UHD and HDR in General

[Nw_jahrles]

Robert Harris on whether certain titles actually experience any benefit from the upgrade to UHD while reviewing some of Arrow's recent UHD releases:

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... hd.372957/

But sampling three new releases, what I'm not seeing is any rationale for 4k. In fact, I'm seeing a reason not to go that route, especially with Children of the Corn, produced by Hal Roach Studios, which has an extremely coarse grain structure verging on pointillism, as well as a lack of high frequency imagery aside from that grain.

Bird with the Crystal Plummage has soft main titles, and little imagery that may hit that 4k (or 3k, or 2k) barrier.

Same situation with Django, which doesn't have the requisite imagery to warrant the expense of a 4k release. If one is scanning the OCN, yes, by all means, do that at 4k for preservation, but a Blu-ray would have yielded equally lovely results outside of fan favorite HDR.

[senseabove]

Though those choice quotes read a little differently in light of what's on either side of them:

Don't get what I'm about to say wrong.

I love 4k UHD. Arrow...seems to be pushing 4k, and that's a good thing.
...
...
...
I'm simply noting that bringing out a film in 4k isn't a cookie cutter situation, and that films need to be properly vetted for resolution, as well as an myriad of other attributes before going that route.

[EddieLarkin]

In all three of those examples he is specifically talking about the resolution benefits (or lack thereof), whilst blithely dismssing HDR. I've said before that if you approach UHD like Blu-ray, as a disc format that offers a resolution bump and with it higher spatial detail, you're going to be disappointed. You can look at the Arrow restorations of Django and Bird with the Crystal Plumage on caps-a-holic.com, and compare the difference in detail between their UHD and BD releases, and sure enough you'll find they're pretty similar, even when zoomed*. If he thinks these are pointless wait until he sees The Hills Have Eyes and Martin (both 16mm productions but both restored from 35mm blow up elements)!

As for Children of the Corn, Harris goes further and says the resolution bump is a detriment because of how grainy the film is, but I'd be surprised if the Blu-ray didn't give off the same effect. In fact Harris contradicts himself here, on the one hand saying Blu-ray will suffice and on the other saying 4K adds too much.

But yeah ultimately, if one isn't going to engage with HDR, one may as well not engage with UHD.

*this is why it is so dumb that people complain about modern films released on UHD being almost exclusively sourced from 2K DIs

[hearthesilence]

In all three of those examples he is specifically talking about the resolution benefits (or lack thereof), whilst blithely dismssing HDR. I've said before that if you approach UHD like Blu-ray, as a disc format that offers a resolution bump and with it higher spatial detail, you're going to be disappointed. You can look at the Arrow restorations of Django and Bird with the Crystal Plumage on caps-a-holic.com, and compare the difference in detail between their UHD and BD releases, and sure enough you'll find they're pretty similar, even when zoomed*. If he thinks these are pointless wait until he sees The Hills Have Eyes and Martin (both 16mm productions but both restored from 35mm blow up elements)!

As for Children of the Corn, Harris goes further and says the resolution bump is a detriment because of how grainy the film is, but I'd be surprised if the Blu-ray didn't give off the same effect. In fact Harris contradicts himself here, on the one hand saying Blu-ray will suffice and on the other saying 4K adds too much.

But yeah ultimately, if one isn't going to engage with HDR, one may as well not engage with UHD.

*this is why it is so dumb that people complain about modern films released on UHD being almost exclusively sourced from 2K DIs

Even if you take HDR out of the picture, a super-grainy image will probably look better in 4K than HD, right? The grain just resolves better so even if the detail of the original image capture isn't really there, the generally texture of the scanned film element will still benefit. Anyway, good use of HDR is far more beneficial, so maybe it's a moot point.

[EddieLarkin]

I would say so, absolutely. But I haven't seen Children of the Corn. Though I doubt Harris sat and compared the UHD to the BD to make a proper determination that the former looked worse.

