HDR Discussion Thread

[Penton-Man]

and another good one coming up soon, this time for Agent Kay - https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/19...es-1202191803/

[LordoftheRings]

After tomorrow it's HDR Netflix time ... The Irishman.
Then HDR Thanksgiving Day the day after.
Exciting HDR times ahead ... HDR Black Friday ... HDR Christmas shopping.
We live in the very best times of our lives ...

[wxman2003]

Looks like more fake HDR by Disney. The Mandalorian peaks at 200 nits in HDR. Better to watch it in SDR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49SX...ature=youtu.be

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

Looks like more fake HDR by Disney. The Mandalorian peaks at 200 nits in HDR. Better to watch it in SDR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49SX...ature=youtu.be

Oh, not this shit again. Mando looks lovely in 4K HDR for what it is, I even just commented on this re: Ep 3 in the Mando thread: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=877

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Oh, not this shit again. Mando looks lovely in 4K HDR for what it is, I even just commented on this re: Ep 3 in the Mando thread: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=877

I disagree, forcing the tv to trigger HDR with 200 nit peak content is foolish. 200 nits with HDR10 gamma looks darker and duller than 200 nits SDR 2.4 gamma. I forced my ATV to send it as 4K SDR, and prefer the look.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

I disagree, forcing the tv to trigger HDR with 200 nit peak content is foolish. 200 nits with HDR10 gamma looks darker and duller than 200 nits SDR 2.4 gamma. I forced my ATV to send it as 4K SDR, and prefer the look.

Of course it would, seeing as you're using (if sig is correct) some rather outdated sets when it comes to good tone mapping and you're boosting the SDR to DOUBLE what its actual brightness should be i.e. 100 nits. You're not watching either HDR or SDR how the content creators intended, good job.

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Of course it would, seeing as you're using (if sig is correct) some rather outdated sets when it comes to good tone mapping and you're boosting the SDR to DOUBLE what its actual brightness should be i.e. 100 nits. You're not watching either HDR or SDR how the content creators intended, good job.

My E6 is far from outdated. Handles DV perfectly, and 200 nits is crappy for DV too. Sorry, if you think otherwise, but HDR with peak brightness at 200 nits is a joke. Disney was too lazy to give it a real HDR treatment. Sorry if I said 200 nits SDR. I don't watch my tv that bright with SDR. What I should have properly conveyed is 200 nit HDR looks worse than SDR at 100 nits because of the different gammas used.

[Geoff D]

Or the content providers wanted it that way. Original Star Wars movies were regraded in a very conservative way...Mandalorian is set in the years after ROTJ...it's almost like there's some kind of thematic connection there. Nah, that'd be silly.

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Or the content providers wanted it that way. Original Star Wars movies were regraded in a very conservative way...Mandalorian is set in the years after ROTJ...it's almost like there's some kind of thematic connection there. Nah, that'd be silly.

Why bother with HDR. If they wanted the original intent, keep them all in SDR. And if they wanted to keep the same HDR intent, why master the trilogy at 400 nits, and the Mandalorian at 200 nits? That would be silly.

[Geoff D]

Because there's still some benefit to it if people aren't watching it on their phone in a brightly lit departure lounge.

[MechaGodzilla]

It'll be most interesting to see how the Star Warses turn out when they're released on disc.

[wxman2003]

I guess in the years following ROTJ, explosions are less bright. The stars are less bright, etc. Who knew that those following years defied the laws of physics. Luckily, every thing will get brighter in the future again.

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

It'll be most interesting to see how the Star Warses turn out when they're released on disc.

If they are not mastered at 400 nits like now, then Disney will be putting out a bad set of HDR discs, and people should demand their money back because that's not their original intent.

[Mierzwiak]

Disney interns should go to Netflix for some training.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

I guess in the years following ROTJ, explosions are less bright. The stars are less bright, etc. Who knew that those following years defied the laws of physics. Luckily, every thing will get brighter in the future again.

Such a shame that the same can't be said for people, eh? The brighter the nits, the dumber they get. Dynamic. Range. Is. Not. Just. About. Brightness.

Ep 3 of the Mando had some excellent moments of specular enhancement throughout, I didn't need to do any SDR comparisons to see it first of all but I went and did some anyway, with the usual caveat of photographs not being 100% accurate to either SDR or HDR but as a point of comparison the differences are quite plain, to me anyway.

