HDR is crayons

[nick4Knight]

Originally Posted by CarlosMeat

I do think that HDR has serious issues. Different mastering nits ,displays all over the map in their capabilities, few getting any sort of calibration so we are seeing something close to the same thing.

I will see a world of modular panels which are scalable from the panel size on through to dedicated projector setups. I will see a world of peak nit performance in the 1000 or 1500 nit range (price dependent on which). I will see this world achieve self emissive (non-organic) status. I will see a world of 100+ coverage (percent) of p3, reproducing all colours at whichever luminance. I will see a world where HDR variance is a thing of the past, and naysayers are shut down, mouth agape seeing these displays. I will see a world of brilliance...

============

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by CarlosMeat

I do think that HDR has serious issues. Different mastering nits ,displays all over the map in their capabilities, few getting any sort of calibration so we are seeing something close to the same thing.

I have a large projection system . I love it since it allows a level of immersion I just can't get from a panel. It only has 240 nits capability thus tone mapping gives me a reasonably pleasing HDR image yet nothing like an OLED in it's high nit capability to maximize HDR.

I was invited to see a projector with 21 million to 1 sequential contrast and 60,000 lumens displayed on a 20 screen. For the first time I saw what HDR and a gigantic size image could look like...everything in one box. Well , a wet dream really. The problem as you might imagine is the price....quite a bit more than my home.

For me until I have something like I saw there I will have to watched an HDR image that is quite compromised.

Isn't your current projektor like $50K anyways? If you're baulking at the price of this other one then it must be well into six figures, or even seven

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by CarlosMeat

nothing like an OLED in it's high nit capability

[Show spoiler]I kid, I kid.

[SonSon III]

I’m under the weather so please excuse me if my thoughts are bouncing around.
To me it’s a double edged sword. I like the oversaturated candy “Wizard of Oz” technicolor look on less important titles to me. The colors and contrast make it pop, and it works with a lot of the modern films that have approved transfers.

On older releases like Texas Chainsaw Massacre I was definitely happy that they skipped over HDR. I’ve never actually sat down and seen Suspiria, has anyone here seen both the European non HDR version and the new US HDR version? I think if I was a huge fan I’d pick up both versions.

Speaking of multiple versions, what happens when you disable HDR on your display or as i’ve heard some people “strip” the HDR on their higher end Oppo players? Is there a standard 709 colorspace file or whatever with an additional HDR file on top?

Anyhoo, I’m not significantly emotionally invested in the small things in life, but I’m a purist that wants the best possible presentation from source material without being revisionist. Heck, I want Full Frame for my Kubrick releases like “The Shining” on 4K Ultra HD, but it’s never gonna’ happen.

I will say one thing, despite worries that HDR will ruin everything, ”Halloween” (1978) actually looks more realistic and UNDERSATURATED in the HDR version when it comes to skintones and grass/plants compared to how I remember it (but Dean Cundy tends to approve every release and reminds me a lot of how George Lucas constantly approves changes to Star Wars releases.

[brainofj72]

Dear god WHY would you bump this thread

[SonSon III]

Originally Posted by brainofj72

Dear god WHY would you bump this thread

What have I done!?! 0.0

Well, Happy Halloween!

[Staying Salty]

Originally Posted by brainofj72

Dear god WHY would you bump this thread

Originally Posted by SonSon III

What have I done!?! 0.0



Well, Happy Halloween!

[lgans316]

Wondering if the cameras that were used to.shoot older and even modern movies featured HDR? If the answer is no then we could argue HDR is a gimmick and was never shot with it in mind. Having said that I would like to see more details on highlights and on dark areas. Just wish there was a 3D HDR. It would be a completely different experience of watching movies on big screen.

[nick4Knight]

This whole "film isn't in HDR" misnomer has been debunked dozens of times on these boards...

[SonSon III]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

This whole "film isn't in HDR" misnomer has been debunked dozens of times on these boards...

These boards have debunked that post-production manual color and contrast tweaks as enhancements doesn’t represent the colors of single original 35mm film frames as intended by the creators? Wait, what?