[tenia]

The fine grain texture of an OCN already resolves better at 4k even when just released on BD, ie downscaled to "2k", I can't see (and what I saw so far supports this) how UHD doesn't support further this better high-frequencies and texture's resolution.

As for RAH, he's shown many times before than despite his deep technical knowledge, most likely including digital restorations related things, he isn't very knowledge once he gets to video related elements.
Also, I seem to recall he has a VP, so that wouldn't be surprising for him to be struggling with the HDR-related improvements since VPs are still quite limited in this regard.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

the top 4 best UHD players available (the others being the Panasonic 820 and 9000).

What’s the difference between these two? Price is almost double. Also, the 420 is half the price of the 820, and the only difference I see there is that the 820 can output analog audio. I assume this means that if I don’t have a receiver capable of converting Atmos, etc. the player will do it for me?

Don't know if you've already decided which one to buy, but: If you are thinking about jailbreaking the 420, making it region free, there would be no difference between it and the 820, apart from the analogue output (which is too flimsy to fill audiophile needs [if you have an audiophile analogue setup, you should go for the 9000]). There is literally no difference between the internals of the 420 and the 820, and when jailbroken, the 420 also supports Dolby Vision.

[senseabove]

Well, I ended up making the jump sooner rather than later for a variety of reasons, among them a haggleable local salesman and a great Labor Day Weekend deal. Went with a Sony A80J OLED, and, to put it briefly, I am now an avowed believer. I'm sure a not insignificant amount of the shock of difference is due to moving from a mid-tier projector that's several years old and a third party lamp with a few hundred hours on it, to a top-tier TV (and some of it probably comes from sunk cost, sure...). But after scanning around the few UHD releases I have just to take a gander and play with configurations, the first movie I put on was Rear Window, and if that's the best the TV ever looks...well, I have no regrets.

I chose Rear Window for my first UHD watch because it's a movie I've seen on film numerous times in several theaters, so it's probably the movie whose theatrical film presentation I know better than any other, not least because it's also a movie whose previous BD release I loathe, my disappointment with disc only making my appreciation of the film (in both senses) stronger every time I see either. The BD presentation is a boosted neon travesty oblivious to just how controlled and pervasive the movie's shadows are; it makes Stewart's blue eyes and Kelly's green dresses and pink lipstick POP at the expense of everything intended to be half-seen, half-understood, guessed by inference and intuition; and what's left in the shadows is illegible at best, too legible at worst. Along with the much more accurate color, the density, contrast, depth, and fineness that UHD allows here get breathtakingly close to a theatrical, 35mm quality.

Having seen and compared the BD and UHD of Phantom Thread on a TCL at a friend's house a while back, I was still of the opinion that the upgrade is real if you know what to look for and how to look for it. If you don't already notice blown out whites or bad grain management or black crush, you wouldn't be likely to notice it on UHD unless you were actively looking for as someone pointed out a few examples—look at how the window here is just unaccented white and there there's texture, a wall in a lightwell, how this section is empty void here and there has the delves and hollows of fabric, how even a broad daylight scene has noticeably more range between its extremes. On the OLED set... it's real. I have no doubt I could switch between BD and UHD and an untrained eye with even a half-heartened will to look for them could spot improvements unaided. And if you already know what to look for... good lord. I just absolutely cannot wait to see what The Red Shoes will look like.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

Great to hear, senseabove! Just wondering, what's the size of the Sony that you bought and what size was/is your projector screen? The worst thing about UHD – for me, as a midrange projector owner – is that won't be able to actually experience Dolby Vision on my current system. On the other hand, I can't really see myself jump from a 110" projector screen to a 60-70" TV screen just for the sake of UHD viewing.

I am still more than happy with the way my HT3550 displays and upscales my blu-rays to 4K. This has very much been worth the upgrade from a 1080p PJ to a 4K PJ. But I'm still on the fence regarding its performance with HDR material coming from UHD's. It looks a bit overblown and not very natural, and I have tried shuffling back and forth between HDR Rec.2020 and SDR Rec.709, sometimes actually preferring the latter because my UB-420 is handling the HDR to SDR conversion perfectly and then the PJ just displays it like a blu-ray with twice the resolution, meaning much more clarity and stability, and more saturated colors.

