HDR heatmaps and torch mode UHDs

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

Cobra on 4k prob had the most HDR scene i have ever seen in any movie. Try that one .

Yeah. Space Adventure Cobra has probably the craziest HDR I've ever seen.

[PissedOffPeoN]

I think there was like one or two scenes without HDR.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

By request. Now this is just silly. Dim interiors and night shots with an average brightness of daylight exteriors on other UHDs. I don't think it has any business being this bright either because the dynamic range of the source film isn't the highest, especially the VFX shots show a lot of clamping and flatness in the upper end.

Some of the numerical comparisons to the SDR aren't really valid here due to crunched shadows and the like, bringing the average up, in general the median value is probably closer to being correct.

The brightness really is quite insane on ST. As to the bolded, it tends to follow that film-out digital VFX from that early to mid '90s period lacked the kind of dynamic range that camera negative can capture, apparently the VFX was often being done in a linear gamma space rather than a logarithmic one that actually aped the response curve of film.

But it worked out fine when the stuff was filmed out to intermediate neg, cut into the conformed negative and was then printed (to IP), printed (from IP to IN) and printed some more (from IN to final release print) because all those steps increased contrast and reduced dynamic range in the final product, thereby 'levelling' the range of the disparate sources, but when viewed in HDR with a transfer direct from the conformed negative then the relative lack of range in the filmout VFX versus the camera negative can stand out. Even old-school opticals often come up short in dynamic range, again because of those multiple duping stages inherent to that process. Things got better near the end of the '90s though, the dynamic range in the filmout VFX on something like X-Men (2000) looks every bit as good as the camera negative around it. I'd go so far as to say that's some of the best filmout VFX I've ever seen for detail, range, the lot.

[TheSweetieMan]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Yeah. Space Adventure Cobra has probably the craziest HDR I've ever seen.

How is the UHD? Thinking of getting it.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

How is the UHD? Thinking of getting it.

Mixed. DNR’d to hell and back because TMS (the rights holder) hates film grain, but it has the greatest HDR and use of color on the UHD format I’ve ever seen. In fact, the HDR is so good that for stretches I completely forgot it was heavily degrained. Worth it at the current price.

[TheSweetieMan]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Mixed. DNR’d to hell and back because TMS (the rights holder) hates film grain, but it has the greatest HDR and use of color on the UHD format I’ve ever seen. In fact, the HDR is so good that for stretches I completely forgot it was heavily degrained. Worth it at the current price.

Have you thought about making a thread that lists anime titles released on UHD? You seem to know your stuff very well in that medium, and with me finally getting back into anime and manga, it would be cool to seek out which titles have been released on UHD thus far (I've only imported GitS and 'Innocence' thus far). I want to get as much Gundam stuff on UHD that I can. Hopefully they'll keep increasing their output, as I know they have the original series' film trilogy set to come out this summer.

[Pyoko]

Subdued HDR with only a bit of extension compared to the SDR, similar to OUATIH or Alita.








Album

With a similar highlight roll-off the HDR version would on average be equivalent to the SDR version with peak white at 157 nits (Gamma at 2.40), based on 16 samples. (Min: 136, Max: 178, Median: 153)

[Pyoko]

The King of HDR! Reaching into some serious nittage territory here. Not only does it have the detail and dynamic range to back it up, but the average brightness level is not as high as it could have been considering it's Sony, which is certainly good.










Album

With a similar highlight roll-off the HDR version would on average be equivalent to the SDR version with peak white at 155 nits (Gamma at 2.40), based on 31 samples. (Min: 2, Max: 699, Median: 130)

[Geoff D]

Yeah, good call on BHD. It does have some insanely bright highlights but it's not got that stupidly high Sony average brightness that makes it look cooked AF.

[nws56]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

I suppose it's possible, I know they added an optimizer/calibration thing to the PS4 but I don't think any games use it yet. With most of these pre-processors you'll still be fighting whatever the display does when the signal arrives there and it's unfortunate this is how it has to be done. In general I wish we could have seen more transparency across the board, clear documentation on what things do, more advanced options to disable "smart" features, more numerical options and so on. Every HDR display should really include a reference ST2084 decoding mode so you could choose where to do the processing and avoid double tonemapping.

I mean I know stuff is made so people can just have a nice picture out of the box and not have to dig into any of this, but for me there's just too much obfuscation.

"Here, try this HDR-tonemap-dynamic-contrast-metadata-optimizer-enhancer on for size, it'll make HDR content look great on your TV, we won't say how or why or what, just trust us it'll be great, you really need this, no lie!"