People often justify not wanting HDR because their setup is outdated, but at the same time it seems like people justify it because their equipment is capable but they don’t feel the resolution bump alone is worth it.

Does anyone remember when 120hz frame interpolation soap opera effect was praised yet the purists were against it? This is different, but not much. Just that the post production changes are baked into the media instead of via consumer’s home technology. Isn’t it more comparable to DNR applied to the home disc media itself ala Terminator 2 on 4K?

I’m not for or against HDR, but for it to be applied correctly don’t we need a predictable Rec2020 standard for consumers instead of flying blind vs 709? Let’s be honest, the majority of classic HDR films is revisionism because there’s so so so much guessing involved and studios are looking for titles that POP instead of using it on titles that may not. There’s no way that someone that wants accuracy would opt for baked on HDR anymore than someone that thinks baked on film grain scrubbing as a positive just because it looks “pretty”. I’m surprised that videophiles would take the side of revisionism just for the sake of proving a reason for Double dipping.

How can one debunk post production revisions as not like the original film... not to be mistaken with “film-like” bulb projection?


Is HDR bad? No way, it’s really fun and looks awesome! Is it original “criterion collection” or “defacto” status? No, not for the film based productions unless the colors were approved by the creators on newer productions. This doesn’t mean that 2020 is bad, just that blindly going heavy-handed for eye candy isn’t really what anyone wanted except studios pushing the new gimmick. I know, I know, people are upset by hearing the word gimmick when they’ve been amassing a new collection. It’s not so bad, it’s just not an original concept that was available at the time of film pre-post production. Color timing post-production itself isn’t a new beast, but let’s not call it definitive unless it’s what the creators originally wanted instead of what studios want to get that 7+ % of the UHD market share.


I’ll continue to feed the beast and buy every native 4K scan I can. I’ll *also* buy HDR tweaked 2K uprezzes of animations or subpar movies because it looks nice on the technology we have. To call it original intent is another beast though, so let’s not get too into ourselves. The debate is far from dead as long as people still drink the kool-aid that justifies their hardware updates (that frankly look appealing). It’s a tough cookie.

I’m not a hardliner. I enjoy HDR as much as I hate it. It’s a treat, but it’s not a definitive reference release of film based content and I won’t pretend as such just to justify my own collection nor to please the studios that do these things for the ignorant masses. Have we become the J6P? Have we sunk that low?

Enjoy your toys, but don’t use the name of science in a lie for convenience. Just don’t. Your tech will be outdated and this is probably the last significant physical media format. Lets go out with a bang, not a submissive whimper. Let it be definitive, not opportunistic to compliment your flavor of the week.


Can’t we all enjoy HDR for what it actually is and not lie to ourselves? Soon it will be a real standard. Can’t everyone enjoy a new tech without going all Gung Ho and choosing a warpath instead of both preserving older films and encouraging newer films to move in a direction that appeases your thirst for the wider gamut? Of course HDR isn’t just Gamut, but we all know that’s not how things are being treated.

How in 2019 are the videophiles now the enemy of actual realvideophiles that taught them? What is happening?

Who’s “Woke”? The videophiles or the revisionists?

I totally can’t understand all the hypocrisy. Scratch that, I can see it, so I don’t condone it.

Physical media is dead. Not because it’s gone just yet, but because the enthusiasts are welcoming less than. You’re all welcoming what the ignorant masses would welcome, and they’ve already moved to digital.

As a dying breed of physical release consumers, can you set aside your eagerness for yuppie gimmicks so that we can have one final release of films or are you already one of them? It seems you are, I’m sorry.

Boom.

[StrayButler91]

Originally Posted by SonSon III

These boards have debunked that post-production manual color and contrast tweaks as enhancements doesn’t represent the colors of single original 35mm film frames as intended by the creators? Wait, what?

