HDR is crayons

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by BrownianMotion

The differences between the color gamuts may not be as large, but you're forgetting to account for the differences in color volume that higher peak brightness produces. HDR can have a big impact on colors - it's not just the wider color gamut.

that's right. another element to consider is the actual tone mapping of displays as well. It's important to remember that tone mapping isn't just "dimming" the image to fit within the brightness of a TV. It's also tone mapping colors that are not able to be reproduced on the television to colors that can be. This can definitely result in some bizarre color changes to accommodate the lesser capable TV.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Sometimes i wonder if these BDs were sabotaged on purpose to facilitate a UHD double dip down the road. The difference between rec709 and dcip3 color space is not large enough to warrant some of the radical coloring differences we are seeing between BD and UHD. Or conversely, if the stylized color "blankets" are removed on UHD to make them look more colorful in order to fulfill the HDR marketing.

I don't believe that's the case in any kind of deliberate sense (if the studios had left it any longer there may not have been a 4K UHD disc format to shill in the first place), but IMO there's definitely a kind of 'set and forget' attitude that creeps into any format once it grows up and establishes itself, i.e. when it's no longer the latest thing and becomes the norm that's when laziness and complacency creep in, meaning that instead of doing a proper 709 trim pass it just gets shat out with a few button pushes and they quickly move on to the next.

It's telling that most new restorations that are personally undertaken by competent indies like Arrow don't have a pervasively constant tint or tone to them (unless explicitly warranted by the actual filmic intent, or has been bodged by clowns like Ritrovita) because they are dialling this look in for SDR 709 just as carefully as they can, they know that this rendition will be the primary viewing focus and they want to get it right, not wanting to suffocate the colour with a blanket tint just because it's the easy thing to do.

It's funny though, you said that "if the stylized color "blankets" are removed on UHD to make them look more colorful in order to fulfill the HDR marketing" but in actuality the opposite is true! Not the removal of the blanket 709 wash, that much is true, but the way that UHD's wider gamut & colour volume makes colour actually look more natural and more realistic, not more hyped up and more jacked up. That's still the a-number-one misconception about what HDR actually brings to the table and about what 709 is actually capable of, for that matter. It's a gamut that over-emphasises certain colours by its very nature because it was designed for a time when TV hardware was nothing like the quality we have today, the tech of yore having a tendency to wash out colour so the gamut was over-egged to compensate for it, making certain colours (green especially) look more stylised than they really should do.

So yeah, while 709 and P3 aren't separated by a wide gulf on paper, the extra wavelengths of colour in P3 and the extra volume of colour afforded by HDR (even 709 HDR could still benefit from this) mean that the HDR graders can and often do move away from the almost radioactive look that we've grown accustomed to seeing on SDR 709 Blu-ray. Heck, people are still cut up about the teal menace on whatever movie but I'd love to see those same source transfers given an HDR WCG pass, I'd bet cash money that the extreme teal bias ends up being a lot less crass in HDR. Blade Runner is a case in point...

[HeavyHitter]

Fully agreed. The color on UHD BD is clearly more of a less saturated, yet broader spectrum nuanced "realistic" look compared to the BD version which looks more pumped up for lack of better words (remastered Goodfellas and Unforgiven immediately come to mind but there are others).

[jrcorwin3]

Originally Posted by alexanderg823

But we already have titles that don't really take much advantage of HDR and are essentially SDR in an HDR container. See Blade Runner 2049 and The Last Jedi.

If you don’t believe Blade Runner 2049 takes advantage of HDR and is, “essentially SDR in an HDR container”...a proper check of your equipment might be in order.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by jrcorwin3

If you don’t believe Blade Runner 2049 takes advantage of HDR and is, “essentially SDR in an HDR container”...a proper check of your equipment might be in order.

The title barely pushes beyond 100 nit. This is a fact based on it's metadata, not an opinion. What is an opinion though, is Roger deakins stance on hdr and how he hates it and claims he purposely graded it to not take advantage of hdr.

Perhaps you should check yours and make sure you are following eotf curves correctly?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by jrcorwin3

If you don’t believe Blade Runner 2049 takes advantage of HDR and is, “essentially SDR in an HDR container”...a proper check of your equipment might be in order.