On top of that, I still find that there is a world of difference between the UHD's that I have. Some of them just seems to be badly mastered which may have to do with the explanation EddieLarkin gave earlier in the thread. To me, it feels like it comes down to the the number of nits used. It may look great on an OLED but I feel that it mostly feels overblown on a projector that cannot handle the full spectrum.

I did some testing yesterday switching discs and swopping between 709 and 2020, and one title that looks stunning in HDR, even on my PJ, is Blade Runner, maybe because of its generally dark cinematography, but then again I found the Carpenter UHD's (both The Fog and Halloween) to look close to terrible, so...

Regarding the Hitchcock UHD's, Psycho is definitely the most dramatic upgrade, and then Vertigo. I agree with you that the previous blu-rays look terrible, but have you tried the standard blu-ray that came with your UHD blu-ray? I believe that it comes from the same newer 4K master.

[senseabove]

I went from a 100" projector screen down to 77", which I was definitely anxious about. I aaaaalmost talked myself into the 83" LG since my seating position, at 10.5 feet, is on the threshold of where That Chart says the larger size would be necessary to actually appreciate UHD, and when I went into a local a/v chain to just compare the Sony's and the LG's picture handling, the salesman came spitting distance to my comically lowball "fantasy Black Friday price"—but yeeesh that's still a lot of money. I settled on the 77" when I realized just how thin the TV is meant that I could mount it behind the projector screen, so if I wanted the larger HD image, I could still get it, and otherwise I could just pull a chair closer. It's not going to be mounted until this weekend, but it's on the ground, about 5" out from where it will be when it is, and it was still engrossing.

Your experience with HDR on the projector is ultimately why I opted for the OLED: everything I read said that unless you have a very pretty penny to spend and a black-walled, light-controlled theater room, the HDR performance would be lacking, and the more I read, here and elsewhere, the more HDR became a priority. What I saw last night makes me perfectly happy to accept the size vs HDR trade-off (and the TV is still... well, it's not small). My roommate's a photographer, the type who likes to know what film stock a movie was shot on and has opinions about different long-defunct lensmakers, and he was skeptical the TV would be a worthwhile upgrade due to the size reduction, but agreed afterward that it did not feel like as great a loss as he was expecting, and the gain in shadow detail and highlights made it well worth it. And that's without Dolby Vision—though if Rear Window is any indication, I'm also less worried that bog standard HDR is somehow horribly deficient in comparison, if that's any comfort.

I haven't played much with upscaling BDs yet, beyond what I saw when comparing Phantom Thread, so it remains to be seen how it handles that, but Sony's purportedly superior upscaling is why I ended up stretching a bit to go for it over the LG (well, that and all the vertical banding panel lottery reports that were unavoidable while I was doing research).

As for the other Hitchcocks, I thought only the Pyscho BD had a new master? Vertigo was one of the titles I took into the store to do comparisons with (along with Phantom Thread and Do the Right Thing, since I've seen all of those numerous times projected and in various home video iterations). I can't say I thought the old Vertigo BD was a treavesty the way I did Rear Window, which simply does not look like the film I've seen projected, but the UHD for Vertigo really is gorgeous—I rewound the flower shop scene a few times with my eyes leaping from my head while doing comparisons in the shop. I expect I'll watch it in the very near future, but I will probably watch Basic Instinct next so I can see what Dolby Vision can do.

[denti alligator]

I took the plunge with UHD/4K. But there was no way I was going to get a TV. I have a projector and a big white wall, and we decided we did not want a TV in the room. Plus, to go from almost 150” (!) to, what, 90” at most was going to be a let-down. So size was the final determiner. I still need to properly prepare the white wall with some Goo Systems paint, but there won’t be much else in the way of room treatment: it’s an open, expansive living area with lots of windows. We watch movies at night. It’s dark enough.

