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[Kuranghi]

Most people have TVs with not-great black levels anyway so they won't notice the elevated blacks/shadows at all and just see the brighter highlights, that and their colour will probably be set to 60 minimum so they won't think the colours are desaturated. Its technically broken ("The best kind of broken!") but it doesn't matter if most people think the image is attractive unfortunately, they will continue to put out these broken HDR modes until there is a more a standard in place.

HGIG will sort out a lot of the problems but it won't fix the: "We made the colours really oversaturated (As in God of War) because we think thats what consumers think HDR means", which isn't their fault, its TV manufacturers fault. Mostly Samsungs fault probably:




This is one of their shop-floor demos that the Samsung reps play on the TVs via USB drive. The resolution/bitrate is terrible ofc here, (I have the 4K source vid on my PC here but I think its illegal for me to upload that), but I promise you the colours are like that in the source video too.

I mean I don't know about you guys, but broccoli and red velvet cake is NOWHERE NEAR that saturated in real life lol, this isn't even just general colour correction you'd do on any video, its just nonsense CGI colour. This has created a false impression of what HDR is, the colour there is nothing to do with the expanded colour gamut that HDR can provide, its just the saturation whacked up.

 

[Kuranghi]

Again, nobody is targeting any particular screen. It's graded to a reference. Currently, where I work - that is almost exclusively 1000 nits for television. Features (like DCI or Dolby Cinema) are different again. Keep in mind this is to the specification of Netflix, Apple, Amazon etc - we work to what they want. I would guess that if we were working to 4000 nits - the content coming out of our building wouldn't look significantly different.

There was some bullshit article on Ars Technica about how some idiot had 'analysed' The Mandalorian and come to the conclusion that it was SDR that was converted to HDR, and how it was a terrible practice and it has to stop as it's ripping people off. I know that The Mandalorian was graded as an HDR project. It's just that's how the director of photography and the colourist made it look. As far as I know it was so it didn't look wildly different from the original films in terms of look. Studio's often do not care to make HDR look as good as it can - that's true - they don't give a flying fuck. Neither does the colourist, neither does the DOP, neither does the Director. They want their film to look good - and sometimes that is not the same as making some HDR showcase. (see Red Dead Redemption 2)

The point being made by this "idiot" as you put it, was that it will make the image look like shit on the type of TVs that most people own, ie low contrast panels where when the backlight is maxed the black level is ruined. Cyberpunk 2077's HDR mode is the same way and it looks like crap compared to the SDR mode overall.

I've definitely heard of more than one case where they graded the game for the TVs they tested it on, which in one case were low contrast (Probably LG IPS panel TVs) screens so the actually final output of the game was basically broken for people with VA FALD panels or OLEDs:

HDR Display Support in Infamous Second Son and Infamous First Light (Part 2)

Jasmin Patry's Blog

www.glowybits.com

Its in the box on the right hand side of the page, halfway down.

Have you seen the HDR in Ori 2? If yes, what do you think of it?

 

[Kuranghi]

I still think this is an issue for gaming studios as they probably don't invest in a €30,000 grading monitor and just use a consumer OLED for it, hence the many games poor HDR implementation. Secondly, I cry every day a little bit that most releases has regressed into max 1000 nit territory, and many colorists like to grade for ever lower peaks yet. But one can only hope that the majority of consumer displays will become 2-4000 nit capable soon if QNED or MicroLED takes off.

Indeed, I can have 1500+ nit tennis ball sized highlights on my 65" set so thats disappointing for me too.

 

[JeloSWE]

Studio's often do not care to make HDR look as good as it can - that's true - they don't give a flying fuck. Neither does the colourist, neither does the DOP, neither does the Director. They want their film to look good - and sometimes that is not the same as making some HDR showcase. (see Red Dead Redemption 2)

This here is a mater of opinion. People who buy expensive very HDR capable sets (including me) wants to experience the wide dynamics of them, while I suspec many of the current people working in the movie industry are people who love the current looks, that's why they are working there. I having seen multiple great HDR games and movies that I know I would appreciate more punch to the highlight in The Mandalorian for instance, this is my opinion and I will keep voicing my desire so that they know there are people out there who doesn't want to sit in a pitch dark room to get a semblance of brightness. I would personally argue that a higher dynamic range looks good while a smaller one less so, again, this is an opinion.