That's exactly what it is, albeit still taking advantage of the higher bit depth, higher spatial/chroma resolution and wider colour gamut that UHD has to offer versus the SDR Blu-ray which looks flatter and softer in comparison.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That's exactly what it is, albeit still taking advantage of the higher bit depth, higher spatial/chroma resolution and wider colour gamut that UHD has to offer versus the SDR Blu-ray which looks flatter and softer in comparison.

yep, BR 2049 is a great looking disc, but its implementation of hdr isn't one of the reasons why. UHD Blu is certainly the sum of many different parts, hdr or 4k being only two of them.

what BR 2049 is, is a shining example of what I mentioned earlier about HDR being a larger canvas - Deakins chose not to use utilize that larger canvas HDR provides.

Which is funny, because this poster above is a shining example of why this whole HDR thing has been blown out of proportion. A well made disc has people all kinds of confused of whether or not HDR is or is not being utilized, how, and even why.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Fully agreed. The color on UHD BD is clearly more of a less saturated, yet broader spectrum nuanced "realistic" look compared to the BD version which looks more pumped up for lack of better words (remastered Goodfellas and Unforgiven immediately come to mind but there are others).

I still think it is a completely misunderstood release, but I believe Scorsese took issue with the UHD for some reason.

I recall someone over in another thread bringing up an article regarding the films look where the intent was to make it look as if someone forced a black and white film into color. It was intended to be contrasty, in your face and punchy.

[jrcorwin3]

Originally Posted by alexanderg823

The title barely pushes beyond 100 nit. This is a fact based on it's metadata, not an opinion

Perhaps you should check yours and make sure you are following eotf curves correctly?

Blade Runner 2049 has a MaxCLL on the US version of 181. 457 on the UK version. If you want to reference the metadata...maybe do so correctly?

It’s a purposely dark and often drab film. The use of HDR fits the intent and tone of the film. Simply because it isn’t bright enough for you doesn’t mean it isn’t taking advantage of HDR or is the equivalent of SDR in an HDR container.

...or maybe you are just prone to extreme hyperbole.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by jrcorwin3

Blade Runner 2049 has a MaxCLL on the US version of 181. 457 on the UK version. If you want to reference the metadata...maybe do so correctly?

It’s a purposely dark and often drab film. The use of HDR fits the intent and tone of the film. Simply because it isn’t bright enough for you doesn’t mean it isn’t taking advantage of HDR or is the equivalent of SDR in an HDR container.

...or maybe you are just prone to extreme hyperbole.

And yet, from what I could tell, the HDR grades were literally identical between the two versions when the metadata was removed from the equation: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...1#post14674991

It may even be that the unique Sony logo animation (different on the Sony disc vs the Warners disc) is what's causing the much higher MaxCLL metadata reading on the Sony disc! Remember, that's a single pixel reading for the absolute brightest spot in the film so all it takes is one glimpse for a fraction of a second and that's what the signal analysis will record the MaxCLL as.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan

I still think it is a completely misunderstood release, but I believe Scorsese took issue with the UHD for some reason.

I recall someone over in another thread bringing up an article regarding the films look where the intent was to make it look as if someone forced a black and white film into color. It was intended to be contrasty, in your face and punchy.

But the thing is that the SDR remastered Blu doesn't do it all the way successfully, not IMO anyways, as the blacks look weirdly posterised at times and the colour is really 'hard', for want of a better word. The HDR grade adds contrast in its own way by expanding the shadows but providing brighter speculars (for what they're worth, hitting about 240-ish nits at its brightest peak).

Perhaps the actual source master for the Goodfeathers restoration with its wider gamut & higher bit depth would be the best of both worlds but as it is, I'll take the UHD over the remastered Blu-ray any day of the week. The grain alone is rendered quite exquisitely on the UHD, none of that rampant Sony grain that you dislike so much (and on that point, I think they've started to take that into account with their HDR transfers of older movies).

[Ruined]

Goodfeathers eh?

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by jrcorwin3

Blade Runner 2049 has a MaxCLL on the US version of 181. 457 on the UK version. If you want to reference the metadata...maybe do so correctly?