I stopped reading there. 35mm film has more stops of dynamic range than 1080p Blu-ray, it's a bona fide fact. The dynamic range extends to the vibrancy and boldness of the colours, in addition to highlights and specular detail. If you're watching a Blu-ray of a film and there's a really harsh light source, such as sunlight or an explosion, it's completely blown out and there is absolutely no detail within said harsh lighting. But if you were watching that same scene on a projected film print, the harsh light source would have all the highlights and specular detail that was originally captured by the camera, or - in the case of a digital effect - designed and rendered. HDR has the dynamic range - it's all in the name - to preserve the details you'd see on a film print.

Stuff doesn't always look totally blown out in 1080p, but details in skies and such is extremely soft and undefined, because it's not physically possible for such details to be preserved, due to the limited colour space and dynamic range of 1080p. With HDR, highlights are muchly improved.

Also, 1080p masters can have saturation pumped up to compensate for the lack of vibrancy brought about by the compression/conforming it to the limited colour space of 1080p. Films in HDR don't need that. Colours look more natural.

Geoff has posted dozens of comparison photos which show such differences, and they are eye-opening. HDR doesn't just mean melt-your-face-off with overdone colours, like Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

/Rant

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by SonSon III

These boards have debunked that post-production manual color and contrast tweaks as enhancements doesn’t represent the colors of single original 35mm film frames as intended by the creators? Wait, what?

People often justify not wanting HDR because their setup is outdated, but at the same time it seems like people justify it because their equipment is capable but they don’t feel the resolution bump alone is worth it.

Does anyone remember when 120hz frame interpolation soap opera effect was praised yet the purists were against it? This is different, but not much. Just that the post production changes are baked into the media instead of via consumer’s home technology. Isn’t it more comparable to DNR applied to the home disc media itself ala Terminator 2 on 4K?

I’m not for or against HDR, but for it to be applied correctly don’t we need a predictable Rec2020 standard for consumers instead of flying blind vs 709? Let’s be honest, the majority of classic HDR films is revisionism because there’s so so so much guessing involved and studios are looking for titles that POP instead of using it on titles that may not. There’s no way that someone that wants accuracy would opt for baked on HDR anymore than someone that thinks baked on film grain scrubbing as a positive just because it looks “pretty”. I’m surprised that videophiles would take the side of revisionism just for the sake of proving a reason for Double dipping.

How can one debunk post production revisions as not like the original film... not to be mistaken with “film-like” bulb projection?


Is HDR bad? No way, it’s really fun and looks awesome! Is it original “criterion collection” or “defacto” status? No, not for the film based productions unless the colors were approved by the creators on newer productions. This doesn’t mean that 2020 is bad, just that blindly going heavy-handed for eye candy isn’t really what anyone wanted except studios pushing the new gimmick. I know, I know, people are upset by hearing the word gimmick when they’ve been amassing a new collection. It’s not so bad, it’s just not an original concept that was available at the time of film pre-post production. Color timing post-production itself isn’t a new beast, but let’s not call it definitive unless it’s what the creators originally wanted instead of what studios want to get that 7+ % of the UHD market share.


I’ll continue to feed the beast and buy every native 4K scan I can. I’ll *also* buy HDR tweaked 2K uprezzes of animations or subpar movies because it looks nice on the technology we have. To call it original intent is another beast though, so let’s not get too into ourselves. The debate is far from dead as long as people still drink the kool-aid that justifies their hardware updates (that frankly look appealing). It’s a tough cookie.

I’m not a hardliner. I enjoy HDR as much as I hate it. It’s a treat, but it’s not a definitive reference release of film based content and I won’t pretend as such just to justify my own collection nor to please the studios that do these things for the ignorant masses. Have we become the J6P? Have we sunk that low?

Enjoy your toys, but don’t use the name of science in a lie for convenience. Just don’t. Your tech will be outdated and this is probably the last significant physical media format. Lets go out with a bang, not a submissive whimper. Let it be definitive, not opportunistic to compliment your flavor of the week.


Can’t we all enjoy HDR for what it actually is and not lie to ourselves? Soon it will be a real standard. Can’t everyone enjoy a new tech without going all Gung Ho and choosing a warpath instead of both preserving older films and encouraging newer films to move in a direction that appeases your thirst for the wider gamut? Of course HDR isn’t just Gamut, but we all know that’s not how things are being treated.

