HDR and dynamic contrast

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

I really doubt that is the case, no offense. It's a processing mode on top of the normal image, by it's very definition. I looked your set up on Rtings and it lacks the nits and color volume to really display HDR 10 properly, which is why you want that extra contrast and brightness. Simple as that really. That's why so many want Dolby Vision's dynamic metadata, so that kind of thing will be less of an issue.

Please don't take this offensively, I know people can be sensitive about their setups. I'm just trying to give the blunt advice I wish I got when I had my older TV, which was very similar.

I know my set is not premium. I've said that many times. It's a killer set for the price I paid, considering it includes outstanding passive 3D as well as fairly decent HDR and a crisp 4k image, along with the best OS available for a TV. But I certainly admit it has some weaknesses, mainly the obvious limited HDR due to the low nits, combined with very limited local dimming that has some obvious visual drawbacks, along with some annoying vertical banding (dirty screen effect). It still produces a gorgeous image when it's at its best.

Rtings, as I have mentioned before, gets their facts wrong at times. I have exchanged emails myself with them over this set, pointing out both positives and negatives that he didn't mention about the model.

No offense, but since you have not had any experience with these models regarding this development with HDR, I don't feel you are in a position to comment on this without having tried it for yourself. I have said many times that I never use dynamic contrast for obvious reasons, so that should give you a bit of faith in what I have said. I would not be using it if it was having a negative effect on the image. I always run my set with all "enhancements" off. In this case however, LG has confused things by tying their HDR modes directly to dynamic contrast. There's a reason it is being discussed on multiple sites and forums.

[TVENOMG]

I purchased an LG 49sj810v Nanocell TV last week on sale for €800 and I have to agree, I use expert mode bright room with some slight calibrations and dynamic contrast set to off for my HD SDR content and im getting good images. For HDR 4K Im using standard hdr mode with brightness 48 dynamic contrast low and local dimming off when watching movies and on low when watching full screen content ie Planet Earth 4K hdr. Gotta say it blew me away for an IPS screen the active hdr and dynamic contrast make all the difference withoit affecting Picture quality.

[i_max2k2]

On my 2016 LG OLED E6, if I enable Dynamic contrast, I get black crush/pixelation in dark scenes. I have it disabled, and like the unprocessed PQ as is.

[Hucksta G]

Originally Posted by i_max2k2

On my 2016 LG OLED E6, if I enable Dynamic contrast, I get black crush/pixelation in dark scenes. I have it disabled, and like the unprocessed PQ as is.

Yeah I gave it a go on mine and much preferred the look when it was off.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by i_max2k2

On my 2016 LG OLED E6, if I enable Dynamic contrast, I get black crush/pixelation in dark scenes. I have it disabled, and like the unprocessed PQ as is.

It's possible you have your brightness dialed down too low. That would lead to black crush. My LED set is currently on 48. Any lower and it starts to crush blacks (dynamic contrast on or off) and if I go much higher than a couple extra notches the blacks get washed out quick. My set has a very narrow range for the brightness setting in HDR mode. Note I mean brightness, not backlight.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Hucksta G

Yeah I gave it a go on mine and much preferred the look when it was off.

I think for many or most people HDR settings is total guesswork which makes things all the more complicated. I am not getting any black crush with dynamic contrast on medium. I have watched closely for black crush. I'm thinking many people have their brightness setting either too low or too high. As I mentioned, my LG set has a very narrow brightness range before things go bad, whether or not I use dynamic contrast.

[Hucksta G]

Originally Posted by mar3o

I think for many or most people HDR settings is total guesswork which makes things all the more complicated. I am not getting any black crush with dynamic contrast on medium. I have watched closely for black crush. I'm thinking many people have their brightness setting either too low or too high. As I mentioned, my LG set has a very narrow brightness range before things go bad, whether or not I use dynamic contrast.

I didn't spot any black crush but I just ended up preferring it off. When I put dynamic contrast on low it was almost too bright and unnatural looking.