Can confirm that the World of Tanks game (console version ) does indeed feature a hdr calibration / optimiser / slider thing on ps4.
The game looks tremendous even if you have no interest in tanks.
My wife is spellbound by the beauty of some of the battle locations, less so by the brutality of the destruction .

[Blu Cider]

Very interesting thread, keep em coming!
As much as I've tired of Sony lightcannon grades I still think it suits the whole look of Starship Troopers rather well.

[Pyoko]

But is it HDR? I think you'd be really hard-pressed to call it that. A nearly-undetectable amount of highlight extension for the most part. Grain, detail and compression is better though, and it does fix the overly dark shadows.

UHD color | UHD luminance | BD luminance | UHD tonemap | BD upscale

With a similar highlight roll-off the HDR version would on average be equivalent to the SDR version with peak white at 129 nits (Gamma at 2.40), based on 20 samples. (Min: 114, Max: 160, Median: 128)

[Streetlight]

Is it possible to get HDR images?

[Geoff D]

Goodfeathers is practically SDR in an HDR container (MaxCLL 247 nits, MaxFALL 67 nits IIRC), which is why it's been so poorly mapped on so many TVs for all this time. Some look at the 4000-nit mastering display level and map that instead which absolutely destroys the APL, making it look so much dimmer and darker than it actually is. And yes, the blacks are much less crushed on the UHD which I've been saying for some time:

Originally Posted by Geoff D

... the newer Blu completely crushes the shadows and adds some ugly posterisation while the 4K lifts that detail and looks much more defined in the darkness.

[BrownianMotion]

Originally Posted by Streetlight

Is it possible to get HDR images?

I'd like to see this as well.

You'd need either an Xbox One X, or a PC that supports HDR playback, and a photo app that supports JXR, to view them properly. On my PC, I've got an app called "HDR + WCG Image Viewer" which can display HDR images, and in which you can create/view heat maps as well.

[Geoff D]

They wouldn't "be" in HDR until the proper EOTF is applied though, if everyone's monitor had an ST.2084 mode we'd be much closer to getting true representations of HDR in cap form - though even then not all monitors would be created equal regarding their spec, their tone mapping approach etc. And that in itself is where the notion of "SDR remapped to HDR EOTF" for SDR vs HDR comparison purposes in a solely HDR viewing environment comes into play, as you'd have to make sure that your monitor wasn't unduly skewing the "SDR inside HDR" cap because it thinks it's getting a proper HDR image. AKA the Goodfellas effect

[BrownianMotion]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

They wouldn't "be" in HDR until the proper EOTF is applied though

There is software that can capture HDR images that can then be viewed on an HDR display. The photo capture app on the Xbox One X, as well as the Xbox Game Bar app on PC, can both capture HDR images in the JXR format, and they can be viewed in the ways I described above. This is true for video game captures, but I've never tried it with movies. The Xbox One X method will definitely not work for movies, but the Xbox Game Bar on PC might.

[Geoff D]

You don't need to "capture" HDR as such though, just take the raw cap from the UHD stream (which has no EOTF built in) and then apply the requisite transform to it in the display space, that's how HDR works on TVs anyway.

[BrownianMotion]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You don't need to "capture" HDR as such though, just take the raw cap from the UHD stream (which has no EOTF built in) and then apply the requisite transform to it in the display space, that's how HDR works on TVs anyway.

The raw captures don't contain the necessary data to alert the TV that this is an HDR image, though. Most TVs don't give people the option of manually putting their displays in HDR mode and applying the proper transform. An image in JXR format will contain all of the necessary metadata, and it will be automatically be flagged as HDR content. But it needs to be viewed on a video player that supports the format.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by BrownianMotion

The raw captures don't contain the necessary data to alert the TV that this is an HDR image, though. Most TVs don't give people the option of manually putting their displays in HDR mode and applying the proper transform. An image in JXR format will contain all of the necessary metadata, and it will be automatically be flagged as HDR content. But it needs to be viewed on a video player that supports the format.

I know they don't but I'm not talking about that, i.e. if a display had that capability of simply turning on ST.2084 no matter the source - my ZD9 can do this manually, for example - then you wouldn't need to bother with specific viewers and software and DXR or JXR formats or whatever. For me that's the endgame to this whole HDR screencap cluster****, just a one-button push to turn on the HDR EOTF at the display level which would be entirely format agnostic when it comes to the container of the file.