Unforgiven 4K UHD (1992)

[philochs]

Originally Posted by d514

How can a 10bit panel display a 12bit signal? In the end it has to be converted to 10bit because the panel can't display 12bit.

So you have a 12bit source and a 10bit display. With DV the 12bit to 10bit conversion is done at home, with HDR10 the conversion is done in the studio. Why should a conversion at home be better every time?

You can display a 12-bit image on a 10-bit display without converting. You then get the benefit of no color banding, even though you're watching a 10-bit display. For instance, a Sony Z9D has the option to upscale 8-bit and 10-bit content to 14-bit and then display it on a 10-bit panel. The option is called 'smooth gradiation' and the whole point of it is to prevent color banding.

Since color banding is inherent to content, the most ideal thing is to encode the disk in 12-bit DV so that your source content will be free of even minor banding. If you watch a 12-bit or 14-bit signal on a 10-bit panel, it doesn't convert the image back to 10-bit. Your content can be a different color bit depth than your panel. It'll break up the color stripes, and display an image that is free of any color banding. If you actually had a 12-bit panel it would also allow you to see far more shades of colors. 10-bit panel limits the amount of color shades that are visible from a 12-bit source, it doesn't somehow prevent you from displaying a 12-bit image or getting the benefit of no color banding.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I honestly don't know why it does (grain/noise is affected by contrast, and that's one of the key things that the SDR slider is messing with) but the settings at the display end make a big difference, when my contrast was much too high the grain on older stuff looked distractingly bad and the artefacts on ID4 and ST '09 were absolutely horrible to watch. I dialled in my SDR contrast more sympathetically and the artefacts were much reduced, I've since watched a few key scenes of ST '09 on the ZD9 in proper HDR and although still the grain looks kinda messy at key points it doesn't break up into outright artefacts.

Just to come back to this, I also had a quick look at ID4 yesterday and the UHD looks darned-near perfect on the ZD9, the grain is perhaps a little bit 'crawly' here and there but the gigantic artefacts are gone and the overall the grain looks much tighter and more refined in proper HDR. And this is on a 65" vs my previous 55" so that should make things like iffy compression stand out more, not less.

So yeah, there's definitely something there re: how the Panny SDR conversion messes with grain/noise. It's not 'adding' anything per se, but it seems to be the compression of the dynamic range that affects the prominence of grain. Artefacts and other junk can sometimes be hidden inside the brightest or darkest parts of the image, so when something's encoded to hit x parameters of bright and dark (as per the absolute brightness of HDR10) and is then forcibly adjusted to fit a much smaller "volume" then these artefacts can be brutally exposed.

Don't get me wrongo, I've reached a point where I'm very happy with the SDR conversion and my settings and how it reacts to grain/noise, but having looked at ST '09 and ID4 in true HDR on the ZD9 (acronyms ahoy!) their compression issues are greatly minimised. Not all the way gone, but close enough.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Just to come back to this, I also had a quick look at ID4 yesterday and the UHD looks darned-near perfect on the ZD9, the grain is perhaps a little bit 'crawly' here and there but the gigantic artefacts are gone and the overall the grain looks much tighter and more refined in proper HDR. And this is on a 65" vs my previous 55" so that should make things like iffy compression stand out more, not less.

So yeah, there's definitely something there re: how the Panny SDR conversion messes with grain/noise. It's not 'adding' anything per se, but it seems to be the compression of the dynamic range that affects the prominence of grain. Artefacts and other junk can sometimes be hidden inside the brightest or darkest parts of the image, so when something's encoded to hit x parameters of bright and dark (as per the absolute brightness of HDR10) and is then forcibly adjusted to fit a much smaller "volume" then these artefacts can be brutally exposed.

Don't get me wrongo, I've reached a point where I'm very happy with the SDR conversion and my settings and how it reacts to grain/noise, but having looked at ST '09 and ID4 in true HDR on the ZD9 (acronyms ahoy!) their compression issues are greatly minimised. Not all the way gone, but close enough.

Makes sense and possibly the case. I'm actually looking into moving to an HDR projector (although might wait and see what is announced at Cedia for 2018 at this point).
But I wonder if it's also just display differences? Calibration, contrast, light output, etc can play a role if all not even.

BUT, a good test would be to try and use SDR conversion on your ZD9 and compare it to HDR. I would be very curious what you find there as it would be an apples to apples comparison.

[ArnoldLayne56]

Originally Posted by philochs

You can display a 12-bit image on a 10-bit display without converting. You then get the benefit of no color banding, even though you're watching a 10-bit display. For instance, a Sony Z9D has the option to upscale 8-bit and 10-bit content to 14-bit and then display it on a 10-bit panel. The option is called 'smooth gradiation' and the whole point of it is to prevent color banding.

