HDR Discussion Thread

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by DanBa

Latest Multi-HDR table:
https://twitter.com/DanielBa78/statu...78862136741888

[Show spoiler]

+ Adding Dolby Vision to Philips (TP Vision) TVs
https://twitter.com/StephenWithers/s...34575567130625

Samsung REALLY looking like the odd-man out there.

How long will they hold out?

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I've got some floorstanders for stereo as it is, never really thought about switching to 2.0 only but if I've got the AVR and the big floorstanders there then I might as well keep the sub and the smaller centre and rears hooked up too. Nah. I just wanna get rid of it all.

Fair enough, fair enough. I was thinking like smaller standmounts/bookshelf speakers, perhaps even something like Cornered Audio's "C" line of speakers which can be mounted very "out of the way." But I suppose even those kinds of loudspeakers can get pretty... loud, as the name says. Actually, I know they can.

Never actually experienced a soundbar, so no idea what they sound like. Obviously I know sound and quality of sound varies between different models and brands, as with everything else.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Samsung REALLY looking like the odd-man out there.

How long will they hold out?

Them and Fox are hunkered down in the HDR10+ war room together...

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Them and Fox are hunkered down in the HDR10+ war room together...

And one's about to get eaten by a great big mouse.

[Staying Salty]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

And one's about to get eaten by a great big mouse.

And the other is being consumed by OLED.

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's tracking very well in HDR10 but in order to keep to the intended brightness curve the highlights start to clip at 1500-2000 nits (a typical Sony trait, they want to preserve APL) which, funnily enough, is exactly where the DV is also clipping. It's like they've set up the DV to follow the TV's own inherent PQ curve rather than DV being able to dynamically adjust it, so I get the exact same dilemma with DV as with the TV's own viewing modes: if I want to resolve >2000 highlights then I need to lower contrast, which then lowers luminance & APL. And as DV appears to be slightly lower brightness anyway than what the HDR10 is measuring when calibrated, even with DV contrast maxed out, then lowering the contrast to recover the >2000 nit range can hit the APL hard, harder than if I were to just change over my TV settings to my existing lower-con '4000 nit' mode.

I recently extolled the virtues of dynamic metadata in the Meg thread, gushing over the DV presentation, and I own every word of it, but whatever the DV is doing on my TV isn't especially "dynamic" after all.

Try contacting Sony support about having PQ roll-off, instead of clip. Yeah, touching contrast just brightens the entire screen.

D65 and 2.2 gamma are important, DV expects these standards.

[Geoff D]

Sony support couldn't give a flying flip, and they're not likely to start altering the pre-existing way that the TV tone maps after three years.

Gamma (as in the EOTF) shouldn't be a factor at all when watching HDR content. IIRC for some TVs the 'reference' DV calibration file that can be loaded in needs to be performed in 2.2 gamma space, but if you start messing with the gamma controls in the TV while actually playing DV (and HDR in general) then you might mess it up any which way. I can't measure for 2.2 gamma *in* PQ-based HDR because it's an entirely different EOTF.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Samsung REALLY looking like the odd-man out there.

How long will they hold out?

Until the point where the market switches from thinking of having DV as an asset to the perception of NOT having it as a liability.

If DV is not in Samsung's 2019 lineup (keep in mind these haven't officially been announced yet, so it is possible) then it will most certainly be in the 2020 line up. Panasonic/Philips embracing DV means the perception change is already in progress.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, you can only ignore which way the wind is blowing for so long. Renowned post houses like CO3 use Dobly a lot but they also love their Panasonic OLEDs (despite them not being commercially available in the US?) which is IMO partly why the manufacturer is jumping on board with DV despite having literally said "we don't need it" in the past.

Dolby is basically the standard for theatrical EDR presentation (though there's also IMAX, EclairColor etc) and, in case people weren't aware, is what the major movie studios have been mastering their home HDR in at the source level from the start, Fox aside of course.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah, you can only ignore which way the wind is blowing for so long. Renowned post houses like CO3 use Dobly a lot but they also love their Panasonic OLEDs (despite them not being commercially available in the US?) which is IMO partly why the manufacturer is jumping on board with DV despite having literally said "we don't need it" in the past.

Dolby is basically the standard for theatrical EDR presentation (though there's also IMAX, EclairColor etc) and, in case people weren't aware, is what the major movie studios have been mastering their home HDR in at the source level from the start, Fox aside of course.

