comparison Can someone tell me if the HDR actually looks better?

[Mr.Stork]

I'm doing a poll so I understand if the hdr is actually making the experience better. I bought a Lenovo Legion 5i, and idk if I like the HDR better than normal SDR

 

(NOTE: I DIDNT PIARET THESE, THESE ARE SAMPLES FROM FFMPEG: https://samples.ffmpeg.org/4khdr/)

 

Picture 1 Ahm:

 

Picture 2:

 

 

Spoiler answer: Please vote in poll before reading spoiler

Spoiler

Picture 1 is the HDR screenshot which colors looks muted, but the SDR one looks kinda better probably as it has more contrast and brightness, thats why I made the poll, was the room supposed to look less contrasty?

Please explain if I should get HDR or SDR from now on

[ki8aras]

as far as i know, HDR is meant to increase contrast so it kind of defeats the point here

[Eigenvektor]

Can't really compare HDR to SDR looking at it on an SDR monitor.

 

~edit: To add a bit more detail: HDR monitors typically have 10 bit of color information per subpixel, compared to 8 bit for an HDR monitor. They also have a much higher maximum brightness. This means you get roughly 1.07 billion possible colors instead of 16.7 million for SDR. It also means you get higher contrast level (the difference between darkest and lightest color)

 

Looking at a still image with HDR content on an SDR monitor isn't really going to work, since the monitor can't show the extra detail. All of these "here's why HDR better" photos you see in ads are basically fake, by playing with contrast levels and colors to emulate the effect, because you can't show real HDR on a non-HDR monitor.

[Quackers101]

Doesn't seem like a very HDR contrast, HDR is hard to get right and it can be different for each content.

HDR should be better, when done "right" and having the right setup. If you have a lower grade of HDR too, or a useless grade, then HDR might not be worth it at all.

If HDR is worth it at all, until that and dolby vision actually has a market that is worth it for the general consumer.

 

skip parts in this video.

Spoiler

 

 

[SolarNova]

While Picture 2 does seem to pop more, its obviously over saturated, skin is almost pink and the pancakes almost neon yellow.

 

Picture 1 doesnt pop, but tones look more natural.

 

On a calibrated HDR TV with correct brightness etc, Picture 1 would likely look better imo.

 

On a uncalibrated SDR display however, picture 2 will likely look better to most.

[xg32]

@Mr.Storkit's definitely possible to tell which one is hdr. 1 looks better on my sdr mon and 2 looks better on my hdr mon (i lowered the brightness since i sit close).

 

Some apps/games just have crappy hdr (most of the competitive shooters) and there isn't much to be done about that, some games do a good job of it and it does look better (sekiro, 2077), as for whether it's worth it, personal preference 

[Mr.Stork]

On 2/21/2021 at 11:15 PM, xg32 said:

@Mr.Storkit's definitely possible to tell which one is hdr. 1 looks better on my sdr mon and 2 looks better on my hdr mon (i lowered the brightness since i sit close).

 

Some apps/games just have crappy hdr (most of the competitive shooters) and there isn't much to be done about that, some games do a good job of it and it does look better (sekiro, 2077), as for whether it's worth it, personal preference 

Well that doesn't make sense, because if you read the spoiler in my post, it says pic 1 is the hdr screenshot, then why would pic 1 look good on SDR monitor and pic 2 on HDR.

 

You actually can download and test it yourselfI, I've added link to the ffmpeg samples

[Mr.Stork]

On 2/21/2021 at 9:44 PM, SolarNova said:

While Picture 2 does seem to pop more, its obviously over saturated, skin is almost pink and the pancakes almost neon yellow.

 

Picture 1 doesnt pop, but tones look more natural.

 

On a calibrated HDR TV with correct brightness etc, Picture 1 would likely look better imo.

 

On a uncalibrated SDR display however, picture 2 will likely look better to most.

Looking from my phone's screen, pic 1 looks wayy more natural, pic 2 just is so much more contrast than normal.

 

The problem is idk how the director wanted it to look, did they wanted it to pop or look natural, knowing that I would know if my laptop screen is actually hdr capable

[Mr.Stork]

On 2/21/2021 at 4:46 PM, Quackers101 said:

Doesn't seem like a very HDR contrast, HDR is hard to get right and it can be different for each content.

HDR should be better, when done "right" and having the right setup. If you have a lower grade of HDR too, or a useless grade, then HDR might not be worth it at all.

If HDR is worth it at all, until that and dolby vision actually has a market that is worth it for the general consumer.

 

skip parts in this video.

  Hide contents

 

 

So how do I calibrate my laptop screen to make it look good? Legion 5i says it has full Adobe RGB idk if that's useful for HDR.

[Quackers101]

50 minutes ago, Mr.Stork said:

So how do I calibrate my laptop screen to make it look good? Legion 5i says it has full Adobe RGB idk if that's useful for HDR.

Don't know how accurate but something like this.

You don't always have to calibrate, but can improve a little if it was already calibrated (like adobe rgb) and you need tools for calibrating, and sometimes it might just lack in other areas that you likely can't get on a laptop. As more powerful displays use more power, if you have oled however, you might get some nice contrast etc, if you even want to go with oled displays.

 

Don't know if it detects when it uses or switches between sRGB and adobe, for that type of content.