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

[David M]

The best way to get the maximum quality from 50hz content is to send it natively to the display without conversion. A good number of modern displays in the US market natively accept 50hz now. You don't want to do any conversions at all - there's no need to these days. Unless you have a display that can't accept 50hz video and you really don't want to get rid of it for some other reason.

Originally Posted by kfbkfb

I've purchased 2 PAL DVDs, some movies I want (may be on UHD Blu-ray) are not released in the USA, I'm interested in the interpolation process inside the UHD Blu-ray players for converting content from 25p and 50p to 59.94p or 60p.

Almost all UHD BDs worldwide are encoded at 23.98 or 24fps, so totally US compatible. I actually don't know of any UHD BD titles that are encoded at 25 or 50fps. There will probably be one or two eventually, perhaps made-for-TV movies shot on film at 25fps for PAL broadcast, but they'll be rare.

To convert 50hz-centric content to 60hz output, players don't interpolate at all. They just repeat frames to make up the difference, which causes motion stutter.

[kfbkfb]

I was just thinking about the worst case situation - a region free UHD Blu-ray containing 25p or 50p content and wanting to watch the content on a TV that can only display 59.94/60.


Kirk Bayne

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by David M

The best way to get the maximum quality from 50hz content is to send it natively to the display without conversion. A good number of modern displays in the US market natively accept 50hz now. You don't want to do any conversions at all - there's no need to these days. Unless you have a display that can't accept 50hz video and you really don't want to get rid of it for some other reason.


Almost all UHD BDs worldwide are encoded at 23.98 or 24fps, so totally US compatible. I actually don't know of any UHD BD titles that are encoded at 25 or 50fps. There will probably be one or two eventually, perhaps made-for-TV movies shot on film at 25fps for PAL broadcast, but they'll be rare.

To convert 50hz-centric content to 60hz output, players don't interpolate at all. They just repeat frames to make up the difference, which causes motion stutter.

I think the Korean UHD of Little Drummer Girl is in 2160p25

[hansolo]

Yes, 2160p 25fps as BDinfo confirmed in this post.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by kfbkfb

Any plans for (perhaps another disc) with interpolation test patterns for UHD Blu-ray (and maybe Blu-ray also) in player interpolation testing for the aforementioned 25p/50p -> 59.94p/60p video conversion?


Kirk Bayne

We have no plans, sorry. We don't have the tools to build a DVD and the market is just too small for UHD BD. It is going to take us a couple years just to recoup the money from the new disc given the UHD market size, if at all.

I remember the JVC player back in 2001ish time frame was great at dealing with PAL DVDs. I used to import Stargate and Friends before they were available in the US.

[quietvoid]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

BD is stuck with Dolby Vision 2.9 while the rest of the world has moved on to 4.0.

Is that really the case? Some studios/distributors do release 4.0 discs, but they're definitely rarer.
Maybe they're also not supposed to...

[David M]

What's your source on there being UHD BD titles that use DoVi 4.0? Are you sure?

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by quietvoid

Is that really the case? Some studios/distributors do release 4.0 discs, but they're definitely rarer.
Maybe they're also not supposed to...

Dolby has not updated the BD SDK since OPPO closed shop. The current SDK does not know what 4.0 is. 4.0 does support 2.9 backwards compatibility for older displays that don't support 4.0, such as all LGs prior to 2019. (C6-C8)

[Stacey Spears]

We are in the final testing of the check discs. We are hoping to sign off on Monday. If so, then replication will start next week.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

What does Dolby Vision 4.0 bring to the table or is it mainly streaming features given that you can't do dual layer 12 bit DV encodings for streaming, but you can on disc? Better chroma sampling, etc.?

[quietvoid]

Originally Posted by David M

What's your source on there being UHD BD titles that use DoVi 4.0? Are you sure?

We have the technology to parse the binary metadata from the bitstream..
These discs contain DM v2 metadata (which is for CM v4.0). It can easily be looked into with Dolby's Verification Toolkit, too.
So yes, I'm sure.

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

Dolby has not updated the BD SDK since OPPO closed shop. The current SDK does not know what 4.0 is. 4.0 does support 2.9 backwards compatibility for older displays that don't support 4.0, such as all LGs prior to 2019. (C6-C8)

I know it's backwards compatible, and usually discs are encoded with 2.9 only.
But 4.0 discs do exist.

There was even a disc once with a non compliant base layer that had Dolby Vision metadata encoded within. Though that one didn't have the Dolby Vision flag for the MPLS.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

What does Dolby Vision 4.0 bring to the table or is it mainly streaming features given that you can't do dual layer 12 bit DV encodings for streaming, but you can on disc? Better chroma sampling, etc.?

4.0 has an improved tone mapping algorithm. Content must be in 4.0 to use it. 2.9 will still use 2.9 on a 4.0 display per studio requirements. The 2.9 tone mapping algorithm is from 2013. 4.0 is from 2019.

4.0 also fixes many bugs I have reported to Dolby, such as LL mode not working correctly. Wrong chroma upsampling being used (709 instead of 2020), all chroma detail above 1080p filtered out, etc...

It has also added several new trim pass controls, such as secondary correction, to further improve tone mapping.

They also added a new custom nit level for the trim pass. 2.9 only has 100, 600, 1000 and 2000. With 4.0 you can create one at any level you like.

I ended up buying a madVR Envy to bypass DV on Blu-ray.