The irony in that is even FOX uses Dolby Vision for theatrical features...

Bohemian Rhapsody, The Predator, Deadpool 2, Maze Runner, Planet of the Apes, Logan, X Men, Independence Day... All DV at the theatrical level.

[Geoff D]

Absotruthly, because even they're not stupid enough to ignore which direction that particular wind was blowing in, i.e. all the studios want to maximise their box office returns by having these 'prestige' formats such as Dolbys Vision and Atmos, IMAX, PLF etc tagged onto their film.

But when it comes to the home video side of HDR then Fox have stubbornly resisted the pull of DV, no doubt because of their close ties with Samsung (didn't they use Samsung HDR TVs to actually grade some of their earliest titles?). And now that Samsung have delivered their own dynamic metadata format then Fox don't need to go DV, natch.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Absotruthly, because even they're not stupid enough to ignore which direction that particular wind was blowing in, i.e. all the studios want to maximise their box office returns by having these 'prestige' formats such as Dolbys Vision and Atmos, IMAX, PLF etc tagged onto their film.

But when it comes to the home video side of HDR then Fox have stubbornly resisted the pull of DV, no doubt because of their close ties with Samsung (didn't they use Samsung HDR TVs to actually grade some of their earliest titles?). And now that Samsung have delivered their own dynamic metadata format then Fox don't need to go DV, natch.

Yes.

And you can bet if Samsung had a presence in the theatrical display market, they'd cut a check to Fox for there too.

If I had more of a money trail to follow, I'd probably be able to more accurately predict what will happen to the home releases once Disney/Fox is complete... But at this point I don't think it's quite as simple as "Fox will begin using DV since Disney does", which obviously is an important domino to fall regarding Samsung's position on DV.

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by alexanderg823

Yes.

And you can bet if Samsung had a presence in the theatrical display market, they'd cut a check to Fox for there too.

If I had more of a money trail to follow, I'd probably be able to more accurately predict what will happen to the home releases once Disney/Fox is complete... But at this point I don't think it's quite as simple as "Fox will begin using DV since Disney does", which obviously is an important domino to fall regarding Samsung's position on DV.

Is Samsung, Philips, and TCL enough to gain more studio support in the U.S?

I wouldn't be surprised, if Sony announced DV support for the PS4.

[Kris Deering]

For home video releases on disc I'm sure there are the economics involved as well. Does Fox feel like it would actually sell more 4K discs if they started including DV? Honestly, I don't think the HDR format on the disc has enough bearing for anyone on purchasing, the movie itself is the driving force.

How many of the DV grades we're seeing on disc are there because the workflow used for the previous deliverables also provided that grade, so you already have it to use. I'm not aware of that side of the house, but Penton has provided quite a few posts that show that the Dolby process seems to support multiple grade output from a single workflow.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by DisplayCalNoob

Is Samsung, Philips, and TCL enough to gain more studio support in the U.S?

I wouldn't be surprised, if Sony announced DV support for the PS4.

I don't think so. Pretty much everyone is already on board DV already except for FOX, who is abstaining because of a nice fat check courtesy of Samsung. Smaller studios are probably at the mercy of licensing costs and production costs of a DV workflow.

Sony PS4 DV support, who's to say. Sony obviously is on board with DV, but it seems the "software" method of DV isn't quite panning out the way anyone originally hoped for - i.e. The Sony TV implementation seems half baked and the XBOX One X implementation only supports streaming on like Netflix.

Might have to wait until PS5 drops in a year or so with some native DV capabilities.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

For home video releases on disc I'm sure there are the economics involved as well. Does Fox feel like it would actually sell more 4K discs if they started including DV? Honestly, I don't think the HDR format on the disc has enough bearing for anyone on purchasing, the movie itself is the driving force.

How many of the DV grades we're seeing on disc are there because the workflow used for the previous deliverables also provided that grade, so you already have it to use. I'm not aware of that side of the house, but Penton has provided quite a few posts that show that the Dolby process seems to support multiple grade output from a single workflow.

Well seeing as how Fox already creates DV deliverables at the theatrical level, it seems your second paragraph probably doesn't apply.

On the other hand, your first paragraph's analysis is probably correct however it ignores the economics of a contractual obligation in exchange for a nice chunk of Cas(amsung)h.

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Sony support couldn't give a flying flip, and they're not likely to start altering the pre-existing way that the TV tone maps after three years.

