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

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

That is the official distributor of the disc. All dealers acquire through them.

I stand corrected again.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by RocShemp

Not at all. It is neither a secret nor common knowledge.

Some website pop-up a message when you are being re-directed to another site. I am not a fan of pop-up's. Not sure what the best solution is here.

[Stacey Spears]

I believe I have shared this before. This is the shot list for the montage. This includes a thumbnail of each shot. The camera used for that shot. It was either Vista Vision Dragon or Vista Vision Monstro from RED. I am one of less than half a dozen people that had the VV Dragon. Most of those went to Panavision for the DXL camera. It also includes the location, lens and focal length used for the shot. The comments in the far right column were notes during encode. Those issues have been addressed. We had nothing but problems with x265 this time around. Hopefully we caught, and resolved, all of the major compression artifacts.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bdyeo...fy97lpxm8yl8bo

I don't have the best of lucks with links on the site, so I hope this works.

My two favorite montage videos are HDR Analyzer and Graded vs. Ungraded.

If you look at the shot list, the entire reason for the Graded vs. Ungraded was shot 12. You can see how blue the thumbnail is. And the lack of sunlight in the clouds. I thought this shot showed just how powerful color grading is.

ANother shot is shot 17. You will notice that the sun to the right of frame is not present. It is fake and was added in post. In the same shot is a pixel that flashes read towards the bottom of frame. It turns out just happens to have some dead pixels in that area, so I never saw it until it was too late.

If you have questions about specific shots in the montage, this will make it easier to let me know which shot it is.

The chapter next and previous buttons jump between each shot this time around. The left and right arrows jump between different versions of the montage and try and stay on the same shot. If you start at HDR10 10K and play shot 6, horses in snow. You can press the right arrow to jump to 2000, then 1000, and 600. Makes it a nice way to see the difference.

Shots 21 and 50 have VFX sun replacement. Shot 50, in particular, I am really happy with. In the original, which you can see in Graded vs. Ungraded, clips has sensor noise where it clipped. The current disc has the same issue.

Shot 45 has some light leaking on the right of frame that was removed, where the ferry departs. Similar issue on shot 67.

Shot 54 I have called C.W.A. or Cows with Attitudes. The cow in the middle I have called Beef Cube. For some reason it reminds me of the cover from Straight outta Compton from N.W.A.

There is some chroma moire that can show up in the feathers of shot 56 with lower quality scaling algorithms.

There are some dust specs on Shot 58 that were removed.

Shot 60 has some demosaic artifacts. (Green edges) This really stands out in the SDR version, which I believe is because of the sharpening done to try and match the natural sharpness of HDR at high nit levels. Shot 28 and 66 are the only shots in HDR that had some sharpening applied during color grading, as far as I recall. A lot more was done with SDR to try and match HDR. This results in some flickers in the feathers of the raptors.

The purple was corrected back to a proper blue on shots 29, 41, 42, 44 and 45. If you still see some purple in HDR10, that is a hue shift. In DV, its more accurate. At least when you compare the two on an LG C9 and CX. I call those two out because I happen to have those two.

4 shots were replaced between last disc and this one. Other shots were deleted to lengthen other shots. Those are subtle.

For those that have Atmos, we would love your feedback on the new montage audio. We have not heard it in Atmos yet. We did want some aggressive use of the height speakers.

All Atmos audio was mixed by Marc Fishman. Marc created the Atmos panning clips as well, which we are very happy with. The feedback we have received is that those panning clips have helped people fine tune the levels of their Atmos setup. Again, we hope those with Atmos will share feedback. Positive or negative.

The SDR vs. HDR is different than last time around. Last time we used a 100 nit SDR and the 10K HDR. This time we set the peak luminance of SDR (White text on title card) to 203 nits. We also used the 1000 nit version for HDR. In fact, all of the "vs." shots use the 1000 nit HDR.

The HDR Analyzer waveforms are based on the 10K version. The lower left image was then tone mapped down to 1000 for viewing.

We are planning to partake in some YouTube interviews over the next couple of months. Hopefully some good questions are asked.