[kfbkfb]

Might belong in a separate thread, however, I was wondering if some enterprising/industrious person could create an interpolation test data file containing alternating all black, all white frames/fields at 25p and 50p, the data file could be recorded on a BD-R and used to test in (Blu-ray) player interpolation to output 59.94/60 format video.


Kirk Bayne

[kishiro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I think the Korean UHD of Little Drummer Girl is in 2160p25

That is bizarre! I got the limited Korean Blu-Ray release SteelBook (not UHD) which was released simultaneously with the 4K UHD Box. I'm looking at the video-files as we speak. They are 23.976 fps 1080p. Maybe the BBC/UK authored and supplied them with the (25fps) UHD master. It makes no sense for South Korea as they are NTSC territory. Total runtime: 381 minutes (Director's Cut).

[Stacey Spears]

I forget if I had shared this before. Here is the shot list for the new montage.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9jb7aou5b2...acts.xlsx?dl=0

It will show the camera sensor, lens, focal length and location for reach shot.

When you watch the Graded vs. Ungraded, take a look at shot 12. This is the shot that made me want to include Graded vs. Ungraded. It is night and day!

Here is the shot list for the montage on the 2019 disc.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdxk7k7kd3...test.xlsx?dl=0

On the new disc, chapter next and previous will take you to the next or previous shot. The left and right arrow will jump between versions of the montage around the same shot. Similar to pressing up arrow and selecting a different version from the list.

[Stacey Spears]

In our testing of the check discs, we found several issues with the Xbox One S. Microsoft now has a set of the discs to debug and fix. I mention this in case you are using an Xbox that you may want to hold off until Microsoft can fix.

We have tested on PS5, Xbox One S, Xbox Series X, Panasonic 9000, Panasonic 820, OPPO, Samsung, Sony 800 MK2, Sony 1000 and Raveon. Some bugs in that last one too!

The person who tested the Raveon is a dealer for them, so hopefully he has reported the issues to them.

OPPO, Raveon and Sony 800 MK2 all use MediaTek decoders. There are issues with OPPO where the levels on DV coming out are incorrect. The Sony does not have this issue, at least when we tested a year ago.

On the Color Space Evaluation pattern. If you look at the PQ tracking at the top, several blend correctly. If you switch to HDR10 and back to DV, then they no longer blend (track). The levels have changed. We had to reload the disc for them to be correct again. When you go to the 60p version, then they are always wrong on the OPPO.

There are a number of people who have reported that DV looks different between OPPO and Panasonic and I believe this is the same issue that i am seeing on the Color Space Evaluation pattern. I don't expect this issue to get resolved. I don't know if Raveon has this issue or not. The one issue mentioned to me was that they cannot play the DV 60p content. They can play the HDR10 60p content.

[Stacey Spears]

How may people would be interested in a special slip cover to hold all four discs? This would include new covers for disc 1 and 2 to include 1 and 2 on the spine like discs 3 and 4.

Years ago I bought the Kevin Smith clip cover.















We were thinking something like this to hold all four discs. We would probably do it as a pre-order and only order a small number over the pre-order. It will be a one time / limited time, offer if there is enough interest.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

In our testing of the check discs, we found several issues with the Xbox One S. Microsoft now has a set of the discs to debug and fix. I mention this in case you are using an Xbox that you may want to hold off until Microsoft can fix.

We have tested on PS5, Xbox One S, Xbox Series X, Panasonic 9000, Panasonic 820, OPPO, Samsung, Sony 800 MK2, Sony 1000 and Raveon. Some bugs in that last one too!

The person who tested the Raveon is a dealer for them, so hopefully he has reported the issues to them.

OPPO, Raveon and Sony 800 MK2 all use MediaTek decoders. There are issues with OPPO where the levels on DV coming out are incorrect. The Sony does not have this issue, at least when we tested a year ago.

On the Color Space Evaluation pattern. If you look at the PQ tracking at the top, several blend correctly. If you switch to HDR10 and back to DV, then they no longer blend (track). The levels have changed. We had to reload the disc for them to be correct again. When you go to the 60p version, then they are always wrong on the OPPO.

There are a number of people who have reported that DV looks different between OPPO and Panasonic and I believe this is the same issue that i am seeing on the Color Space Evaluation pattern. I don't expect this issue to get resolved. I don't know if Raveon has this issue or not. The one issue mentioned to me was that they cannot play the DV 60p content. They can play the HDR10 60p content.

What issues does the Xbox S have? And lol at the Reavon not being able to play DV60

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

What issues does the Xbox S have? And lol at the Reavon not being able to play DV60

1. The tabs on the disc menus go away or something like that.
2. The HDR Analyzer montage freezes up and does not play.
3. When you play the HLG montage, everything is desaturated after and you must eject the disc and re-insert
4. SDR video is black. (Don't recall if this is after #3 or all the time)

They received the discs on Thursday to start debugging. I will follow-up next week to see what they have learned.

[INdetectableMAN]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

How may people would be interested in a special slip cover to hold all four discs? This would include new covers for disc 1 and 2 to include 1 and 2 on the spine like discs 3 and 4.

Years ago I bought the Kevin Smith clip cover.















We were thinking something like this to hold all four discs. We would probably do it as a pre-order and only order a small number over the pre-order. It will be a one time / limited time, offer if there is enough interest.

Hello, I would be especially interested



I'm going to buy two pressings of the new album, as I love doing side-by-side TV comparisons.


On the other hand, I see that it reports many problems with Dolby Vision. I wonder if I should turn off Dolby on my Panasonic UB9000 and UB820 players and play my UHD movies only in HDR10?