HDR/SDR differences

[finnjaeger]

had to adress what linus said about not understanding the difference between high luminance SDR and HDR.
 

I found this interesting because back when HDR came along i was i  college for media engineering and I had the same thought.  (i an going to ignore wide gamut for now) 

 

If my display can show 0 to 1000 NIT SDR its just as much dynamic range as a HDR display doing the same . 

 

And this is all correct.

 

Also you can encode abritrary amounts of source dynamic range in either HDR or SDR, you can make them look exactly the same, and thats also true. If you have the theoretical display that can do 0-1000 NITs there is no difference if you map the signal to a PQ curve or ye old gamma 2.4 curve. so yes it will look the same 

 

But now comes the part that makes HDR interesting and that is the difference between Absolute and relative encoding. 

 

In a PQ(ST2084) file luminances are encoded in a absolute way, so if I - in mastering set the luminance of the sky to 400NIT, it will be displayed at 400NIT on the consumer side, If I set skintones at 50NIT, again they will be displayed at 50NIT.  Or at least the consumer display will try its best. 

 

SDR is relative, so while you could say my full signal is 1000NIT, and thus match my HDR monitor, some other display might only do 150NIT, thus the image would look vastly different on that screen. This is basically what HLG is as well...

 

So HDR isnt a scam, its more about how stuff is mastered and the included metadata and downmapping on less capable displays.

 

If you look into displays the LEDs have their own curve from off too full luminance and all the TVs logic is doing when switching from HDR to SDR is providing mapping to the native Backlight/OLED EOTF. 

 

and then the reason why many displays cant go as bright in SDR is probably down to power consumption and cooling, as you will have a lot of sdr content living in the 80-100% signal range, a monitor that can do a small window of 1000NIT would exhibit crazy dimming between sdr images if they drive them this hard so i guess they limit them, otherwise bo reason - we use high luminance SDR monitors a lot for outside use , they exist. 

 

the sony  PVM x2400 for example can do 1000NIT full screen all day, and its a single layer LCD without local dimming with SDR content. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[emosun]

all i know is hdr always makes the image look worse. might be more accurate but if it looks like crap then why would i ever want that.

[Blue4130]

50 minutes ago, emosun said:

all i know is hdr always makes the image look worse. might be more accurate but if it looks like crap then why would i ever want that.

I don't agree with much of what you post, but this one, I am in full agreement. I've yet to see an HDR piece of content that doesn't look WAY over saturated and overly vibrant.

[MarkPol88]

You need 4 pieces of the puzzle for HDR to look good:

1 Content must be properly mastered for HDR

2 Your monitor/TV should not only be HDR compliant, it needs to have quite high peak brightness WITHOUT losing contrast ratio

3 Your source device (BD player, PC, console etc.) need to properly pass-through HDR metadata (especially with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision), which on Windows right now is hit and miss

4 Your TV/monitor need to be configured in picture settings as well (preferably calibrated, but who does that)

That is why usually symptoms like this:

1 hour ago, emosun said:

all i know is hdr always makes the image look worse. might be more accurate but if it looks like crap then why would i ever want that.

33 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

I've yet to see an HDR piece of content that doesn't look WAY over saturated and overly vibrant.

can be explained by not fulfilling all prerequisites for it to look good.

 

Is it bad for HDR that it demands such costs? Of course it is, but we are getting there. Same as gaming in true 4K at higher refresh rates.

But please, do not say on the tech forum that HDR is universally bad.

[Alex Atkin UK]

46 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

I don't agree with much of what you post, but this one, I am in full agreement. I've yet to see an HDR piece of content that doesn't look WAY over saturated and overly vibrant.

What on earth are you watching on?

 

 I mean games, sure, they tend to do a very poor job most of the time particular on PC.  I've seen developers talk about it and from what I can gather HDR is just very poorly supported so developers end up doing a lot of guess work for the right settings, rather than following an actual standard.  Just detecting what your screen can support is borked.  Then there's the fact a lot of games over-saturate even in SDR for "artistic reasons".

Movies on the other hand, I've seen some insane ones like Ghostbusters Afterlife where its a night/day difference.  Also not seen an outright bad presentation in a long time, at worst its "well this is underwhelming".

 

Then there's Disney+ which were famous for putting SDR in an HDR container, so the TV says its HDR but its actually the SDR version, causing the TV to over-saturate.

[Blue4130]

29 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

What on earth are you watching on?

 

 I mean games, sure, they tend to do a very poor job most of the time particular on PC.  I've seen developers talk about it and from what I can gather HDR is just very poorly supported so developers end up doing a lot of guess work for the right settings, rather than following an actual standard.  Just detecting what your screen can support is borked.  Then there's the fact a lot of games over-saturate even in SDR for "artistic reasons".