Since color banding is inherent to content, the most ideal thing is to encode the disk in 12-bit DV so that your source content will be free of even minor banding. If you watch a 12-bit or 14-bit signal on a 10-bit panel, it doesn't convert the image back to 10-bit. Your content can be a different color bit depth than your panel. It'll break up the color stripes, and display an image that is free of any color banding. If you actually had a 12-bit panel it would also allow you to see far more shades of colors. 10-bit panel limits the amount of color shades that are visible from a 12-bit source, it doesn't somehow prevent you from displaying a 12-bit image or getting the benefit of no color banding.

Since I'm not a display designer, please explain. My conception is that the pixel/ led brightness is analog at the output device. At some point before that, the digital code it presented to a DAC. That DAC has either 12 or 10 inputs. If there is a 12 bit code from the source, it can be either truncated by simply ignoring the bottom two bits, or converted digitally to 10 bits by rounding up or down the LSB of the 10 remaining bits or maybe it's done by some spatial convolution. If you have a 10 bit panel to me that means a 10 bit DAC and you can't magically display 12 or 16 or 24 bits of corresponding analog resolution to reduce the inherent limitations. Please explain thanks!

[Geoff D]

This all boils down to oversampling making the source look better. You physically cannot display 60-odd billion shades on a panel that's natively 1 billion or so, but Sony's Super Bit Mapping (which has been around for years on Blu-ray mastering as well as the internal processing on their TVs which also pre-dates 4K) is designed to overdrive the bit depth to reduce the banding in the final 8/10-bit product.

A ZD9 is NOT actually displaying a 14-bit image but it is displaying the benefits of that oversampling e.g. increased dithering of colour gradation vs a native 8/10-bit capture. You do need a lot of processing grunt to do this and although Dolby Vision's 12-bit source should work along the same principle it's still at the mercy of the TV's own silicon, as evinced by various sets choking on a 12-bit 4:4:4 4K input as they struggled to dither it back down to 10-bit. I guess in that case it depends where the internally downsampled 10-bit image enters the chain, whether the Dolby processing does it first or whether it hands off the native 12-bit signal to the TV's processing to deal with on its own.

[mzupeman]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

This all boils down to oversampling making the source look better. You physically cannot display 60-odd billion shades on a panel that's natively 1 billion or so, but Sony's Super Bit Mapping (which has been around for years on Blu-ray mastering as well as the internal processing on their TVs which also pre-dates 4K) is designed to overdrive the bit depth to reduce the banding in the final 8/10-bit product.

A ZD9 is NOT actually displaying a 14-bit image but it is displaying the benefits of that oversampling e.g. increased dithering of colour gradation vs a native 8/10-bit capture. You do need a lot of processing grunt to do this and although Dolby Vision's 12-bit source should work along the same principle it's still at the mercy of the TV's own silicon, as evinced by various sets choking on a 12-bit 4:4:4 4K input as they struggled to dither it back down to 10-bit. I guess in that case it depends where the internally downsampled 10-bit image enters the chain, whether the Dolby processing does it first or whether it hands off the native 12-bit signal to the TV's processing to deal with on its own.

So it would ultimately come down to what TV you're using.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bruceames]

Highdefdigest review up:

http://ultrahd.highdefdigest.com/395...ahdbluray.html

I think it's pretty spot on, and actually he describes the PQ more accurately than the Blu-ray.com review, IMO.

[Filmmaker]

Originally Posted by DJJez

4k version is darker than blu ray version 100%

I keep seeing people saying this, but I crank brightness to max and get a different story.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by bruceames

Highdefdigest review up:

http://ultrahd.highdefdigest.com/395...ahdbluray.html

I think it's pretty spot on, and actually he describes the PQ more accurately than the Blu-ray.com review, IMO.

Really? The site review is more accurate to what I'm seeing, which is not more "vivid" colour on the UHD but the opposite. Michael's review also perfectly captures how the skin tones lose that orangey-red sheen on the UHD.

[DJJez]

bluray.com's review scoring it 5/5 is too much. even thought the transfer is good it does not deserve 5/5. 4/5 is about right

[DJJez]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Really? The site review is more accurate to what I'm seeing, which is not more "vivid" colour on the UHD but the opposite. Michael's review also perfectly captures how the skin tones lose that orangey-red sheen on the UHD.

i agree. the colours are not more vivid, they are much more natural

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by bruceames

Highdefdigest review up:

http://ultrahd.highdefdigest.com/395...ahdbluray.html

I think it's pretty spot on, and actually he describes the PQ more accurately than the Blu-ray.com review, IMO.

M. Enois Duarte is one of the better Blu reviewers out there. IMO, along with Ralph.

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Really? The site review is more accurate to what I'm seeing, which is not more "vivid" colour on the UHD but the opposite. Michael's review also perfectly captures how the skin tones lose that orangey-red sheen on the UHD.

Am taking your word over any professional reviewer.

EDIT: Wait, unless you're a pro yourself then, uh, nevermind.

