How important is HDR?

[Jonno2009]

So i'm a brand new 4K person! i got the PS5 couple days ago and just yesterday i purchased the Samsung QN90A 55''

It obviously supports HDR, BUT i just learned today that my old-ish receiver the Yamaha RX V379 does NOT support HDR. So while everything looks really good right now am i missing ALOT by not having HDR? Guess i COULD just hook up the PS5 directly to the TV but i love 5.1 surround sound too much! And after spending 2500$ in just a couple days i don't really want to spend another 400ish

Was playing the upgraded PS5 Assassin's Creed Oddysey and it looked really good!

[Talal86]

If your receiver and tv have ARC hdmi ports, you can connect your ps5 directly to the tv and the audio will still come out of the receiver

[bhampton]

Well,

You can hook it up directly to your display and determine how important HDR gaming is to you.

I mostly use a 1080p set for gaming but I don't plan on buying a PS5 either.

[dyne]

More important than 4k imo but it has to be implemented correctly and after as many years as they’ve been at it, it’s aggravating that a lot of developers still get it disastrously wrong.

[Derb]

Congrats on the new TV.

I wouldn’t want HDR to go to waste so upgrade your receiver if it doesn’t have ARC.

1 thing to keep in mind, HDR uses MAX backlight control of your TV. This will degrade the life expectancy of the TV over time.

Kinda wish I knew that before getting my first HDR TV 2 years ago. Prior to that I had a 2014 SDR 4K & I always had the backlight at 50%.

Anyway if you don’t use HDR, it just means your TV will last longer.

[Diesel]

You could always run your PS5 directly to your tv and then use the eARC port to send the audio back to your receiver. Using an audio extractor can make the receiver think its just any other audio source and you’ll still get the uncompressed audio. But I would try it with the regular ARC your receiver supports first and see if the audio is good enough for you.

Originally Posted by Derb

Congrats on the new TV.

I wouldn’t want HDR to go to waste so upgrade your receiver if it doesn’t have ARC.

1 thing to keep in mind, HDR uses MAX backlight control of your TV. This will degrade the life expectancy of the TV over time.

Kinda wish I knew that before getting my first HDR TV 2 years ago. Prior to that I had a 2014 SDR 4K & I always had the backlight at 50%.

Anyway if you don’t use HDR, it just means your TV will last longer.

The QN90A is more than bright enough to pull the backlight back from max settings and still have an absurdly bright image.

[Jonno2009]

Originally Posted by Diesel

You could always run your PS5 directly to your tv and then use the eARC port to send the audio back to your receiver. Using an audio extractor can make the receiver think its just any other audio source and you’ll still get the uncompressed audio. But I would try it with the regular ARC your receiver supports first and see if the audio is good enough for you.



The QN90A is more than bright enough to pull the backlight back from max settings and still have an absurdly bright image.

Yeah i read ALOT about ARC and saw a tons of video about it. i guess i'll try it.

So let me get this straight. I run my PS5(port 4 which is HDMI 2.1) to the TV, and my Switch to the TV (port 2 i guess) and my cable box to the TV(port 1)
and then run another cable from port 3 (which is eARC) to my receiver (which i checked and has ARC, no E)

and then what? i'll switch sources FROM the TV instead of from the receiver like i always did?

Thanks!

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Jonno2009

Yeah i read ALOT about ARC and saw a tons of video about it. i guess i'll try it.

So let me get this straight. I run my PS5(port 4 which is HDMI 2.1) to the TV, and my Switch to the TV (port 2 i guess) and my cable box to the TV(port 1)
and then run another cable from port 3 (which is eARC) to my receiver (which i checked and has ARC, no E)

and then what? i'll switch sources FROM the TV instead of from the receiver like i always did?

Thanks!

If you are satisfied with the ARC compressed audio then I would do PS5 to HDMI 4 and then your receiver to HDMI 3 (eARC port). The other things can all be run to the receiver and be connected via the tv’s eARC port to simplify things so you only have to swap tv sources when using the PS5.

But if memory serves, you’ll have to use Dolby as the audio format for PS5 in this set up since ARC can’t pass 5.1 Linear PCM and the Samsung can’t pass DTS via ARC.

If you decide to go for the audio extractor look into this one:
https://a.co/d/8nr4FEX
All the reviews that are using it for the same purpose you need say it works perfectly. I actually will need to do the same thing since my Onkyo does not support eARC or 4K120/VRR pass through.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Diesel

The QN90A is more than bright enough to pull the backlight back from max settings and still have an absurdly bright image.

Am sure it is quite bright.

Though you would throw the tone-mapping a curve ball if you decreased the backlight/contrast & get an inaccurate representation of BT2020.

Even on my OLED I leave HDR values at their respective default values. While technically OLEDs do not have a physical backlight they have an OLED Light value which controls how bright the panel can get. I refer OLED Light to backlight because they are maxed out in HDR.

Am sure this will degrade the life expectancy of my OLED. Oh well. I figure might as well get the best PQ while it works.