I watched 2001 with my son and was stunned at how good it looked. And that without a proper calibration or wall paint. And we watched the 4K restoration of Jamaica Inn on Blu-ray and it was also pretty amazing. Color uniformity/balance with b&w is not perfect, but there are settings for that, so I’ll need to get it calibrated at some point. Anyway, was it worth it? With 150” (well, now it’s about 141”), yes, absolutely.

[EddieLarkin]

Remember that Dolby Vision is a metadata system, not a grading system, despite what a lot of UHD reviewers seem to indicate when they sing its praises. Terms like "Dolby Vision grading" or "Dolby Vision colours" are misnomers. For all intents there is no difference at source with how HDR10 and Dolby Vision look. The difference lies in the fact the latter is a system that makes it much easier for your TV to interpret the data its receiving from the disc and present it as intended. But if you have a UHD that uses a low level of dynamic range anyway, your TV (and maybe even projector) are not going to "need" DV. Rear Window definitely fits into this category, and if that disc had DV it would certainly look no different whatsoever on a TV like an A80J (outside of how the TV is set, it's important to remember that the HDR10 profile and the DV profile will have independent settings menus, so if you've got one with say, the sharpening ramped up and the other without, then a false difference will be apparent). Similarly, if you have a very high end TV that offers brightness levels above the norm, DV is going to be needed less than on other TVs.

That's not to say DV isn't a great and necessary system, because it is, I'm just trying to put across that HDR10 is more than good enough for many disc/TV combos. The really ironic thing is the two studios that by far produce the most nit intense transfers, Sony and Warner Bros., rarely if ever use DV. So everyone, from projector owners to high end TV owners, are stuck with those discs trying to get HDR10 to look as intended (Panasonic and Sony TVs definitely do a better job than LG in this regard).

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

Your experience with HDR on the projector is ultimately why I opted for the OLED: everything I read said that unless you have a very pretty penny to spend and a black-walled, light-controlled theater room, the HDR performance would be lacking, and the more I read, here and elsewhere, the more HDR became a priority. What I saw last night makes me perfectly happy to accept the size vs HDR trade-off (and the TV is still... well, it's not small). My roommate's a photographer, the type who likes to know what film stock a movie was shot on and has opinions about different long-defunct lensmakers, and he was skeptical the TV would be a worthwhile upgrade due to the size reduction, but agreed afterward that it did not feel like as great a loss as he was expecting, and the gain in shadow detail and highlights made it well worth it. And that's without Dolby Vision—though if Rear Window is any indication, I'm also less worried that bog standard HDR is somehow horribly deficient in comparison, if that's any comfort.

Ah, you're keeping your projector. That makes sense. I thought about that too, but my motorized projection screen is hanging in front of a door, so I couldn't put up a tv behind it, and my children are occupying the other room options, so I opted for a new PJ. What also kept me from being serious about adding a tv is the still very small amount of pre-70'ies films on UHD, and of course the price. Criterion will probably make up for some of the former now, but probably 85-90% of my viewing would still be SD blu-ray, and I don't see UHD taking over the market like BD did with dvd back in the day.

As for the other Hitchcocks, I thought only the Pyscho BD had a new master? Vertigo was one of the titles I took into the store to do comparisons with (along with Phantom Thread and Do the Right Thing, since I've seen all of those numerous times projected and in various home video iterations). I can't say I thought the old Vertigo BD was a treavesty the way I did Rear Window, which simply does not look like the film I've seen projected, but the UHD for Vertigo really is gorgeous—I rewound the flower shop scene a few times with my eyes leaping from my head while doing comparisons in the shop. I expect I'll watch it in the very near future, but I will probably watch Basic Instinct next so I can see what Dolby Vision can do.