I'm guessing the reason everything is mastered for a pitch dark room is one of legacy standards, it's that the projects in the early days simply couldn't output brighter images without burning the film. I would love for the the industry to move to punchier HDR and higher frame rates as well. Movie HDR are rarely as jaw dropping impressive as many of the games I play because of the former utilizing less dynamic range.

 

[Burger]

This here is a mater of opinion. People who buy expensive very HDR capable sets (including me) wants to experience the wide dynamics of them, while I suspec many of the current people working in the movie industry are people who love the current looks, that's why they are working there. I having seen multiple great HDR games and movies that I know I would appreciate more punch to the highlight in The Mandalorian for instance, this is my opinion and I will keep voicing my desire so that they know there are people out there who doesn't want to sit in a pitch dark room to get a semblance of brightness. I would personally argue that a higher dynamic range looks good while a smaller one less so, again, this is an opinion.

I'm guessing the reason everything is mastered for a pitch dark room is one of legacy standards, it's that the projects in the early days simply couldn't output brighter images without burning the film. I would love for the the industry to move to punchier HDR and higher frame rates as well. Movie HDR are rarely as jaw dropping impressive as many of the games I play because of the former utilizing less dynamic range.

I understand your desire to see massive dynamic range. I like the look as well, TLOU, God of War all look really amazing in HDR. I remember complaining quite a lot about a show I worked on, asking what's the point of the grade, it looks almost black and white, what a terrible colourist etc etc. A year or so later I sat down and watched the final thing (something I don't really do for shows I work on) and I really appreciated how it looked. It fit the show perfectly and was amazing.

Things are graded in a dark room because it's controllable, and allows you to see the image without interference. It's an easy standard and doesn't require any sort of calibration or light meter. Just shut the blinds.

The point being made by this "idiot" as you put it, was that it will make the image look like shit on the type of TVs that most people own, ie low contrast panels where when the backlight is maxed the black level is ruined. Cyberpunk 2077's HDR mode is the same way and it looks like crap compared to the SDR mode overall.

I've definitely heard of more than one case where they graded the game for the TVs they tested it on, which in one case were low contrast (Probably LG IPS panel TVs) screens so the actually final output of the game was basically broken for people with VA FALD panels or OLEDs:

HDR Display Support in Infamous Second Son and Infamous First Light (Part 2)

Jasmin Patry's Blog

www.glowybits.com

Its in the box on the right hand side of the page, halfway down.

Have you seen the HDR in Ori 2? If yes, what do you think of it?

As I've mentioned before - Television is graded to reference, not for 'low contrast televisions' or whatever. The point is that despite the Mandalorian not being exceptionally bright - it was not converted from SDR, no matter what 'expert' says it is. If you have a television that shoots black levels through the roof and destroys contrast - then perhaps you don't really have a HDR television and shouldn't be watching HDR content.

I've played plenty of great games in HDR, TLOU2, God of War, Uncharted etc. Not Ori but I can imagine it looks amazing. That's interesting about the infamous developers - proof that you shouldn't master content on, or for, consumer televisions.

I think Vincent was the source of that Mandalorian analysis. A Youtube comment made an interesting observation. Super bright highlights might not be easy with the panoramic projector backdrop setup.

BR 2049 is also another popular release with a relatively dim look. At the end of the day it's what the director or whoever wanted. My suggestion is to just adjust it to your liking via the TV or player (Panny is the best for that ) if it annoys you enough.

But the main issue I imagine most people are having is that they simply aren't watching the material in near darkness. Really helps a lot even with the dimmer releases.

That goes immediately back to my earlier point - that these very smart technical people have zero concept of creative decisions. Specular highlights should be well in excess of 200 nits. Who fucking says? It's not your decision! They see HDR as a complete range, and anything that is not scaled to that range is a failure, or incorrect. Even discounting the interesting possibility that the led backdrop caused problems (I doubt it) - it's complete fucking bollocks.

Also, and I'm happy to be proven wrong, but Dolby Vision automatically adjusts the backlight brightness PER SHOT. HDR10 automatically adjusts the backlight once, for the entire stream. Consumer televisions running HDR content do not pump up the brightness to MAX and sit there.

 

[JeloSWE]

Things are graded in a dark room because it's controllable, and allows you to see the image without interference. It's an easy standard and doesn't require any sort of calibration or light meter. Just shut the blinds.