Gamma (as in the EOTF) shouldn't be a factor at all when watching HDR content. IIRC for some TVs the 'reference' DV calibration file that can be loaded in needs to be performed in 2.2 gamma space, but if you start messing with the gamma controls in the TV while actually playing DV (and HDR in general) then you might mess it up any which way. I can't measure for 2.2 gamma *in* PQ-based HDR because it's an entirely different EOTF.

Tyler Pruitt has said that the fact current display tech is gamma based, Dolby expects D65 and 2.2 gamma because of the panels . Also, I assume when you calibrated, you calibrated to a specific gamma of choice, and obviously D65. Those Gain settings will represent whatever gamma setting calibrated to.

Offset negatively affects PQ black level, lifting blacks and dark shadow detail.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

...I'm not aware of that side of the house, but Penton has provided quite a few posts that show that the Dolby process seems to support multiple grade output from a single workflow.

Not quite that direct. To make a point I think I cited a flow chart from ~ the 10 min. timestamp of this video - https://vimeo.com/174552891#t=9m35s as an explanation. Regarding workflows, Robert Z., while at HPA tech retreat, should check out this Supersession on how the industry has tried to evolve from a blizzard of snowflakes, circa 2011 - https://www.provideocoalition.com/hp...at_2011_day_1/

to more convergence these days –

[Staying Salty]

New Samsung UHD OLED Display Already Making Major Inroads into Premium Notebook/Laptop Market

- World’s first 15.6-inch UHD (ultra-high definition) OLED panel to be mass produced beginning next month

- Combining ultra-high resolution and leading-edge HDR support in helping to take video streaming and gaming to the next level

The new panel features a brightness level ranging from 0.0005 to 600 nits, and a dynamic contrast ratio of 120,000:1. Compared to LCDs, black color appears 200 times darker and whites twice as bright, maximizing the benefits of HDR to deliver the utmost in high-resolution video and images.

Got to Samsung.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by DisplayCalNoob

Tyler Pruitt has said that the fact current display tech is gamma based, Dolby expects D65 and 2.2 gamma because of the panels . Also, I assume when you calibrated, you calibrated to a specific gamma of choice, and obviously D65. Those Gain settings will represent whatever gamma setting calibrated to.

Offset negatively affects PQ black level, lifting blacks and dark shadow detail.

The TV's process everything back to gamma, yes, Stacey Spears has said the same thing, but that doesn't mean that you actively *calibrate* in/with gamma because the PQ curve is still a completely different EOTF that's being mapped into what the TV's gamma-led system can handle for image processing, and the inverse of that mapping is then applied to the image so it resembles the PQ EOTF at the point of display. I don't use any gamma at all in HCFR calibration for HDR signals, there's a reason why the gamma selections under Preferences in HCFR are in a completely different section to the HDR EOTF(s), and aren't available for use at all when HDR is selected.

And I didn't say that changing the gamma control itself doesn't affect the HDR image, it's a control like any other on the TV, what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be needed. As you say, it will affect black level and light output accordingly as it's moved up and down, if someone's PQ curve is shallowing or overshooting then I guess it's worth trying to adjust the gamma control as well, along with brightness, contrast etc. But actually calibrating to a 2.2 gamma rather than the ST.2084 EOTF is going to wreck how the PQ curve responds, shirley?

[edit] As I said, the Dolby 'golden reference' file that can be pre-loaded by the consumer into certain TVs using measurements of a set of RGBW slides doesn't have to be done in HDR space, it's practically the same thing as profiling a meter using a spectro, that doesn't have to be done in HDR space either. Yes, Dolby Calibration 2.0 specifically disables the PQ EOTF to calibrate for greyscale and measure those four RGBW panels at peak luminance in 2.2 gamma and determine what offsets it should be using, but as soon as you physically watch something in Dolby Vision or HDR10/+ then the PQ EOTF will be reenabled and mapped into the display gamma.

Dolby being this "dynamic" system makes it a bit trickier to do a calibration using fixed points in the PQ curve which is why this simpler gamma calibration method has been devised, the inference being that Dolby's mapping takes care of the rest, but it's a specific calibration mode in certain TVs that is triggered by the relevant metadata in the HDMI signal - so if you're calibrating to a flat 2.2 gamma for DV/HDR10 using SDR or HDR10 greyscale patterns without actually triggering this Dolby Calibration mode then that's all kinds of wrong, you'll have no idea how your PQ curve is actually responding when watching PQ content.