Psycho certainly is a new master. I think they also remastered Vertigo. The transfer is certainly cleaner than the previous blu-rays. Maybe they did the same with Rear Window and The Birds, but Psycho definitely looks amazing. The upgrade takes it to another level.

That's not to say DV isn't a great and necessary system, because it is, I'm just trying to put across that HDR10 is more than good enough for many disc/TV combos. The really ironic thing is the two studios that by far produce the most nit intense transfers, Sony and Warner Bros., rarely if ever use DV. So everyone, from projector owners to high end TV owners, are stuck with those discs trying to get HDR10 to look as intended (Panasonic and Sony TVs definitely do a better job than LG in this regard).

I didn't know that the studios had different nit intensity standards, but it makes sense. The one extreme transfer that just killed my eyes and looked very intense and non-filmic, I would even say, on my PJ was Ghostbusters which was released by Sony. I checked on my UB-420, and if I remember correctly it was mastered at 1000 nits. But then, when I set my player to output in SDR Rec. 709, it looked extremely pleasing as if the high nit level made the downsampling easier for the Panny and the result better.

I do my research when upgrading my home cinema, but I must admit that, even after research, I didn't know fully what I jumped into when I bought an HDR projector but it has struck me like a whole new science that I had to learn from scratch. I've learned so much, and I understand that people are using all kinds of expensive tone mapping gear to make their HDR material look pleasing on their PJ's. I don't have the dough, and mostly I'm a plug and play-guy when it comes to movie gear, so it has been some experience with this upgrade. I think I might stick with letting my player output in Rec.709 as my PJ just doesn't seem up to it with HDR. At least when comes to older, non-digitally shot films, I think its HDR rendering makes the films look artificial and digital (as I tried to point out in an earlier post).

[senseabove]

But if you have a UHD that uses a low level of dynamic range anyway, your TV (and maybe even projector) are not going to "need" DV. Rear Window definitely fits into this category, and if that disc had DV it would certainly look no different whatsoever on a TV like an A80J (outside of how the TV is set, it's important to remember that the HDR10 profile and the DV profile will have independent settings menus, so if you've got one with say, the sharpening ramped up and the other without, then a false difference will be apparent). Similarly, if you have a very high end TV that offers brightness levels above the norm, DV is going to be needed less than on other TVs.

I admit to not knowing much at all about image/color science, but I'm surprised Rear Window is "low dynamic range"? Over the movie as a whole, the range from the dim interior of Stewart's apartment, the daytime courtyard, the brightly-lit apartment interiors against the nighttime courtyard, and the flash-bulb scene for a very specific example, would have made me assume it was a relatively high dynamic range (for a movie of the era and as much as I know what that means). Since, from what I understand, DV/HDR10+ allow shot-by-shot HDR metadata, and standard HDR10 uses one metadata profile for the entire movie, wouldn't something with swings from almost illegibly dark to intentionally, blindingly white benefit from the shot-by-shot fine tuning that DV allows? Perhaps the only thing that I was slightly underwhelmed by in RW was those flashes—it was surprising to actually still be able to see anything during them, as they really are truly blinding in a theatrical setting—and I was idly wondering if DV would have allowed it to handle such extremes better.

Speaking of which, if you have any recommendations for at least somewhat amateur friendly calibration guides, EddieLarkin, I'd love to know. All the various input/profile + SDR/HDR/DV combinations are a little overwhelming, but I think I've got things at least mostly standardized so I'm comparing apples to apples.

And as always, thanks for the explanations!

[senseabove]

Ah, you're keeping your projector. That makes sense. I thought about that too, but my motorized projection screen is hanging in front of a door, so I couldn't put up a tv behind it, and my children are occupying the other room options, so I opted for a new PJ. What also kept me from being serious about adding a tv is the still very small amount of pre-70'ies films on UHD, and of course the price. Criterion will probably make up for some of the former now, but probably 85-90% of my viewing would still be SD blu-ray, and I don't see UHD taking over the market like BD did with dvd back in the day.