As I have posted in the past. The initial run of the discs was rather small, so that if issues are found, we have fewer to replace. So, if you find an issue, please post it. We will, of course, replace discs free of charge, if we end up fixing any issues. As of now, the only known issue is the typo on the menu of one of the discs. The risk was too high to fix the typo, sadly.

[Stacey Spears]

More notes.

DTM
The skin tone content has a real color checker chart next to each model. The lower left chip is the brightest chip. It should measure somewhere around 132-134 nits. We have seen that dynamic tone mapping has raised that chip to over 200 nits, which is incorrect.

Color Temp
One of the new patterns is called Color Temp. Almost everyone thinks it is inverted when they see it. I can assure you, it is not. The pattern really needs a gray reference, like an optical comparator to work best. The idea is you first ignore the numbers on the side and simply find the row that matches the D65 reference. Once you find that row, you look on the right side and see what it says. If it is the row that says D65, you are golden. If the row says -1000, that means you are too warm and need to raise color temp by 1000. If it says 1000, then you are too cool and need to lower the color temp. The reason people think it is inverted is because blue is on the bottom where it says -1500 and a warm orange on the top where it says +1500. The numbers are not meant to be an absolute color temp but rather tell you which direction you are off and need to adjust. Hopefully that makes sense.

Grades
There are only two grades on the disc. The 10K is the HDR master and SDR is the SDR master.

The 2000, 1000 and 600 versions are tone mapped from the 10K master using Dolby Vision tone mapping to the target. This was done offline using Colofront Transkoder. Those specific values are chosen because those are the trim pass levels that Dolby offers.

Hue Shift
You should also start using the hue shift pattern when showing different displays and DV. In DV, Lumagen and MadVR Envy, the top row of blue stays blue vs. HDR10 where it often goes purple. Purple is wrong. If you go to the specialty menu and play hue shift in DV, you can try absolute mode, where it turns off tone mapping and the blue becomes purple. Put it back in perceptual and it's blue again.

4:4:4
If you want to see LG's 4:4:4 mode work, go to the HDR10 10K RGB legal zone plates. Then turn it on and off. In the Off position, the left and right 3rds will be dimmer, which means a loss of detail. In 4:4:4 mode, the brightness is equal across the frame, which means higher resolution chroma. Since the content on disc is 4:2:0, there should not be loss like this, but there is. It is even worse on Sony.

Gamut
if you go to Analysis -> Gamut -> P3 in 2020 -> Red. On the LG, Sony and in DV mode on other displays, the color is correct. On the Samsung, Panasonic, JVC and BenQ, the color is wrong. What makes this special is that the stimulus is at 100%. If you go to saturation sweeps, the stimulus is 58% and you don't see this error.

DV Resolution Loss
In DV, if you look at the chroma crossed or regular zone plate, you will see the image go almost black and white on the far left and right. This is a complete roll-off of chroma detail. It is all there in HDR10. If you are going to compare HDR10 to DV, use the 10K HDR10 since that plays the same file on disc as Dolby Vision, just w/o the metadata applied. You can also see this on the color space eval patterns on the bursts at the top. HDR10 they are fine. They are also fine in DV on the HD version.

[Robert Zohn]

Our first allocation/shipment of Spears & Munsil's new Ultra HD Benchmark 2023 3 disc set will arrive in our store by the end of next week. So we'll be ready to ship all of our orders on May 15th.

We are loving all of the new test patterns and amazing video content!! These new Benchmark discs has given us the ability to set-up all of the TVs in our showroom to deliver the exceptional video performance they so well deserve.

[INdetectableMAN]

I'm going to order two copies. Unfortunately, however, I have not been able to find my receipts for the two copies of the first edition that I own.

For me these discs are a dream come true. I hope to enjoy them a lot.

[KC-Technerd]

Originally Posted by INdetectableMAN

I'm going to order two copies. Unfortunately, however, I have not been able to find my receipts for the two copies of the first edition that I own.

For me these discs are a dream come true. I hope to enjoy them a lot.