It’s a purposely dark and often drab film. The use of HDR fits the intent and tone of the film. Simply because it isn’t bright enough for you doesn’t mean it isn’t taking advantage of HDR or is the equivalent of SDR in an HDR container.

...or maybe you are just prone to extreme hyperbole.

what the hell are you talking about?

my point had nothing to do with an opinion on whether it is or isn't bright enough for me. It was merely that the metadata barely went into the HDR space, and that it was essentially SDR in an HDR container, which 181 MaxCLL certainly confirms. So are you trying to argue with me to prove me right or something?

Am I missing something? Or are you one of those people that just needs to keep arguing about anything until you are eventually right about something?

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by alexanderg823

Wow it's crazy this thread is still going. I don't even understand what there is to talk about. HDR is just a bigger canvas to paint the picture on, I really don't get why anyone would be against people having more tools at their disposal at home to faithfully reproduce the original DP intent.

Is this some liberal conspiracy of haters to block HDR to save content creators from themselves or something? Sure some editors will use HDR to create something far off from the original intent with an HDR revision. Others won't. Either way, it's not the fault of HDR, it's the fault of the people using the tool. But it seems to be an objective fact that HDR provides tools that can paint a copy of the original picture much more faithfully than SDR could ever hope to.

Being concerned with how the digital technicians use HDR is valid. As pointed out earlier, it's a tool. It can be overused or misused. HDR is an amazing tool in the UHD arsenal, but like any digital tool, it can be abused, either intentionally or unintentionally.

There's certainly room for discussion about how it's used.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Being concerned with how the digital technicians use HDR is valid. As pointed out earlier, it's a tool. It can be overused or misused. HDR is an amazing tool in the UHD arsenal, but like any digital tool, it can be abused, either intentionally or unintentionally.

There's certainly room for discussion about how it's used.

Sure but it seems like there's misplaced aggression directed at the tool itself rather than the people that use/misuse it.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Sometimes i wonder if these BDs were sabotaged on purpose to facilitate a UHD double dip down the road. The difference between rec709 and dcip3 color space is not large enough to warrant some of the radical coloring differences we are seeing between BD and UHD. Or conversely, if the stylized color "blankets" are removed on UHD to make them look more colorful in order to fulfill the HDR marketing.

Yeah, I see some gorgeous older horror films come out by the smaller studios with absolutely wonderful color. How come they aren't covered in a layer of teal if blu-ray supposedly has this teal issue due to it's color spectrum limitations?

I know UHD offers dramatically improved color, but there's no excuse for why so many big-studio releases of older films look so ugly in terms of color. It's either carelessness, incompetence, or...(fill in the blank with your best guess)?

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by alexanderg823

Sure but it seems like there's misplaced aggression directed at the tool itself rather than the people that use/misuse it.

Agreed.

[jrcorwin3]

Originally Posted by alexanderg823

what the hell are you talking about?

my point had nothing to do with an opinion on whether it is or isn't bright enough for me. It was merely that the metadata barely went into the HDR space, and that it was essentially SDR in an HDR container, which 181 MaxCLL certainly confirms. So are you trying to argue with me to prove me right or something?

Am I missing something? Or are you one of those people that just needs to keep arguing about anything until you are eventually right about something?

...you want the MaxCLL to be higher for arbitrary reasons, not because it would actually suit or benifit this specific film. You're obsessing over a lone data point. If your judgement of the HDR implementation in Blade Runner 2049 is based solely on the MaxCLL figure, your understanding of video HDR is severely limited.

[alexanderg823]

Originally Posted by jrcorwin3

...you want the MaxCLL to be higher for arbitrary reasons, not because it would actually suit or benifit this specific film. You're obsessing over a lone data point. If your judgement of the HDR implementation in Blade Runner 2049 is based solely on the MaxCLL figure, your understanding of video HDR is severely limited.

Bro all I said was "we already have content that is essentially SDR in an hdr container, see blade runner 2049", which is an objective fact not an opinion,, and you've made multiple butthurt posts arguing with me like I just insulted your family's dignity and honor... Not sure what you mean by obsessing? You ok buddy?

[Ruined]

Guys we're really getting off topic here, this is supposed to be about HDR being crayons etc.