[i_max2k2]

Originally Posted by mar3o

It's possible you have your brightness dialed down too low. That would lead to black crush. My LED set is currently on 48. Any lower and it starts to crush blacks (dynamic contrast on or off) and if I go much higher than a couple extra notches the blacks get washed out quick. My set has a very narrow range for the brightness setting in HDR mode. Note I mean brightness, not backlight.

I have it dialed down where there is no black crush, in an oled there is a specific way to get there in SDR, for HDR I usually change it from movie to movie (for discs), dynamic contrast produces artifacts, for games though it does help. I don't know why games benefit fine but movies don't.

[mairj]

Originally Posted by mar3o

So a couple weeks ago I finally got to try out a couple UHD movies (Lucy and Passengers) on my LG UHD LCD set (UH8500), and of course I had to start experimenting with my picture settings to do my best to avoid black crush or an overblown picture. One thing I noticed right away was that the image was rather dull and flat. HDR was enabled, and I had the TV set to HDR standard mode (the other options being HDR vivid and HDR bright). So I experimented a bit and decided to try enabling dynamic contrast - something I would never do with standard DVD/blu-ray viewing.

To my surprise, the image immediately came to life. Tons of detail that was completely lost in the dark areas came out of nowhere. The entire image transformed. I went back and forth on many scenes, with dynamic contrast on and off, to see if I was crushing blacks with it on, or blowing out highlights, and to my eyes, I was not. To me, it appeared that dynamic contrast was absolutely necessary for my set to properly display HDR content.

Then I remembered reading a post about that last year in the thread for my TV over on AVS. Basically they said that the set was designed for dynamic contrast to be enabled for HDR. With it off, the set wouldn't display HDR to it's fullest. From what I've seen this is absolutely true.

My brightness setting is at 48, with backlight and contrast at the default 100. I experimented with low vs med vs high, and medium seems the way to go on my LG set. Medium actually seems to balance the image better, as well as provide a bit more life to the image. High seems a bit too aggressive. Low adds a bit less pop, and medium seems to bring out more shadow detail while actually balancing the blacks better. Blacks aren't very good on my set anyways, but medium actually dials the blacks in a bit better than low.

I'm wondering now how many other people are trying HDR on their LG sets with dynamic contrast off, and feeling disappointed afterwards. I like my images to look balanced and natural, not cartoony or over-saturated, so it's not that dynamic contrast is cranking everything up to some gaudy hyper-stylized look. Just the opposite. Are all sets this way? Like I said, I always leave this setting off, since I played around with the option with blu-rays back when I first got the set, and decided that it does more damage than good. But with HDR, I really think it's a requirement, at least for this LG model. Without it, the image is just lifeless and dull, with no shadow detail to speak of. I can't imagine that's how it is intended to look.

Any input from others who have tried this?

I too prefer how my UH8500 looks with dynamic contrast set at medium, especially with HDR/Dolby Vision material. Just wondering, do you use local dimming on your set. I use mine at the medium setting to get better blacks but it can be a pain because most darker movies will have the pillars of light.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by mairj

I too prefer how my UH8500 looks with dynamic contrast set at medium, especially with HDR/Dolby Vision material. Just wondering, do you use local dimming on your set. I use mine at the medium setting to get better blacks but it can be a pain because most darker movies will have the pillars of light.

I also have local dimming set to medium. I have found it gives the best performance on the 8500. This set has only 12 vertical dimming zones. For me, I've found that on low, the annoying local dimming "pillars" are at their brightest, while the black levels are only marginally improved. On high, smaller bright points are noticeably dimmed. Medium is ideal for this set as the black levels are about on par with the high setting, yet without the noticeable dimming of smaller bright points.

I agree the pillars are noticeable and annoying at times, but as I'm sure you know, it depends on the content. Even some dark scenes are fine - it depends more on the balance of the dark scene - if the scene is dark but balanced, the pillars aren't much of an issue. If somebody lights a lantern off to the side, then suddenly that whole vertical zone needs to light up. It's still far better than turning local dimming off though. The blacks are horrid on this set with local dimming off. On medium at least they are tolerable.