If you happened to order them through Amazon, you should be able to retrieve the receipts (invoices) from the order history on the Amazon website. That's how I retrieved mine for the upgrade credit.

[Robert Zohn]

Same ^ for our clients who purchased the original disc from us. You will not need your original receipt.

For other new customers that want the upgrade promotional offer we'll need your original receipt and the pictures of your disc.

[INdetectableMAN]

Robert, do you ship to Spain? If so, I'll wait for you to have it available.

[mrtickleuk]

Originally Posted by INdetectableMAN

Robert, do you ship to Spain? If so, I'll wait for you to have it available.

You'll probably be better off getting it from the UK. See here:

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

Just bought my upgrade copy via the UK site (https://www.biaslighting.co.uk/produ...benchmark-2023), came to £27.93 with shipping. You have to get your discount code via the form linked to above on the US site (https://www.biaslighting.com/pages/s...pgrade-program).

[INdetectableMAN]

Thank you

[Robert Zohn]

@INdetectableMAN thanks for asking, you will thoroughly enjoy using Spear's & Munsil's new 3 disc set! Also thanks to @mrtickleuk for the good advice.

[Stacey Spears]

I tested on the Panasonic player this weekend and the issue with Absolute is either an OPPO issue or MediaTek issue because the Panasonic 9000 does not have that problem. It stays in proper absolute when you bring up the pop-up menu.

[xskip]

avail. in EU, not UK. any spec. shop? thank you.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I tested on the Panasonic player this weekend and the issue with Absolute is either an OPPO issue or MediaTek issue because the Panasonic 9000 does not have that problem. It stays in proper absolute when you bring up the pop-up menu.

Methinks the ‘special chip’ inside the OPPO has quite a few problems with Dobly. I only use the Panny for watching DV discs.

[Stacey Spears]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Methinks the ‘special chip’ inside the OPPO has quite a few problems with Dobly. I only use the Panny for watching DV discs.

The OPPO has the levels issue, which you can see on the new disc. Go to the Color Space Eval pattern and look at the EOTF tracking at the top. Then switch to HDR10 and back to DV and the top is now different. Only fix is to eject the disc I think. I believe this is the issue everyone complained about.

The Sony 700 Mk II did not have the same issue and it is also MediaTek.

I just wish the Panasonic was faster, had source direct and could play a disc image from HDD.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

The OPPO has the levels issue, which you can see on the new disc. Go to the Color Space Eval pattern and look at the EOTF tracking at the top. Then switch to HDR10 and back to DV and the top is now different. Only fix is to eject the disc I think. I believe this is the issue everyone complained about.

The Sony 700 Mk II did not have the same issue and it is also MediaTek.

I just wish the Panasonic was faster, had source direct and could play a disc image from HDD.

I love my OPPO for those reasons, it’s why I’ve kept both players (as well as the Sony X800 I got when I bought my ZD9).

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I tested on the Panasonic player this weekend and the issue with Absolute is either an OPPO issue or MediaTek issue because the Panasonic 9000 does not have that problem. It stays in proper absolute when you bring up the pop-up menu.

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

The OPPO has the levels issue, which you can see on the new disc. Go to the Color Space Eval pattern and look at the EOTF tracking at the top. Then switch to HDR10 and back to DV and the top is now different. Only fix is to eject the disc I think. I believe this is the issue everyone complained about.

The Sony 700 Mk II did not have the same issue and it is also MediaTek.

I just wish the Panasonic was faster, had source direct and could play a disc image from HDD.

I certainly hope the results from usage of your new discs encourage various companies to fast track pertinent firmware updates.

[KC-Technerd]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I just wish the Panasonic was faster, had source direct and could play a disc image from HDD.

I just wish Oppo Digital still had a software engineering team to address any issues that have or may be revealed with the UDP-203/205. Continuing firmware support for these units would be most welcome.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I just wish the Panasonic was faster, had source direct and could play a disc image from HDD.

Re source direct: have you seen any artefacts or non-defeatable processing taking place with all relevant settings at default or 0?