As per replacement TVs, after watching Vincent’s latest video on the X95K, I’d probably go for that or Sony’s next iteration of Mini-LED moving forward until Micro-LED takes over the market in 5-10 years from now.

On topic, I do think games that support HDR should be played in HDR if you want the best PQ. Also i have experimented with Dolby Vision for games. Long story short, you do not need Dolby Vision if you only care about games.

[Zivouhr]

How important is HDR?
Nothing against HDR, as I'm a fan of higher contrast, but to me, it seems like they're mostly just increasing the contrast instead of the gamer doing that with the TV display itself. It creates a more striking image, but for video games, 4K has been visually amazing, more so in my opinion, than the difference in live action movies in 4K versus 2K, so I'm in the minority when I say 4K resolution is the clear winner versus the importance of HDR if I could only choose one.

I have played games without HDR and then with that feature on, and HDR seems to increase the exposure or over-expose the range of light washing over surfaces a bit, almost like increasing the contrast and saturation option on a TV it seems. There have been times I switched it off in the past, and preferred it off. Other times, it looks fine but it's not as amazing visually IMO as 4K resolution vs the detail of 2K, as great as 2K (1920x1080p) games look.

Returnal - HDR vs. Non-HDR | 4K Graphics Comparison - YouTube

In this video, it seems as if someone increased contrast on the left, while the right screen them dimmed the brightness and contrast, resulting in a duller image. Something I usually handle with the TV's settings. But now it seems HDR does it ahead of time.

[Doomhunter]

Originally Posted by dyne

More important than 4k imo but it has to be implemented correctly and after as many years as they’ve been at it, it’s aggravating that a lot of developers still get it disastrously wrong.

What’s a good example of disastrously wrong?

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Doomhunter

What’s a good example of disastrously wrong?

Easy to find examples now that I’ve run an OLED for nearly a year.

Here is a game right off the top of my head. Guardians of Galaxy has lifted blacks but only on PlayStation. There are others that do this as well. Any Naughty Dog game doesn’t support HGiG & their in-game sliders don’t help much. So washed out image. Then there is Dolby Vision for Xbox. Halo Infinite DV was put in an HDR10 container with extreme grey bars during cutscenes when it launched. It has since been fixed.

How about Sony TVs? You think they might know what is good for HDR for PS5 right? Nope.

Sony’s recent TVs (2020-2022) Automatic HDR setup sets up peak brightness at 2,000 nits. That’s just a slap in your face if you own a Sony & don’t know much about how capable your tv is with peak brightness. Enjoy a washed out image on all your games.

[bradnoyes]

HDR is a big deal. I'm a believer that better pixels is more important than more pixels, and nothing improves the quality of each individual pixel better than HDR. You get more accurate colors, deeper blacks, better highlight detail, and greater depth to the image in general. The downside of HDR is that not all displays are the same, and some are terrible at HDR tone-mapping. I think your new Samsung should be lovely, but some displays (especially a lot of PC monitors) have a more half-baked HDR implementation that in many cases can result in poorer image quality.

On a side note, I don't think you should ever be messing with your TV's settings to try and simulate HDR or boost contrast. The more you mess with the settings the further you get from the intended look of whatever content it is you are experiencing. Of course we're all free to do what we want with our displays but I don't see the point of investing in a quality display in the first place if the plan is to adjust the settings to the point that nothing looks the way it should. And there are simply no settings you can adjust while in SDR that will actually give you what HDR has to offer when implemented properly.

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by bradnoyes

HDR is a big deal. I'm a believer that better pixels is more important than more pixels, and nothing improves the quality of each individual pixel better than HDR. You get more accurate colors, deeper blacks, better highlight detail, and greater depth to the image in general. The downside of HDR is that not all displays are the same, and some are terrible at HDR tone-mapping. I think your new Samsung should be lovely, but some displays (especially a lot of PC monitors) have a more half-baked HDR implementation that in many cases can result in poorer image quality.

On a side note, I don't think you should ever be messing with your TV's settings to try and simulate HDR or boost contrast. The more you mess with the settings the further you get from the intended look of whatever content it is you are experiencing. Of course we're all free to do what we want with our displays but I don't see the point of investing in a quality display in the first place if the plan is to adjust the settings to the point that nothing looks the way it should. And there are simply no settings you can adjust while in SDR that will actually give you what HDR has to offer when implemented properly.

Thanks for the details on HDR.

I mostly have a neutral setting on my TV, though I tend to go for more natural color tones most times with less saturation. Contrast I tend to have at about 60 to 70% from the 50% default. It looks great along with most games on my 4K HDR enabled TV. Even so, I need a lot of convincing to really see a massive difference from HDR compared to my prior non HDR TVs of the past. To me they both looked good. Darkness levels are important though, along with how many colors are displayed.

[tcripe]

It’s def a huge deal for single player games. For multiplayer games not so much.

[Shin sam]

Without HDR, 4K / UHD is simply, meh.

[Survivorman]

I wish I could find out why my HDR turns off.. When i set resolution to Automatic it says 2160p or something not supported, does that mean my LG C9 isn't going to cut it probably right?

it goes to 1080p only when I set HDR on to anytime available.