First batch: http://www.framecompare.com/image-co...rison/DGWKGNNX

look at the outer gas burners, you can see the little 'ring' of nozzles, look at the sparks in the second one, check how the fire just clips to white in the third one.

Second batch: http://www.framecompare.com/image-co...rison/JE0FMNNU

So much more definition and impact of the speculars in the first one, second one loses lots of colour volume because SDR can't do high brightness AND colour, third one gains a lovely diaphenous look to the clouds and the speculars on the ship also have more zest

And it's not just in these single isolated moments but throughout this third episode, even when the Mando is sitting in the cockpit of his ship at the start the highlights on his helmet and armour clip to fat, flat circles of white in SDR while the HDR renders the specular into a tiny dot of light.

The HDR is so much more 'dimensional' because of the speculars while the SDR looks slightly brighter in the APL - this is at 140 nits peak white for SDR - at the expense of looking significantly 'flatter', the depth and volume that HDR provides is just gone. This bullshit with "heat maps" is starting to remind me of the bitrate watchers, that all they're doing is looking at the numbers rather than the actual content.

[Mierzwiak]

OK, Geoff, so it's not fake HDR, but why not having more range? It's not some low bidget crap they shot with iPhone.

I personally defended Alita and her low-nits HDR, because it does look amazing, but come on... I expected Mandalorian in HDR to be like Solo.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

OK, Geoff, so it's not fake HDR, but why not having more range? It's not some low bidget crap they shot with iPhone.

I personally defended Alita and her low-nits HDR, because it does look amazing, but come on... I expected Mandalorian in HDR to be like Solo.

But that's just it: before this latest asinine video was posted by Vincent (or at least before I'd seen it) I compared ep 3 of Mando TO Solo in the HDR stakes:

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I'm still really digging the look of the show too, the HDR reminds me a hell of a lot of Solo in that it's not shot to 'pop' (oh how I hate that expression) but when you do get brighter highlights and speculars they really zing.

If people are watching this third episode and are coming away unimpressed from the shootout at the end then I don't know what to say, apart from those people having no taste and/or borked tone mapping. Modest HDR is not the same thing as no HDR but people are so conditioned to want blazing highlights that if they don't get them they cry foul. Makes me ****ing despair, it really does, not just for this latest "fake HDR" panic but every single time I've cued up a disc that's been slated or said to be a marginal improvement only to see something that genuinely earns its HDR corn. Mando is no different

[Fendergopher]

I guess this also speaks to how badly misunderstood HDR is among consumers in general, with people calling it "fake HDR" and wanting a class action because people aren't getting the "HDR they paid for." People can criticize the merits of the grading itself if they want, but it's not "fake HDR" just because it's not as bright as they personally want it to be.

[Geoff D]

Still, it's a potent reminder of what's literally just been discussed in this thread re: average brightness for HDR. Mando absolutely has a low APL, slightly lower than my comparative viewing of the SDR version at 140 nits peak white, so when that then gets tone mapped and/or viewed with ambient light and/or is being compared to SDR jacked up into many hundreds of nits it could end up looking much darker. But yeah, there's still plenty of people who are viewing it as intended and wanting/expecting sizzling brightness, not getting it and throwing their toys out of the pram, partly on the basis of spurious technical comments like "it's using up too much power on the backlight" where people are just regurgitating what they're being told.

Puddy mentioned it upthread, I reiterated it in the comments for that Mando YT vid, it's kinda scary how quickly HDR has gone from being regarded as the devil's work to people complaining when they're *not* being blinded by it. Not that there haven't been plenty of these complaints along the way but with misguided YT vids - there's a surprise, eh? - from people who seem to think that everything should be kicking out 10k nits then this whole "fake HDR" thing is just going to run and run. Fake HDR? Fake news more like, gotta get them clicks I guess.

[fredreed]

Just how much better is HDR vs. SDR If you have a 4K TV? I have a 4K TV from LG however I don't the LG 4K TV set does not currently have HDR unless

I can get the HD Fury converter and I was just wondering how much better is HDR then SDR like brightness and color? I will notice a better brighter picture with HDR then with SDR?