How in 2019 are the videophiles now the enemy of actual realvideophiles that taught them? What is happening?

Who’s “Woke”? The videophiles or the revisionists?

I totally can’t understand all the hypocrisy. Scratch that, I can see it, so I don’t condone it.

Physical media is dead. Not because it’s gone just yet, but because the enthusiasts are welcoming less than. You’re all welcoming what the ignorant masses would welcome, and they’ve already moved to digital.

As a dying breed of physical release consumers, can you set aside your eagerness for yuppie gimmicks so that we can have one final release of films or are you already one of them? It seems you are, I’m sorry.

Boom.

This is a great post. You're gonna get grilled for it though. Good Luck!

HDR for me has been mostly a nice thing but not the end all in life. Dolby Vision is also cool and does work on some titles but maybe as much on others. Hard to always say. Some movies just look better than others but it isnt always to decipher just WHY. It certainly isnt just HDR, not all the time. I dunno. I still think that the perfect "wet-ink black" my OLED produces has more to do with fabulous PQ than any NIT bump or HDR. Uh oh, I said it....Im in the doghouse now too, Im sure.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Wondering if the cameras that were used to.shoot older and even modern movies featured HDR? If the answer is no then we could argue HDR is a gimmick and was never shot with it in mind. Having said that I would like to see more details on highlights and on dark areas. Just wish there was a 3D HDR. It would be a completely different experience of watching movies on big screen.

Films aren't shot in "HDR" but they're not shot in "SDR" either, this is what people fail to grasp when they ignorantly drone on about HDR "revisionism". Film negative and modern digital 'raw' both capture an insane amount of dynamic range and always have done, it's then up to the colour timing (in days of yore) and/or digital grading to dial in the intended look for the primary viewing source(s), being cinematic projection. Indeed, having all that range in the film days was essential because every time you dupe a piece of film you lose dynamic range and alter the colour chemistry, you don't just lose spatial resolution; the highlights harden up, the blacks lose definition and colour takes on a subtly different balance, all of which was kept in mind by the filmmakers when shooting their works.

In order to have anything like decent-looking highlights in a print i.e. not blown to hell then you need to have all this range seared in at the point of capture so by the time it gets duped down there's enough range left over. And prints by their very nature have an extremely high gamma to counter the fact that this tiny piece of celluloid is having light blasted through it which nukes the blacks anyway. In all honesty the average 4th-gen 35mm print was a rather poor way of viewing whatever movie back in the day, we hold them up as sacred bastions of the filmmakers' intent but you could pick several ones from different batches and they wouldn't look the same, not even IB Tech with its immutable non-organic dyes guarantees you perfection owing to the mercurial nature of photochemical interaction (like the three IB prints in the Suspiria thread that all have quite different characteristics).

I've mentioned this several times before but the book Masters of Light is extremely eye-opening on this subject. Several of the most renowned cinematographers ever to have worked in the biz say the same thing re: theatrical projection, that what they saw in general release prints was nothing like what they'd intended it to look like, but short of being able to supervise the chemical composition of every batch of prints and the quality of every movie house's optics they knew they'd just have to put up with it (aside from fanatics like Kubrick who could exercise exactly this kind of control over their work, or people like Gordon Willis who often shot his stuff to look so dark that it simply HAD to be timed correctly otherwise the prints would be unwatchable).

Even so: the limited gamut, very restricted dynamic range and poor colour resolution of consumer SDR video has long been a 'look' unto itself, something that a film was retimed to fit (hence the apt description of a "trim pass", as it's known in the industry) rather than it being some kind of holy 1:1 representation of that original theatrical experience. 4K HDR allows for greater chroma resolution, a wider range and a more nuanced palette, some of which may hew closer to the original intent, some won't. Does this mean that HDR as a format isn't revisionist? No, it means that ALL home video is a revisitation of the original theatrical intent so unless you've got a pile of pristine show prints that you can project (minted direct from OG neg) then no-one's really on a higher horse than anyone else when it comes to charges of revisionism.