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Really? The site review is more accurate to what I'm seeing, which is not more "vivid" colour on the UHD but the opposite. Michael's review also perfectly captures how the skin tones lose that orangey-red sheen on the UHD.

Originally Posted by DJJez

i agree. the colours are not more vivid, they are much more natural

Vivid: Evocative, realistic, lifelike, faithful, authentic, natural, clear, detailed, lucid, eloquent, striking, arresting, impressive, colorful, rich, picturesque, dramatic, lively, realistic, stimulating, interesting, fascinating, scintillating, memorable, powerful, stirring, moving, telling, accurately haunting.

[Geoff D]

With reference to colour specifically, rather than throwing out a ton of synonyms:

strikingly bright or intense, as color, light, etc.:
a vivid green.

The UHD of Unforgiven does not meet that criteria to my eyes as mentioned in the HDD review which positively raves about the colour, but then that's par for the course as I haven't rated their reviews for a long, long time (and not just UHD but BD too).

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

With reference to colour specifically, rather than throwing out a ton of synonyms:

The UHD of Unforgiven does not meet that criteria to my eyes as mentioned in the HDD review which positively raves about the colour, but then that's par for the course as I haven't rated their reviews for a long, long time (and not just UHD but BD too).

I don't think he was referring to color saturation but rather the greater clarity (separation of colors) brought about by the wider color gamut, HDR and finer detail. I think you underestimate the quality of E's reviews. They are very good, but of course I may be biased because he is using the same display that I have. But IMO he is head and shoulders better than the other reviewers there with UHD BD reviews.

Edit: Actually both reviews are well written and pretty accurate, although as mentioned above I wouldn't give this 5 stars (some dark scenes on the BD show more shadow detail). I just happen to agree with E's reviews at HDD almost all the time, while on many occasions finding myself shaking my head at some of Michael's reviews here. But hey, it's all good that we have reviewers we can relate to more than others.

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by ncraft

I agree with what your saying. I thought the night scenes were just too dark. For some reason I remembered what someone said in the Arrival 4k thread, I think it was Bruceames, and I used the dreaded HDR Vivid mode on my LG B6P. Once I got over the shame in using this mode, and doing a bit more tweaking on the settings, the nighttime scenes were absolutely perfect.

Originally Posted by DJJez

yup i agree with you. on HDR standard (which is what i use normally for everything, they looked ridiculously dark. on HDR bright and vivid it was WAY better for sure.

Originally Posted by Ulises_CM

Hdr vivid on Lg oleds just messes with dynamic contrast...

For non-calibrated 2016 OLEDs, highly recommend these generic settings -

[Show spoiler]HDR Standard
OLED Light 75
Contrast 100
Brightness 50
Sharpness 0
Color 55
Tint 0
Dynamic Contrast Low
Super Res Off
Color Gamut Normal
Edge Enhancer Off
Color Filter Off
Color Temp Warm2
Noise Reduction High
MPEG Noise Reduction Off
Real Cinema On
TruMotion Off

Again, that's specifically for HDR10 signals and just from me eyeballing it, experiment at your own leisure. Noise Reduction works surprisingly quite well at taming some of the more problematic near black issues I've encountered in hdr10 without sacrificing any other detail, coupled with dynamic contrast on low to reduce black crush while maintaining inky blacks where it needs to, I think what am seeing on my end is about as good as its going to get barring a full on scientific calibration.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

I keep seeing people saying this, but I crank brightness to max and get a different story.

The detail is there, but I do think the HDR and overall somewhat dimmer look of the UHD hides it a bit and makes it seem much darker, even if it isn't really.

[DJJez]

Originally Posted by vincentric

For non-calibrated 2016 OLEDs, highly recommend these generic settings -

[Show spoiler]HDR Standard
OLED Light 75
Contrast 100
Brightness 50
Sharpness 0
Color 55
Tint 0
Dynamic Contrast Low
Super Res Off
Color Gamut Normal
Edge Enhancer Off
Color Filter Off
Color Temp Warm2
Noise Reduction High
MPEG Noise Reduction Off
Real Cinema On
TruMotion Off

Again, that's specifically for HDR10 signals and just from me eyeballing it, experiment at your own leisure. Noise Reduction works surprisingly quite well at taming some of the more problematic near black issues I've encountered in hdr10 without sacrificing any other detail, coupled with dynamic contrast on low to reduce black crush while maintaining inky blacks where it needs to, I think what am seeing on my end is about as good as its going to get barring a full on scientific calibration.

noise reduction is awful. it smoothes the picture and you lose fine detail..should never turn it on.

everything else is fine

[Paul.R.S]

Originally Posted by vincentric

For non-calibrated 2016 OLEDs, highly recommend these generic settings -

<snip>
Contrast 100
</snip>

Are we that deep into a twilight zone? Although a lay "videophile" and I don't have your display, I find it hard to believe that a maxed out contrast setting is recommended for any well-mastered content. Something's amiss there.