Yeah, the slow trickle of films I actually want to support on UHD was a concern, but at this point there are enough that pique my interest and I want them to release more, and the way to do that is buy the ones they already are. Plus, having spent a few years watching on film in theaters since I bought it, the limitations of my projector had me hankering for an upgrade, even if it's just actual blacks in HD SDR content!

Psycho certainly is a new master. I think they also remastered Vertigo. The transfer is certainly cleaner than the previous blu-rays. Maybe they did the same with Rear Window and The Birds, but Psycho definitely looks amazing. The upgrade takes it to another level.

I think they all got new masters on UHD, but only the Psycho BD was upgraded to use it, since it also includes a second cut, unlike the previous release. For the rest, the BD disc is the same one that's in the Masterpieces box set, iirc.

I do my research when upgrading my home cinema, but I must admit that, even after research, I didn't know fully what I jumped into when I bought an HDR projector but it has struck me like a whole new science that I had to learn from scratch. I've learned so much, and I understand that people are using all kinds of expensive tone mapping gear to make their HDR material look pleasing on their PJ's.

Yeah, it's truly overwhelming, and so much of the online discussion I've found is among people who already know what they're talking about, be it calibration principles or just how the freakin' TV settings work—I've never had to worry about viewing modes and profiles before. Every now and then I'd change color temperatures, but otherwise the projector was set-it-and-forget-it. I stumbled into a discussion about HDR projector + Lumagen and very quickly backed away.

[swo17]

I only have a UHD player (and no 4K screen) for the time being but I still think it's worth it to be able to watch UHDs that don't come in dual-format editions, or things like these new Hitchcock UHDs, which I can output in 1080p instead of the Blu-rays sporting lesser transfers

[Drucker]

I only have a UHD player (and no 4K screen) for the time being but I still think it's worth it to be able to watch UHDs that don't come in dual-format editions, or things like these new Hitchcock UHDs, which I can output in 1080p instead of the Blu-rays sporting lesser transfers

I thought doing this actually made it so the color range or something else was messed up? That in general, it wasn't advised to watch UHD discs on an HD 1080 screen?

[swo17]

Well I've only had the player a week, sampled Crash, and watched a bunch of extras on the disc. Didn't have any issues but I'll have to check out something like Big Lebowski and report back

[EddieLarkin]

I didn't know that the studios had different nit intensity standards, but it makes sense. The one extreme transfer that just killed my eyes and looked very intense and non-filmic, I would even say, on my PJ was Ghostbusters which was released by Sony. I checked on my UB-420, and if I remember correctly it was mastered at 1000 nits. But then, when I set my player to output in SDR Rec. 709, it looked extremely pleasing as if the high nit level made the downsampling easier for the Panny and the result better.

They don't have set standards or anything, but they do use grading monitors of different levels. WB and Sony are the only ones that regularly grade on the Dolby Pulsar, which I believe is the only set available that is capable of 4000 nits of brightness. All of the other studios use 1000 nit monitors. Ghostbusters was graded on the 4000 nit monitor, and its highest averaged frame goes as high as 2273 nits. This is rather an insane way to grade a film based title and if your TV (and especially a projector) isn't very proficient at tone mapping HDR10 (i.e. knowing that it should take a title like this and map its brightness down massively), it instead will just play every part of any bright or daylight scene in the film at the maximum capability of your output device. Dolby Vision on a title like Ghostbusters would be a huge benefit but alas, it's a rarity with Sony.

I only have a UHD player (and no 4K screen) for the time being but I still think it's worth it to be able to watch UHDs that don't come in dual-format editions, or things like these new Hitchcock UHDs, which I can output in 1080p instead of the Blu-rays sporting lesser transfers

I thought doing this actually made it so the color range or something else was messed up? That in general, it wasn't advised to watch UHD discs on an HD 1080 screen?