Movies on the other hand, I've seen some insane ones like Ghostbusters Afterlife where its a night/day difference.  Also not seen an outright bad presentation in a long time, at worst its "well this is underwhelming".

 

Then there's Disney+ which were famous for putting SDR in an HDR container, so the TV says its HDR but its actually the SDR version, causing the TV to over-saturate.

I've watched on multiple screens using multiple sources. The only content that I found suited was animation. Others just looked over-cooked.

[finnjaeger]

as a dolby vision DI/mastering engineer I  would love to invite anyone claiming HDR looks bad to visit me in my mastering suite and watch HDR on a proper HDR monitor with properly mastered content.

  

 

its really eye-opening. 

[Andrewtst]

To me a proper HDR display will give you stunning HDR in every scenes and never over saturation as long the source is make for HDR or well mastered the SDR mapped into HDR.

 

HDR is another level of visual experience, in condition you have a proper display output.

[emosun]

2 hours ago, MarkPol88 said:

But please, do not say on the tech forum that HDR is universally bad.

yeah or what , am i breaking our anti HDR hate rule i don't know about. lol

new rule just dropped guys.....

[MarkPol88]

2 hours ago, emosun said:

new rule just dropped guys.....

The rule is - know when you are objectively wrong.

And I did not invent it.

[emosun]

28 minutes ago, MarkPol88 said:

The rule is - know when you are objectively wrong.

And I did not invent it.

ah ok leme type it more accurately.... I think it looks like crap and I don't like it regardless of what someone elses opinion of it is.

[MarkPol88]

7 hours ago, emosun said:

all i know is hdr always makes the image look worse

 

8 minutes ago, emosun said:

I think it looks like crap

See the difference? This is why I wrote my "rule" with word "please" that seemed to trigger you so much...

Now it is alright - stating opinion not "facts".

It was all I wanted to convey in my post - if it sounded "demanding" than I am sorry - English in not my first language and the blame is all mine.

[xg32]

7 hours ago, Andrewtst said:

To me a proper HDR display will give you stunning HDR in every scenes and never over saturation as long the source is make for HDR or well mastered the SDR mapped into HDR.

 

HDR is another level of visual experience, in condition you have a proper display output.

part of the reason is due to how srgb is an outdated standard that looks crappy for almost all content, even if color accurate. HDR on bd movies almost always look better.

 

As for games, special K filters that emulates the different color spaces (including p3 and 2020 with lower brightness) will look better than srgb, doesnt matter if it's technically oversaturated and inaccurate.

 

i'd rather have inaccurate sdr than inaccurate hdr in games though, my eyes can't handle it

 

We are slowly getting there on hdr adaptation, but consumers in general just care about price and size of the panels.

[Andrewtst]

3 hours ago, xg32 said:

i'd rather have inaccurate sdr than inaccurate hdr in games though, my eyes can't handle it

Agreed HDR gaming some is nice, some is not.
 

But in overall HDR is still stunning!

 

3 hours ago, xg32 said:

how srgb is an outdated standard

Absolutely agreed!

 

3 hours ago, xg32 said:

(including p3 and 2020 with lower brightness) will look better than srgb, doesnt matter if it's technically oversaturated and inaccurate.

Totally agreed! I very appreciate appear of HDR which make visual to next new level.

[MarkPol88]

19 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

Agreed HDR gaming some is nice, some is not.

Right now I think that consoles have the edge - with XBOX promoting Dolby Vision and Sony quite good HDR10 implementation.

I have PS5 and PC and the difference in the same games across this two platforms is staggering.

And yes, I know that Windows have a calibration tool now, like consoles, but lets just say that my results with it were not stellar.

[Andrewtst]

14 minutes ago, MarkPol88 said:

PS5 and PC and the difference in the same games across this two platforms is staggering.

Agreed! I also have PS5 and PC.

 

14 minutes ago, MarkPol88 said:

Windows

I hope Windows can improve better HDR implementation in the future.

[xg32]

10 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

Agreed! I also have PS5 and PC.

 

I hope Windows can improve better HDR implementation in the future.

i use my wifi hotspot to stream netflix and prime on ps5, also blu-rays, i'd be dead if i hold my breath for windows to get it together

[Andrewtst]

19 minutes ago, xg32 said:

i use my wifi hotspot to stream netflix and prime on ps5, also blu-rays, i'd be dead if i hold my breath for windows to get it together

I still prefer big TV, so I don’t use PC doing those things. 

[Blue4130]

16 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

I still prefer big TV, so I don’t use PC doing those things. 

You know that you can use a PC on a big tv right? I use a 65" tv as my main monitor.  4k 120hz, works great these days.

[finnjaeger]

Windows HDR is really bad, macOS HDR is much more advanced btw. 

 

Another thing that many are missing is that DolbyVision does absolutely NOTHING for you if your TV is matching or is better than the monitor the content was mastered on,  its great for 300NIT "HDR" Displays but thats about it really.. 

