Spears & Munsil 4K UHD HDR Benchmark (Test Discs) May 15, 2023

[Stacey Spears]

I have gone ahead and posted the Getting started guide for the new disc.

[steel_breeze]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I have gone ahead and posted the Getting started guide for the new disc.

This is fantastic; thank you.

This bit made me chuckle:
• Backlight. If this setting is offered, a good starting point is to turn it to the middle value. Later on, when you are performing the rough Contrast adjustment (further down in this guide), if the screen seems uncomfortably bright when viewing the Contrast pattern on the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark turn the backlight down until the light output is comfortable to view.

"Uncomfortably Bright" is the street where Geoff lives.

[Geoff D]

It wasn't "uncomfortably bright" for me at all, gimme moar nits

[INdetectableMAN]

In HDR, is the brightness adjustment (black) not as critical as it would be in the case of contrast by the tone mapping of the dark part of the image?

It would be important to know this detail for sure, because an incorrect adjustment of the brightness due to an incorrect tone assignment of the dark part of the image could condition the HDR experience if, as I am afraid, it starts from the factory default brightness value

At least that's what I read about LG OLED 2016

thank you very much

[sapiendut]

Every aspect of calibration and set up is critical regardless whether it’s HDR or not.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by INdetectableMAN

In HDR, is the brightness adjustment (black) not as critical as it would be in the case of contrast for the tone mapping of the dark part of the image?

It would be important to know this detail for sure, because an incorrect adjustment of the brightness due to an incorrect tone assignment of the dark part of the image could condition the HDR experience if, as I am afraid, it starts from the factory default brightness value.

At least that's what I read about LG OLED 2016

thank you very much

The 2016 LG crushes black above 2% when I looked at it last. They have improved with each generation. On the 7, 8 and 9 series, brightness is correct in Cinema mode and should not be touched for a light controlled room.

If you have an new OLED, let it run for 100 hours before you make any adjustments, that should also improve the crushing on the bottom. It improves over time and 100 hours should be plenty. I would also run the pixel refresher from time-to-time, it seems to clean up near black as well.

In BT.2390, it does show tone mapping for both the bottom and top end. Since an OLED can do true black, it should not need to be tone mapped on the bottom end.

Edit: I should add that during development, we tested 0, 0.001 and 0.005 in the metadata to see if displays did anything with it and the short answer is no. I am actually happy otherwise that would have been more versions of that pattern with lower nit versions.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by steel_breeze

This is fantastic; thank you.

This bit made me chuckle:
• Backlight. If this setting is offered, a good starting point is to turn it to the middle value. Later on, when you are performing the rough Contrast adjustment (further down in this guide), if the screen seems uncomfortably bright when viewing the Contrast pattern on the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark turn the backlight down until the light output is comfortable to view.

"Uncomfortably Bright" is the street where Geoff lives.

I am not happy with that section, but wanted to get it published. I think I need to move backlight to SDR only.

On the plus side, this proves at least someone actually read it!

[Fendergopher]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It wasn't "uncomfortably bright" for me at all, gimme moar nits

Even with my display's decent HDR performance I'm left wanting more. Then again I don't quite own a black hole to watch it in.

[DJR662]

^^ I thought you had a Z9D or was/am I mistaken?

[Fendergopher]

Originally Posted by DJR662

^^ I thought you had a Z9D or was/am I mistaken?

If you mean me then I'd never be able to afford a Z9D, much as I'd want one. Wasn't really in the market for a new display back when it was still available anyway.

[DJR662]

Just ordered my copy.

[rickardl]

I posted this in another thread but got no comments so here it goes
When downconverting UHD to 1080p, the Panasonic DP-UB820 does not pass the blacker-than-black patterns from the S&M UHD disc. The 709 blacker-than-black pass through ok though.
If I raise the Brightness setting on the player, they will become visible (with raised brightness on the display).
It probably only affects my setup and it is no biggie, I can set black level correcly without those patterns.

But I assume it works for you guys with 4K screens and a Panasonic DP-UB820?

[HDMan72]

Thank you for the start up guide! Just placed my order!

[p5browne]

For those of us that have Calman, I just use the Dynamic Range section to adjust Brightness and Contrast
S&M always came a close runner up. Disney WOW Advanced, not even close.

[dcforsyth]

Stacey Spears,
In the future, will there be a manual/glossary for us noobs to better understand all the options this disc offers? I understand a lot of folks on this thread are tech savvy in the audio video world, unfortunately I'm not and I'm sure others aren't either. But I did buy the disc a couple a weeks ago.

I did some basic adjustments last night and wanted to do more but thought I better not mess with things I'm not familiar with.

Basically I'm asking if in the future will there be a brief summary on every menu and submenu on all categories?

I don't have the disc in right now but I did see lots of goodies I'd like to observe/mess with.

Thank You

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by dcforsyth

Stacey Spears,
In the future, will there be a manual/glossary for us noobs to better understand all the options this disc offers? I understand a lot of folks on this thread are tech savvy in the audio video world, unfortunately I'm not and I'm sure others aren't either. But I did buy the disc a couple a weeks ago.

I did some basic adjustments last night and wanted to do more but thought I better not mess with things I'm not familiar with.

Basically I'm asking if in the future will there be a brief summary on every menu and submenu on all categories?

I don't have the disc in right now but I did see lots of goodies I'd like to observe/mess with.

Thank You

There's the Getting started with the UltraHD Benchmark page at the Spears & Munsil site and I believe it's going to be expanded on in the near future as well.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Fendergopher

Even with my display's decent HDR performance I'm left wanting more. Then again I don't quite own a black hole to watch it in.

Nor do I, I just close the bleedin' curtains! Or wait for nightfall.

[Robert Zohn]

Originally Posted by Keenan

There's the Getting started with the UltraHD Benchmark page at the Spears & Munsil site and I believe it's going to be expanded on in the near future as well.

Although posted earlier it's so worthy to repost and even be quoted here yet again. Thanks to all who made this disc a reality, just check out the credits and we can all say thank you in our loud voices of graditude for these new tools and love the video content!

[dcforsyth]

Originally Posted by Keenan

There's the Getting started with the UltraHD Benchmark page at the Spears & Munsil site and I believe it's going to be expanded on in the near future as well.

Read that already thank you though.

I'm talking about menus like the following:

First off: Calibration

I see Luminance (cd/m2)

On my set up it has already highlighted:

1000
HDR gamut p3d65|bt.2020
Audio CODEC Dolby TrueHD

I guess my question is, does the disc, bd player, receiver and display automatically perform the correct setup?

Sorry, I don't need help with the audio side of things, I'm just curious if the default selections are what I should be doing my configurations with?

And yes, I did do the basics with SDR/HDR separately.

Edit: I understand these questions will be answered in the future. Just want to do as much as possible.

[David M]

^ No. As far as I know, there’s no way for the UHD BD player to know the luminance capability of the display and make that info available to us on the authoring side. The player does let us know if the display + player support different HDR formats, though, and we use that info in the Demo Material page to advise people that they’re not going to be able to see HDR10+ and/or Dolby Vision.

Even if we could detect the display luminance capability, part of the reason for having the different pattern versions is to let the user see how their display’s tone mapping works when faced with different metadata values.

Stacey will be able to give you a more detailed answer, but the default of 1000 cd/m2 is a good place to start since most displays aren’t capable of much more at the moment.