Then you have to factor in the whims of the filmmakers themselves. There were at least three separate transfers of Alien in the HD era alone (1999 DVD, 2003 Director's Cut, 2010 Blu-ray) that were all expressly supervised by Ridley Scott and they each looked different, significantly so in some respects, and all without the help of nasty old HDR. And you'll never guess what happened next - the new 4K transfer looked different YET again! Though, if it helps any, the 4K UHD rendition on disc was damned near identical to the 4K digital projection I saw of the same new master, even the expanded highlight range.

What am I actually saying then? Two words sum up all that waffle quite nicely: moving target.

[ROSS.T.G.]

To add to Geoff’s point, I’ll beat a dead horse and mention this... again. 35mm film has roughly 13 stops of dynamic range. Dolby Vision has 17 stops of dynamic range. Blu-ray is only capable of 6 stops of dynamic range. What does that mean? Clipping folks. Blown out highlights that make images look flat. People like to think Blu-ray is more accurate for some reason. That’s wrong. I don’t know about you all but I think headroom is a great thing.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

I don’t know about you all but I think headroom is a great thing.

Always. HDR just provides the capacity; any revisionism is down to the colorist.

HDR provides more opportunity for revisionism to be avoided than does SDR, but it's still a question of taste and execution.

SDR = tool

HDR = better tool

Now, what are you going to make?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

To add to Geoff’s point, I’ll beat a dead horse and mention this... again. 35mm film has roughly 13 stops of dynamic range. Dolby Vision has 17 stops of dynamic range. Blu-ray is only capable of 6 stops of dynamic range. What does that mean? Clipping folks. Blown out highlights that make images look flat. People like to think Blu-ray is more accurate for some reason. That’s wrong. I don’t know about you all but I think headroom is a great thing.

Right, with the caveat being that film negative is what stores that kind of range but we don't watch negatives projected, we usually watched something that was a copy (print) of a copy (IN) of a copy (IP) which affected dynamic range in its own way. But the funny thing about HDR is that, range aside, the colour on most such discs I've seen is actually more nuanced and subtle than either the blanket-tinted SDR version or the supposed "oversaturated candy Wizard of Oz technicolor" look that HDR is said to have. If someone's seeing that on every HDR disc then they're doing it wrong, either that or they're the sort of commentator who passes judgment based on what they've heard about HDR and not what they've actually seen, outside of a garish shop floor demo.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Right, with the caveat being that film negative is what stores that kind of range but we don't watch negatives projected, we usually watched something that was a copy (print) of a copy (IN) of a copy (IP) which affected dynamic range in its own way. But the funny thing about HDR is that, range aside, the colour on most such discs I've seen is actually more nuanced and subtle than either the blanket-tinted SDR version or the supposed "oversaturated candy Wizard of Oz technicolor" look that HDR is said to have. If someone's seeing that on every HDR disc then they're doing it wrong, either that or they're the sort of commentator who passes judgment based on what they've heard about HDR and not what they've actually seen, outside of a garish shop floor demo.

Yep, on the right display/projector colour saturation and depth have much more nuance than its SDR counterpart. A displays colour volume is so important. I’m a firm believer that you don’t need a crazy expensive tv to enjoy the format but once you see a UHD on a good setup it’s hard to go back.

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

To add to Geoff’s point, I’ll beat a dead horse and mention this... again. 35mm film has roughly 13 stops of dynamic range. Dolby Vision has 17 stops of dynamic range. Blu-ray is only capable of 6 stops of dynamic range. What does that mean? Clipping folks. Blown out highlights that make images look flat. People like to think Blu-ray is more accurate for some reason. That’s wrong. I don’t know about you all but I think headroom is a great thing.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by SonSon III

I’m a purist that wants the best possible presentation from source material without being revisionist. Heck, I want Full Frame for my Kubrick releases like “The Shining”

We're all just gonna skip over this?

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by koberulz

We're all just gonna skip over this?

It's not worth dignifying with a response.