Is Windows HDR broken beyond repair or is that cynicism?

Niber · March 19, 2022

Hi,

I would have loved to start using HDR in my daily Windows use (including just surfing the web, not just in games and such), however I seem to be having some minor issues.

The problem with searching the web for fixes to these minor issues, is that I'm getting a lot of cynicism. People who are just answering every thread with "Windows HDR sucks", "Windows sucks", "HDR sucks".

Personally I'm actually only having 2 issues with HDR:

1) Snipping tool doesn't work. For my work I often need to take and send screen grab of things.

2) There's something wrong with the black level in some SDR movies. If I watch a black screen (for example the credit roll) in a compressed SDR movie, the black background is a bit too grey (which is showing a lot of compression flaws). When I open the same movie with Windows HDR Off, that same creditroll background is much closer to true black. I'm using VLC but I think I maybe tried some other player and had the same problem.

Has anyone gotten Windows 10 HDR to work so good that they can leave it on at all times?

xg32 · March 20, 2022

it takes some tinkering but it works situationally, i keep my hdr on and use it full screen windowed. netflix took some delicate steps to get working (or just use a ps5), i havent had problems with sdr content aside from some screenshots.

circeseye · March 20, 2022

win 10 hdr is touch and go but more washed out, but win 11 hdr is soooooo much better, blacks look black in hdr
as for you complaining about black levels on some sdr movie. well yea, its sdr and depending on the compression/format it was made it will show. the higher the resolution the movie/show is the better the picture will be. but if your on win 10 yes its even worse, blacks looking grey

not sure about snipping tool thou

Stahlmann · March 21, 2022

I have HDR enabled 24/7.

On 3/19/2022 at 9:01 PM, Niber said:

Personally I'm actually only having 2 issues with HDR:

1) Snipping tool doesn't work. For my work I often need to take and send screen grab of things.

I often use the integrated snipping tool (Windows + Shift + S), works perfectly for me.

On 3/19/2022 at 9:01 PM, Niber said:

2) There's something wrong with the black level in some SDR movies. If I watch a black screen (for example the credit roll) in a compressed SDR movie, the black background is a bit too grey (which is showing a lot of compression flaws). When I open the same movie with Windows HDR Off, that same creditroll background is much closer to true black. I'm using VLC but I think I maybe tried some other player and had the same problem.

Has anyone gotten Windows 10 HDR to work so good that they can leave it on at all times?

In my experience it heavily depends on the monitor side of things. All the semi-hdr monitors i had in the past looked a lot worse with HDR enabled on the desktop. But the Asus PG35VQ i have now looks exactly the same no matter if HDR is enabled or disabled. This leads me to believe it's actually the monitor brands fucking it up, not Microsoft with their Windows implementation.

Imo nothing really changed in terms of HDR between W10 and W11.

The only thing W11 added was Auto-HDR conversion for SDR content which is pretty bad and not worth using imo. It only takes the SDR content and scales the brightness up to what your monitor reports in terms of peak brightness. For my PG35VQ this means most SDR content is 1100 nits bright. As a result the APL (average picture level or brightness) is just way too high, it doesn't add any more detail and is literally just the same but brighter.

Come to think of it: The only reason i switched to W11 in the first place was AutoHDR, but that turned out to be a bummer. Why am i still using W11? xD

If HDR looks bad on desktop just leave it disabled and enable it with Windows + B before launching an HDR app.

Niber · April 20, 2022

On 3/21/2022 at 11:35 PM, Stahlmann said:

I have HDR enabled 24/7.

I often use the integrated snipping tool (Windows + Shift + S), works perfectly for me.

In my experience it heavily depends on the monitor side of things. All the semi-hdr monitors i had in the past looked a lot worse with HDR enabled on the desktop. But the Asus PG35VQ i have now looks exactly the same no matter if HDR is enabled or disabled. This leads me to believe it's actually the monitor brands fucking it up, not Microsoft with their Windows implementation.

Imo nothing really changed in terms of HDR between W10 and W11.

The only thing W11 added was Auto-HDR conversion for SDR content which is pretty bad and not worth using imo. It only takes the SDR content and scales the brightness up to what your monitor reports in terms of peak brightness. For my PG35VQ this means most SDR content is 1100 nits bright. As a result the APL (average picture level or brightness) is just way too high, it doesn't add any more detail and is literally just the same but brighter.

Come to think of it: The only reason i switched to W11 in the first place was AutoHDR, but that turned out to be a bummer. Why am i still using W11? xD

If HDR looks bad on desktop just leave it disabled and enable it with Windows + B before launching an HDR app.

That was a great answer. Thanks.

Like you're saying, I don't want to scale SDR content up into HDR. The plan is to sit in such a dark room that the full monitor brightness is WAY too bright for regular use, but ok for that occasional sun or flashlight effect in HDR movies.

That's an interesting theory regarding monitor. With my problematic SDR movies, it could indeed be the tone-mapping of my Samsung G9 Neo that does weird things to the darker spectrum, which is causing MS's attempt to send an SDR inside of a HDR look slightly off.