10K since that is what Dolby Vision is based off of.

We are moving skin tone from disc 1 to the montage disc and cutting some montage versions. (UHD vs. HD) Possibly moving the SDR montage from the montage disc to the SDR disc itself. This way this disc becomes more of a "live action" disc with all synthetic on disc 1.

We currently have three encodes of skin tones. Dolby Vision FEL, HDR10 and HDR10+. (10 and 10+ use the same encode, but different files, but you can always disable 10+ to see 10 only on a player in addition to using the HDR10 base layer of DV for HDR10) HDR10 and 10+ use our dither vs. whatever Dolby does when they create the base layer. 10 and 10+ also have higher bitrate since they don't need a FEL. We may cut HDR10 and possibly 10+ skin tones. HDR10+, as a format, does not really go below ~250 nits. Skin tones are all below 200 nits, except for a ping on a bolt that holds the color checker chart and earrings, which go up to 800 nits. If they clip, you won't notice.

We may also move the motion and Sarah on a hammock to the montage disc as well, since they are "live action".

One thing I want to point out is that the SDR montage is hand graded vs. a trim pass this time around. This means no one should try and compare HDR tone mapped to SDR vs. native SDR. Colors are actually different on the SDR version. It is not simply meant to look like the HDR, but dimmer. A couple of months break were taken between grading HDR and SDR montages. The HDR was not referenced during the grade until the very end for sharpening only. The SDR has had sharpness applied to perceptually match the perceived sharpness on the HDR version on the Pulsar. The poppy flower is much different looking as is some parts of the LA skyline where we chose different colors between the two. Since we only have 100 nits, we used a lot more saturated colors to make the SDR pop. Two shots in the SDR were actually taken from a trim pass because the sun replacement work was done on the HDR and not the original source. Had we know what we were going to do, we would have done it on the source frames and not the graded frames.

Mathias, maker of madVR, was beat-up on a forum a while back because people thought his tone mapping was too saturated vs. other boxes. I mention this because our SDR is a lot more saturated in SDR than HDR and it is what he was beat-up for.

[Stacey Spears]

We may actually be able to include some DTS:X tones after all. They might be limited to 7.1.4. We are not sure if the panning clips can be done, but the levels, bass management and rattle sweeps look promising.

Does anyone have a DTS:X system at home? If so, what is your speaker configuration?

[Robert Zohn]

In our Sony VPL-VW325ES 4K HDR store demo theater we have a 11.2 channel DTS:X system that also supports Dolby Atmos. We just purchased Trinnov's Altitude 16 processor that i hope to set-up soon.

At home my JVC NX9 theater with a 11.2 channel DTS:X/Dolby Atmos system powered by Denon's new AVR-X8500HA.

Both systems have 3 front, 2 surround back channels, 4 overhead heights and 2 left/right wide speakers and 2 sub woofers.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

In our Sony VPL-VW325ES 4K HDR store demo theater we have a 11.2 channel DTS:X system that also supports Dolby Atmos. We just purchased Trinnov's Altitude 16 processor that i hope to set-up soon.

At home my JVC NX9 theater with a 11.2 channel DTS:X/Dolby Atmos system powered by Denon's new AVR-X8500HA.

Both systems have 3 front, 2 surround back channels, 4 overhead heights and 2 left/right wide speakers and 2 sub woofers.

Thank you Robert, that is the type of detail I am looking for!

Does DTS:X support the wide channels like Atmos in a 9.1 layout? In theory, we can do the same options that we have for Atmos, 5.1.0 - 9.1.6. (5.1, 7.1, 9.1 for base and 2, 4 or 6 for top)

Are you a Trinnov dealer?

[Robert Zohn]

Yes we are Trinnov dealers. Yes DTS:X supports left/right wide speaker locations.

[Stacey Spears]

I may go ahead and then match the same layouts for DTS:X as Atmos. The encoder supports up to 24 channels. Some additional info can be found here. https://westlakepro.com/product/dtsx-creator-suite/