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

[Penton-Man]

Note to Shane: I do death rides near every weekend…..
https://vimeo.com/136569778

Heck, at my age, now every ride is getting to be a death ride.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

nits. It was a bright day!

Nitere (latin) = to shine, glitter or look bright

[Scenic Labs]

I asked the German seller to lower the price in the UK while we wait for units to be received there. He did today. He said he originally calculated the price the same as in Germany but that it cost €9 to send from Germany, which he included in the cost. It costs roughly the same to ship from the USA to UK as from Germany (about $13, so a bit more).

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.

[Scorsese]

This is just a general TV question, but how would I find how many nits my TV has?

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by Scorsese

This is just a general TV question, but how would I find how many nits my TV has?

I don’t have an answer to your question. Sorry.

If only the TV manufacturers would provide that spec. Oh wait, that might impede their sales of the sh*tty TVs.

P.S. sorry I went all Grinch in my reply.
Question: Tell us what your make and model is, someone here might have the same and know the answer.
Sometimes you won’t know for a display unless a pro calibrator runs the numbers on it.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Scorsese

This is just a general TV question, but how would I find how many nits my TV has?

Outside of published numbers from the manufacturer, reviewer or fellow forum member, you can measure it by displaying a 100% window test pattern (graycale) and then measure it with a meter. The LS100 that I mentioned is a hand held device and reports the number in the meters display. For something like an i1 Display Pro or C6, you would use software like CalMAN or the like.

[Mobe1969]

BTW, does anyone know if this contains the 1080p material also, including 3d, or is it just the new 4k material?

Or even rec709 4k material for calibrating it the best for the 709 colorspace for either the odd 709 UHD, or upscaled 709 material?

[Scenic Labs]

Here's a link to purchase in Australia from MediaLight Australia. Price is the same as USA pricing at current exchange rates (inclusive of tax) and shipping is free.

https://www.biaslighting.com.au/prod...ltra-hd-bluray

[DJR662]

Will this become available to purchase on the UK site too?

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Mobe1969

BTW, does anyone know if this contains the 1080p material also, including 3d, or is it just the new 4k material?

Or even rec709 4k material for calibrating it the best for the 709 colorspace for either the odd 709 UHD, or upscaled 709 material?

There is a scaling pattern in 1080p but that’s it. But there is a wide selection of 4K patterns in SDR709.

[Scenic Labs]

Yes, like the US units I'm trying to figure out why they are taking just a little bit longer. Sony should be sending me tracking tomorrow Units are not only inbound to Amazon UK but they are also going to MediaLight UK (at biaslighting.co.uk). With more to follow.

Originally Posted by DJR662

Will this become available to purchase on the UK site too?

[rickardl]

French review (I guess...) with some pics also.
https://www.avcesar.com/actu/id-2776...ssionnels.html

[David M]

The demo material page actually has quite a few more options in the final version.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Mobe1969

BTW, does anyone know if this contains the 1080p material also, including 3d, or is it just the new 4k material?

Or even rec709 4k material for calibrating it the best for the 709 colorspace for either the odd 709 UHD, or upscaled 709 material?

3D is not a feature of UHD Blu-ray, so we could not support it. We include a scaling pattern in 1080p and a small section of SDR content in BT.709.

The 2nd edition will stay on the market for 3D and 1080p. At least until there is not anymore interest in it.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by David M

The demo material page actually has quite a few more options in the final version.

Here is the actual demo material page.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

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.....

yeah, it’s a tough tie-in to make given humans are limited by SCR -
https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._Visual_System

but I think Shane’s take-home point is that people shouldn’t be worried about high nits numbers (one might recall that even on professional colorist forums when HDR/Dolby Vision debuted, there were a lot of uneducated comments by indie colorists [never having worked with the Pulsar] about fried retinas, eye strain, etc.) however since then, prototypical evidence has shown high brightness can be embraced with even higher nit displays….

Sony Stuns CES 2018 with 85-inch 8K HDR Display: 10,000 Nits... Wow! - YouTube

[Kris Deering]

The big bit numbers of HDR don’t bother me a bit. I realize what they represent when it comes to what we are viewing. But if the overall APL does get shifted to more real world luminance levels as opposed to being more in the traditional SDR container, then I’d be concerned about eye fatigue and the general experience. Keep in mind though, I watch everything in a room that is a black pit. So transitions can be jarring when the APL shifts drastically, even at normal viewing levels for projection, which is about half of what the average is for flat panels.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Deciazulado, hopefully this thread will see a lot of action once the disc becomes available. Could you make it a Sticky please?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

The big bit numbers of HDR don’t bother me a bit. I realize what they represent when it comes to what we are viewing. But if the overall APL does get shifted to more real world luminance levels as opposed to being more in the traditional SDR container, then I’d be concerned about eye fatigue and the general experience. Keep in mind though, I watch everything in a room that is a black pit. So transitions can be jarring when the APL shifts drastically, even at normal viewing levels for projection, which is about half of what the average is for flat panels.