 

[Andrewtst]

4 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

You know that you can use a PC on a big tv right? I use a 65" tv as my main monitor.  4k 120hz, works great these days.

I know but I not prefer.

 

I got 42” used for PC and it is already a bit too big for me and I don’t seat far as I not prefer when using it with PC.

[Andrewtst]

2 minutes ago, finnjaeger said:

Windows HDR is really bad, macOS HDR is much more advanced btw. 

 

Another thing that many are missing is that DolbyVision does absolutely NOTHING for you if your TV is matching or is better than the monitor the content was mastered on,  its great for 300NIT "HDR" Displays but thats about it really.. 

 

macOS HDR is pretty well done, no complain.

 

Dolby Vision is not for Windows as not support. So for usage on Windows, I don’t care on Dolby Vision, but they is a thing for TV usage as many stream platform still did better in Dolby Vision than HDR10.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, xg32 said:

i use my wifi hotspot to stream netflix and prime on ps5, also blu-rays, i'd be dead if i hold my breath for windows to get it together

You're missing out there due to the PS5 not supporting Dolby Vision on Netflix AFAIK.  I use my TVs native app or ShieldTV.

 

Stranger Things looks particularly nice, though the limited edition UHD Blurays look slightly better than the streaming.  I still find my Panasonic UHD player has the edge over anything else when it comes to image quality, even from the same Bluray I ripped and played on something else.  Games consoles especially tend to have a somewhat soft output.

 

2 hours ago, Andrewtst said:

macOS HDR is pretty well done, no complain.

 

Dolby Vision is not for Windows as not support. So for usage on Windows, I don’t care on Dolby Vision, but they is a thing for TV usage as many stream platform still did better in Dolby Vision than HDR10.

I was absolutely staggered when I watched Home Before Dark on my Macbook vs LG C1.  It wasn't the kind of content I expected such a huge improvement on.

[Guest]

On 12/31/2023 at 11:42 AM, finnjaeger said:

had to adress what linus said about not understanding the difference between high luminance SDR and HDR.
 

I found this interesting because back when HDR came along i was i  college for media engineering and I had the same thought.  (i an going to ignore wide gamut for now) 

 

If my display can show 0 to 1000 NIT SDR its just as much dynamic range as a HDR display doing the same . 

 

And this is all correct.

 

Also you can encode abritrary amounts of source dynamic range in either HDR or SDR, you can make them look exactly the same, and thats also true. If you have the theoretical display that can do 0-1000 NITs there is no difference if you map the signal to a PQ curve or ye old gamma 2.4 curve. so yes it will look the same 

 

But now comes the part that makes HDR interesting and that is the difference between Absolute and relative encoding. 

 

In a PQ(ST2084) file luminances are encoded in a absolute way, so if I - in mastering set the luminance of the sky to 400NIT, it will be displayed at 400NIT on the consumer side, If I set skintones at 50NIT, again they will be displayed at 50NIT.  Or at least the consumer display will try its best. 

 

SDR is relative, so while you could say my full signal is 1000NIT, and thus match my HDR monitor, some other display might only do 150NIT, thus the image would look vastly different on that screen. This is basically what HLG is as well...

 

So HDR isnt a scam, its more about how stuff is mastered and the included metadata and downmapping on less capable displays.

 

If you look into displays the LEDs have their own curve from off too full luminance and all the TVs logic is doing when switching from HDR to SDR is providing mapping to the native Backlight/OLED EOTF. 

 

and then the reason why many displays cant go as bright in SDR is probably down to power consumption and cooling, as you will have a lot of sdr content living in the 80-100% signal range, a monitor that can do a small window of 1000NIT would exhibit crazy dimming between sdr images if they drive them this hard so i guess they limit them, otherwise bo reason - we use high luminance SDR monitors a lot for outside use , they exist. 

 

the sony  PVM x2400 for example can do 1000NIT full screen all day, and its a single layer LCD without local dimming with SDR content. 

 

 

 

HDR on dim displays looks dimmer than SDR, also shadows become visible thus looking fake. Can't forget the crazy saturation

[Stahlmann]

On 12/31/2023 at 11:03 AM, emosun said:

all i know is hdr always makes the image look worse. might be more accurate but if it looks like crap then why would i ever want that.

HDR is sadly still behind a big paywall. Most displays marketed as HDR still aren't really capable of it. And other than watching reviews, there isn't really anything out there helping consumers to differentiate between good and bad HDR displays.

 

But if you do have a good HDR display, it's a really big difference.

 

But in general good SDR is still better than bad HDR.

 

On 12/31/2023 at 11:55 AM, Blue4130 said:

I don't agree with much of what you post, but this one, I am in full agreement. I've yet to see an HDR piece of content that doesn't look WAY over saturated and overly vibrant.

Oversaturation is down to the display, not the type of content.