Outputting such discs in 1080p is no concern at all, but outputting them in SDR can be. These discs exist in HDR at source, it's not something you can just remove. So to display them on a normal HDTV, they must be converted from HDR to SDR (or to put it another way, from PQ to gamma). I've never had to do this but I suspect the results could be disastrous if the player doing the conversion is not up to the task. But since swo is using an Oppo, he's probably got one of the best converters available (though I believe the Pansonic players are the class leaders at SDR conversion).

I admit to not knowing much at all about image/color science, but I'm surprised Rear Window is "low dynamic range"? Over the movie as a whole, the range from the dim interior of Stewart's apartment, the daytime courtyard, the brightly-lit apartment interiors against the nighttime courtyard, and the flash-bulb scene for a very specific example, would have made me assume it was a relatively high dynamic range (for a movie of the era and as much as I know what that means). Since, from what I understand, DV/HDR10+ allow shot-by-shot HDR metadata, and standard HDR10 uses one metadata profile for the entire movie, wouldn't something with swings from almost illegibly dark to intentionally, blindingly white benefit from the shot-by-shot fine tuning that DV allows? Perhaps the only thing that I was slightly underwhelmed by in RW was those flashes—it was surprising to actually still be able to see anything during them, as they really are truly blinding in a theatrical setting—and I was idly wondering if DV would have allowed it to handle such extremes better.

Speaking of which, if you have any recommendations for at least somewhat amateur friendly calibration guides, EddieLarkin, I'd love to know. All the various input/profile + SDR/HDR/DV combinations are a little overwhelming, but I think I've got things at least mostly standardized so I'm comparing apples to apples.

It still sounds like you're thinking of Dolby Vision and HDR10 as seperate grading methods. Titles are not graded in anything but HDR/PQ/SMPTE ST 2084 (these terms are essentially interchangeable). So when a title has been graded, that look is locked in and neither HDR10, HDR10+ or Dolby Vision change anything about that look. If a TV can handle say, 1000 nits of brightness, and a title is graded in HDR up to a maximum of 1000 nits of brightness, then the dynamic metadata of HDR10+ and DV is not going to do anything to improve the picture. The TV already knows how to display the title. But if a TV can only do 500 nits of brightness, then the metadata will tell the TV how to change the image it's receiving so as best to represent it at its lower max brightness level.

As for Rear Window, this is overall a title with fairly low average brightness as far as HDR goes (I don't remember the exact figures though). But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a decent dynamic range. Universal's approach to grading HDR is the total opposite of Sony (and far superior in my opinion), they simply keep the average brightness level the same as you'd expect in SDR, and only extend it past this point for the instances of bright highlights in the film (this approach to grading is actually recommended in the SMPTE guidelines). This means that whilst they are operating at a much lower average level of brightness, the range of brightness is still high, AND something like Dolby Vision isn't as important as more TVs will be able to handle this style of HDR without issue.

As for your settings, the first thing to get right is SDR. A big mistake a lot people make with HDR sets is they set their SDR luminance level very high. This is going to directly impact the difference you experience in comparing the two, as SDR is a relative luminance system whislt HDR is absolute. Meaning, with SDR you can push it well beyond the max level a title is graded at (100 nits), but HDR you can't. This leads to complaints about generally dark and dim titles like Arrow's Donnie Darko UHD, with the Blu-ray.com forums filled with people saying the UHD disc is vastly darker than the BD. But it is not, they just have their SDR luminance set too bright.

On Sony sets you set this with the "Brightness" control. Most other brands call it "OLED Light", swapping what other brands call Brightness for "Black Level" (which is actually more accurate a term). So Brightness in SDR should be set as low as you can comfortably go, and obviously the darker your room the lower this will be. I suspect around 30 on the control will be about 100 nits peak white so this is the point you shouldn't go below. Anything around 30-50 should be fine. Those who have this set around 80-100 are cheating themselves (unless they have a very bright viewing environment, in which case HDR is going to look poor anyway).