Those are some fair points Kris. I also watch in a darkened room, not a specifically 'treated' one but one without any other source of light than the TV. And while sudden shifts in brightness from dark to light can indeed be uncomfortable for human viewing this is not a specific HDR-related phenom, as you rightly say.

I watch SDR at 140 nits (in that same darkened viewing environment) and I've had a few instances of a very dark sequence suddenly becoming so bright that it caused me to squint, it's a function of the content and how our eyes react to it rather than the actual EOTF or display itself. Yes of course HDR is brighter, potentially far brighter than SDR, but within that realm I've experienced zero fatigue or strain when watching HDR at a possible ~1900-ish nits peak on the ZD9. I just watched the first three Fast and Furious movies on UHD one after the other and while they're not exactly dazzling HDR showcases I had no qualms about reeling them off like that.

As with SDR viewing there have been moments in HDR where sudden transitions from dark to light have made me screw my eyes shut out of pure instinct, especially with a film that's been graded very gloomily so your eyes adjust to the darker APL and then bam, ultra brightness - the final battle in Ghost in the Shell is a case in point. But did I experience any kind of visual 'distress'? No, because these kinds of nits levels are well within the range of human vision to interpret without being damaging.

I say that because when I'm out and about in the real world I often take a look around, marvelling at how bloody bright things are in nature. Just today I was walking home from work (those shelves aren't gonna stack themselves, lemme tell ya) and I always pass by a stream with some ducks, the momma duck had three little chicks and she was shepherding them upstream. I turned to look and the sunlight was beaming off of the water, I could only manage a second or two of looking at the speculars before I had to avert my eyes and sure enough there was an imprint of it on my vision that took a good few seconds to clear. I can only reiterate that I've never, ever had anything like that happen with the ZD9.

Could a constant display of HDR content flashing from dark/light/dark/light viewed for many hours on end potentially cause distress? Sure I guess, but apart from actual colourists - who have yet to start a class action suit over their retinas being mangled, despite the 4k nit Pulsar - the amount of exposure that regular consumers will have to such challenging content is minimal, once every few movies if that. I thought that the bit near the end of Alien when Ripley is scouting the corridors of the ship with the strobe lighting going off would be some epilepsy-inducing nightmare in HDR, but I didn't find it uncomfortable when watching the 4K DCP on a big screen in a dark theatre and it didn't prove to be the case in the home either, it looked great. So I just don't think it's something to be concerned about, no more than usual when it comes to such jarring shifts in content.

[ShaneMario]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

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).

We all have our opinions on the values, challenges and negatives that HDR brings to the table. One thing is certain in all of this, it's early days for HDR. What you and other's have "grumbled" about ie, forced adaptations (dark to bright or bright to dark) have storytelling value as they relate not only the conceptual experience to the viewer but also the physical and psychophysiological that we all have everyday. There are also many other ways to interact with real-world light levels that we all know and don't realize such as having the light in a room rise slowly enough to have adaptation occur unnoticed ( I demonstrate this with a piece of content called One Way Ticket).

Switching from one type of environment to another..light to dark or dark too light... is in our real experience and depending on the context or parameters we start in and end in we have a wide variety of experience that now can become part of our storytelling lexicon as a content creator and experience as an audience member.

Achieving "real life" luminance levels isn't the goal - Expanding variety and quantity of spectacular experiences is a valuable goal. And we know from test studies that folks like brighter and more colorful imagery over less colorful, less bright content. to Hit 95% of a test group we showed that they wanted upwards of 20,000nits ...you may ask yourself why?... to me the answer is.. because reality is their reference. So, to me again, to approach reality light levels isn't the goal, to connect to that intimate experience we all have with light and color I suspect a move toward those levels is in order.

Given that, our concept of what "home viewing" and "cinema viewing" environments constitutes, could come into redefinition. it may not, it may be an expansion or addition. What I mean is, there may one day be "classic cinema" which is 48 - 108nits as exists today and it's exactly as it is today: content mastered/optimized in a dark room for viewing in a dark room. And the expanded version (or whatever branding gets applied) is seen in an interactive-lighting/visuals/screen environment. So, in one sense I have some agreement with you that extremely bright imagery being blasted at you without calculated purpose which is deemed/proved enjoyable likely isn't the way it should be done. But that leaves a lot that can be done and creates tremendous opportunity to experience reality from the comfort of your living room or in a cinema or in your bus seat.

I can imagine the value in experiencing the series like "Planet Earth" where you not only "see" but feel the environment.

I suppose I'm hopeful that there is a working Holodeck one day that will allow me to safely experience life on a remote Antarctic Tundra or in the Sahara Desert or on Mars. And though some folks won't like that, there will always be those who will ...that's a beautiful thing having choice. I still do like the sound of my LP's but...my streaming music account dominates my musical and audiobook experiences....