Actually I jump between lots of different things, watching a movie, browsing, work, gaming, shows etc, I don't like a completely dark room, it's training on the eyes, I try to keep a low indirect lit ambient environment at all times. As for grading in the dark I can understand it but it might be part of the reasons colorists think HDR is too bright lol, maybe a new standars is needed where we grade for a more typical consumer environment and less for cinema purists pitch dark room.

That goes immediately back to my earlier point - that these very smart technical people have zero concept of creative decisions. Specular highlights should be well in excess of 200 nits. Who fucking says? It's not your decision! They see HDR as a complete range, and anything that is not scaled to that range is a failure, or incorrect. Even discounting the interesting possibility that the led backdrop caused problems (I doubt it) - it's complete fucking bollocks.

Also, and I'm happy to be proven wrong, but Dolby Vision automatically adjusts the backlight brightness PER SHOT. HDR10 automatically adjusts the backlight once, for the entire stream. Consumer televisions running HDR content do not pump up the brightness to MAX and sit there.

After a year going back to The Mandalorian I still think it's a missed opportunity for some punch in the high lights, it's not like the whole image has to be bright but rather than rolling of the peaks so early just let the consumers display handle the tonemapping, Mandalorian didn't even once reach the limited 1000 nit ever as far as I know but hovered around 200 max, at least Solo a star wars story had some nice punch to the laser shots.
Also it's not like it has to max out the whole range at all time, just that it's incredibly dim compared to other content. And even on my very good Sony the HDR makes the dark low contrast look of the show a problem for the LCD back lights causing more blooming than if just viewed in SDR as the TV switches modes for HDR. This is not a problem on OLED though but I've experienced it first hand.

Also, even if it's the creators that decide what art they want to make, it's also up to consumers to complain and say it's not what they want, it gives the creators a chance to adjust their art for the future to make consumer happy. In the end, if you make art and want to sell it and share it with people and not just keep it for your self in your own basement, then you need to listen a bit to your consumers.

My view on art, being an artist my self is that one should follow ones own vision but I do want those that receive it to be happy as well. It's a balance, not all feed back is worth considering but you don't create art in a vacuum either.

 

[Burger]

Here is one of the people who worked on Mandalorian talking about how Vincent from HDTV test was talking rubbish, and the Ars Article was also made up gibberish.

We need to talk about HDR - FlatpanelsHD

This article talks about the subject far better than I could. It talks about why Blade Runner didn't look mental - for good reasons.

It all swings back to the original 'analysis' of Cyberpunk by Vincent Teoh. He can sit there all day and 'analyse' HDR content all he likes - and come to whatever conclusion he likes. But he does not take into account whatsoever any creativity or intent by the maker. That alone renders his analysis rather pointless.

 

[JeloSWE]

Here is one of the people who worked on Mandalorian talking about how Vincent from HDTV test was talking rubbish, and the Ars Article was also made up gibberish.

We need to talk about HDR - FlatpanelsHD

This article talks about the subject far better than I could. It talks about why Blade Runner didn't look mental - for good reasons.

It all swings back to the original 'analysis' of Cyberpunk by Vincent Teoh. He can sit there all day and 'analyse' HDR content all he likes - and come to whatever conclusion he likes. But he does not take into account whatsoever any creativity or intent by the maker. That alone renders his analysis rather pointless.

I think he does, but if a show is using a HDR container yet looks extremely close to SDR. What is the point then, it only creates problems on many LCD and attaching the label HDR does usually signal a greater dynamic range to the consumer and fills you with some expectations that weren't even closely fulfilled on that show. I saw The Mandalorian before Vincent doing a video on it and I immediately thought some thing were off and it looks better in SDR due to more contrast between lights and darks.

 

[Burger]

I think he does, but if a show is using a HDR container yet looks extremely close to SDR. What is the point then

Because a HDR delivery was mandated by the studio.

it only creates problems on many LCD

If people buy shit HDR TV's that's somehow the fault or responsibility of a colourist?

and attaching the label HDR does usually signal a greater dynamic range to the consumer and fills you with some expectations that weren't even closely fulfilled on that show.

Then get used to being disappointed. You say "Brighter is better" - and there a people like Roger Deakins who actually film this stuff saying it doesn't work like that.