Local dimming on medium and dynamic contrast on low or medium for HDR is the way to go with this set.

[oddbox83]

A preference for medium here too. It's not perfect, but seems to be the most acceptable compromise for better blacks and excellent whites.

[mar3o]

I've been experimenting and on my UH8500 I have found that LED local dimming is better on high for HDR. I leave it on medium for SDR for the reasons I mentioned above, but due to the brightness of HDR and the backlight being cranked up to 20, the vertical local dimming "pillars' of this set are especially noticeable and annoying, especially when they cut across the letterbox bars. By bumping LED local dimming up to high, it helps mask those pillars more, and the brightness of the HDR offsets any highlight dimming that happens on high in SDR mode.

[mairj]

I'll have to give it a try. I was watching Sicario the other night (bought it recently on cyber Monday for cheap) and that ending sequence at night in the car is painful to watch with the "pillars of light" popping up.

[eddievanhalen]

Are you talking about edge-lit LED pannels?

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by mar3o

I've been experimenting and on my UH8500 I have found that LED local dimming is better on high for HDR. I leave it on medium for SDR for the reasons I mentioned above, but due to the brightness of HDR and the backlight being cranked up to 20, the vertical local dimming "pillars' of this set are especially noticeable and annoying, especially when they cut across the letterbox bars. By bumping LED local dimming up to high, it helps mask those pillars more, and the brightness of the HDR offsets any highlight dimming that happens on high in SDR mode.

I've mine set to medium as a good all rounder, as I find the halos too distracting set on high, but I agree, local dimming appears to be a must for LED HDR. Higher peak whites in dark scenes make my LG look crap with it set to low. The LG doesn't have the best local dimming anyway (from what I can tell, higher end Sony's with lots of zones tend to get that) but I'm stuck with it until LG ever decides to reintroduce 3D to their newer OLEDs.

[GeneD5]

On my Sammy in my signature, I always have it on low by default for HDR. Case by case I bump it to medium bc sometimes it washes out detail, on other discs though it enhances even more.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

Are you talking about edge-lit LED pannels?

Yes, my UH8500 is an edge-lit. My set has very limited dimming zones, which are all vertical. They can be quite distracting at times, other times they are a non-issue. It depends entirely on the scene. Disabling it results in very poor blacks though so it has to be enabled, and HDR requiring the LEDs to be at full brightness just adds to the issue.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Yes, my UH8500 is an edge-lit. My set has very limited dimming zones, which are all vertical. They can be quite distracting at times, other times they are a non-issue. It depends entirely on the scene. Disabling it results in very poor blacks though so it has to be enabled, and HDR requiring the LEDs to be at full brightness just adds to the issue.

I also have an edge-lit Samsung 49'' 4K HDR set that has local dimming (I thought this was false, not possible with edge-lit pannels) and there's no way to disable it. Anyway, it's a series 6 set that I bought for cheap (750 €, electronics are more expensive in Spain than in the US) and despite being a midrange set I'm very happy with it.

[Lee iley]

Hi guys duno if this is the right thread. I have just got the LG c7 OLED and was just wondering what are the best settings for 4k I've played around with them but duno if I have done it right. I do have dynamic contrast set on low to activate hdr active. Also my picture mode is set at cinema home. With contrast set at 100 and OLED light set at 100 brightness 50 colour 50. Sharpness 20 and have warm 2 also set. Are these the right settings? Also do I keep these settings the same for standard blueray discs? Thanks for any help Lee.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by mar3o

I've been experimenting and on my UH8500 I have found that LED local dimming is better on high for HDR. I leave it on medium for SDR for the reasons I mentioned above, but due to the brightness of HDR and the backlight being cranked up to 20, the vertical local dimming "pillars' of this set are especially noticeable and annoying, especially when they cut across the letterbox bars. By bumping LED local dimming up to high, it helps mask those pillars more, and the brightness of the HDR offsets any highlight dimming that happens on high in SDR mode.

After experimenting some more, I've decided that local dimming on high does affect the brightness negatively in some areas on the screen on my set. Medium does indeed seem to be the best balance.