As for everything else, this seems a good place to start: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/ ... d/settings

[Drucker]

I only have a UHD player (and no 4K screen) for the time being but I still think it's worth it to be able to watch UHDs that don't come in dual-format editions, or things like these new Hitchcock UHDs, which I can output in 1080p instead of the Blu-rays sporting lesser transfers

I thought doing this actually made it so the color range or something else was messed up? That in general, it wasn't advised to watch UHD discs on an HD 1080 screen?

Outputting such discs in 1080p is no concern at all, but outputting them in SDR can be. These discs exist in HDR at source, it's not something you can just remove. So to display them on a normal HDTV, they must be converted from HDR to SDR (or to put it another way, from PQ to gamma). I've never had to do this but I suspect the results could be disastrous if the player doing the conversion is not up to the task. But since swo is using an Oppo, he's probably got one of the best converters available (though I believe the Pansonic players are the class leaders at SDR conversion).

Sorry to get specific here, but I too have an OPPO 203, and a Samsung plasma. Are you telling me I can just play my UHD discs through my Plasma? I tried this when I got my first UHD disc and the results seemed just slightly off, and I assumed that some detail that was present in the UHD couldn't be captured via the 1080 display, and therefore I was getting a compromised experience. How do I know convert the image to SDR?

[swo17]

Have you changed the video output on your player to 1080p?

[EddieLarkin]

If you're getting an image, it has been converted to SDR. How well is anyone's guess. And even the very best SDR conversion is of course going to lose something, as is cutting the resolution in half. We're talking about an option for those that don't have a 4K HDR set, not something that someone would opt to do if they had a real choice. As swo says, if it's "old transfer BD" vs "new transfer UHD", then converting the latter to SDR may yield better results than the former, but if you can actually view "new transfer UHD" on a 4K HDR set then of course you go with that option!

[denti alligator]

I really, really want to get my projector professionally calibrated, but a) I spent all my money on the projector and b) it’s hard to find someone in my area. There are so many color tweaks and I have no idea where to begin. [sigh] Complicating matters is that I have two sources: Panasonic UB420 and an HTPC. The latter has its own complicated color calibration capabilities. I’m out of my element here. But unconverted Blu-rays look amazing. So for now I will just enjoy. Any tips on calibration, though, would be welcome. (I mean, should I buy a professional color meter??)

[EddieLarkin]

You essentially cannot "begin" to use those controls, they are there for a professional with a colorimeter. And depending on your model and room conditions, a calibration may not exactly result in massively improved HDR performance anyway, if that's what you're specifically after.

[senseabove]

It still sounds like you're thinking of Dolby Vision and HDR10 as seperate grading methods....

As for your settings...

Hrm. I didn't think they were different gradings, but based on your posts in the Titles Not Worth Upgrading thread, it sounds like I was wrong to think SDR allows a limited absolute range within a limited available range, HDR allows a wider absolute range within a wider available range, and 10+/DV allows a wider relative range within that same wider available range. For example, with completely arbitrary numbers purely for scale, since I have no real idea what I'm saying, I'd thought SDR is 50-150 or 100-200, HDR is 50-550 or 25-525 or 300-800 for a given movie, while 10+/DV could shift from 50-550 for one shot to 300-800 for the next. So Rear Window's standard HDR would cripple the flashbulb scene by accommodating the movie's predominant tendency toward dim interiors and the importance of shadow detail, while a DV encode would allow both extremes to be accommodated. That's the impression I got from skimming things like this:

Dolby Vision-capable TVs combine the scene-by-scene information received from the source with an awareness of their own capabilities in terms of brightness, contrast and colour performance.

With HDR10 content, your HDR TV only receives static metadata; relatively basic ‘global’ information on the content being shown that applies to the entire film or TV show. It can’t provide a display with updates on how each specific shot or scene should be shown. Nor does HDR10 carry the same facility for continually optimising the picture to the capabilities of the screen it’s showing on.

So I'm confused, because it sound like you and that linked layman's summary are saying different things.

But thanks for the guidance on settings!