You want the picture on the right. The filmmaker created the image on the left. Brightness steals focus, and the picture needs to be a balance of light and dark. Just adding 'punch' can ruin that balance. The HDR transfer of Sicaro does not look different from the SDR version - because the SDR version barely uses the dynamic range of SDR!!!

And don't say "Well why did Roger Deakins make an HDR version of his film?!" and the answer is "BECAUSE HE WAS MANDATED TO DO SO."

I saw The Mandalorian before Vincent doing a video on it and I immediately thought some thing were off and it looks better in SDR due to more contrast between lights and darks.

If you think that HDR means things SHOULD have higher dynamic range and a wider gamut, then you've misunderstood, or been missold the technology.

 

[JeloSWE]

Because a HDR delivery was mandated by the studio.

Come one, you know what I mean.

If people buy shit HDR TV's that's somehow the fault or responsibility of a colourist?

I wouldn't call my Sony Master series shit HDR TV

Then get used to being disappointed. You say "Brighter is better" - and there a people like Roger Deakins who actually film this stuff saying it doesn't work like that.

You want the picture on the right. The filmmaker created the image on the left. Brightness steals focus, and the picture needs to be a balance of light and dark. Just adding 'punch' can ruin that balance. The HDR transfer of Sicaro does not look different from the SDR version - because the SDR version barely uses the dynamic range of SDR!!!

And don't say "Well why did Roger Deakins make an HDR version of his film?!" and the answer is "BECAUSE HE WAS MANDATED TO DO SO."

This is a very good example. I agree, here the peaks should indeed be kept in check in many scenes. But there are also scenes (not talking about this film) where more punch to the HDR would look great where it have been unnecessarily limited. Also if you keep the relative intensities of her face and windows then you could increase the overall brightness for a bit more contest to the whole image which would be good for normal viewing conditions. But I haven't seen Sicario in HDR so I can't really comment to much on it.

If you think that HDR means things SHOULD have higher dynamic range and a wider gamut, then you've misunderstood, or been missold the technology.

I get what you mean and no, not every scene or everything have to blast at full range. I just preferer over all more dynamic grades and love to see highlight really sparkle (in the right place of course).

 

[vpance]

Here is one of the people who worked on Mandalorian talking about how Vincent from HDTV test was talking rubbish, and the Ars Article was also made up gibberish.

We need to talk about HDR - FlatpanelsHD

This article talks about the subject far better than I could. It talks about why Blade Runner didn't look mental - for good reasons.

It all swings back to the original 'analysis' of Cyberpunk by Vincent Teoh. He can sit there all day and 'analyse' HDR content all he likes - and come to whatever conclusion he likes. But he does not take into account whatsoever any creativity or intent by the maker. That alone renders his analysis rather pointless.

Some fairly interesting back and forth in that article’s comments. It boils down to, should studios take into account consumer expectations and whether or not the advertising of HDR is deceptive because it doesn’t adhere to any technical numeric standard.

Teoh has talked about director intent being sacrosanct, so we have to give him credit to understanding the situation. But his argument is that if the actual HDR range is not much different than what can be achieved in SDR then its false marketing, I guess? If the range is only 200 nits then should the HDR label be removed from the box?

If we factor in who the average consumer is, there’s no way you can explain directors intent. It’s only a product misrepresenting itself. Should there be some middle ground compromise?

I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I get both sides. Personally I feel the abundance of 2K DI’s is much more of an annoyance. But that’s something that should see improvement over time and with cost reductions.

This HDR situation though may never change regardless of how high in nits consumer TVs will reach. I suspect manufacturers will end up bludgeoning the issue by including more intelligent ways to adjust the picture on your own.

 

[Mr Wonderstuff]

Or that 'creative intent' means 'yea we forgot to do much with HDR'. I would argue creative intent doesn't always mean a good outcome.

 

[FlyyGOD]

Looks great to me on Series X.

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

FYI HDR is still broken on 1.05 (PS5).

 

[ToadMan]

FYI HDR is still broken on 1.05 (PS5).

Yeah I get a weird thing - if I go and edit either the HDR settings or the non-HDR gamma, I can’t back out into the game.

The “O” button doesn’t work. I have to reset to defaults to get back.

Anyway I requested a refund - let’s see what the January patch brings ...

 

[Masterbrew]

Looks great to me on Series X.

Thanks for your in-depth analysis

 

[Kuranghi]

It would be good if Vincent actually checked various areas of the game with different lighting conditions, as I get that you won't have areas of the screen at 0 nits in every, or even many scenes. For example in Jedi Fallen Order has this cave on the 2nd planet where in SDR its actually quite a bit perceptibly darker than the HDR mode (I believe so that they could have more detail in the lit parts of the cave/the opening that shows the sky in the centre of it) so people said it has "washed out HDR", but if you toggle between SDR and HDR during scenes where they acutally wanted it to be pitch black then the black level is perceptibly darker in HDR (I don't have tools to measure it so just going by eye, and this is on a Sony ZD9 LCD, but I asked some friends to check on their calibrated OLEDs and they came to the same conclusion).

So saying, a certain scene in HDR has elevated black levels over the SDR mode isn't necessarily a bad thing, but OLED owner seem to report that the black level is raised in most areas of the game where its very dark in SDR, parts of the image where you don't need to see detail I'm talking about.

I understand that you don't want to just display 0-nit pixels if it goes against the gameplay/artistic decisions, just for the sake of a "technically better" image. Best thing to do would be to find a scene where the SDR presentation actually asks for 0-nits (or near enough) from some pixels. For specific circumstances like I mentioned above.

God of War has that shot where you walk into the house and Kratos is in shadow near the beginning and I'm pretty sure they'd want that shadow to be 0-nits based on the look they are going for there, so there must be some circumstances where thats appropriate. I certainly don't want to see 0-nit pixels in every shot of a game though, thats obviously not the right way to do it because then anyone without an OLED will have a bad experience.

 

[YCoCg]

It would be good if Vincent actually checked various areas of the game with different lighting conditions,

It appears Vincent has seen this thread:

 

[Kuranghi]

It appears Vincent has seen this thread:

I just finished watching that, I think I would just play in SDR. I believe EvilBoris is on this forum, he works with Vincent and possibly read this thread. I think those things have been echoed on resetera as well and EvilBoris is much more active over there afaik. The time between the video and the comment you quoted is also a bit tight ha.

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

It appears Vincent has seen this thread:

Doesn’t Vincent know that it’s the artists intention to make HDR look like shit? He is a silly boy.

 

[JeloSWE]

After having played the game my self for a bit now and done SDR and HDR back and forth settings I can only agree that the darks details in HDR are much harder to make out due to the lower contrast in the darker portions. I can compensate this a little bit on my Sony with Black Adjust which is only darkens the dark portions of the image, still not as good as SDR though. This HDR implementation is problematic as you often spend time in dark environment and it makes it harder to make out shapes and details than in SDR. I sincerely hope CDPR will fix this black floor issue.

 

[Rikkori]

Shoot video with TV in HDR but record SDR, surely that won't pick up more bloom and look washed out due to how cameras work.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Fake or not, I think it looks incredible with HDR on (HDR 10 on PC version) on my LG CX. Definitely prefer how it looks with it enabled.

 

[JeloSWE]

Fake or not, I think it looks incredible with HDR on (HDR 10 on PC version) on my LG CX. Definitely prefer how it looks with it enabled.

I don't think it's fake, neon light looks quite spectacular on my 1700+ Sony Master series LCD compared to SDR and increasing the HDR peak to match my display does work to get more information in highlights. It's just that the darkest portion of the image looks worse than the SDR version, it's harder to make out object in the evenings and dark rooms than SDR because of less contrast due to the elevated black levels, regardless of how you set the midpoint.

 

[JeloSWE]

Shoot video with TV in HDR but record SDR, surely that won't pick up more bloom and look washed out due to how cameras work.

If you saw the whole video you will hear him mention several times how it looks to him in real life and that the camera doesn't do it justice.

 

[Hugare]

Some incredible mental gimnastics going on here to justify the shitty HDR implementation

Nah, bruh. They tried to fix the HDR with this patch, so you can throw "creative intent" out of the window

Even citing Roger Deakins to try to justify this shit, I swear to God

 

[rofif]

Hdr is such a complex and not standardized correctly standard... I just play in sdr since my pc 4k monitor lg 27uk650 head terrible hdr which is just super bright. The games are made in normal ips monitors anyway.

Btw do ps5 run ps4 games with hdr correctly? Maybe it's bc issue?
I will have ps5 in January... So I need to know where to disable hdr correctly. It's easy to disable in ps4

 

[Rikkori]

If you saw the whole video you will hear him mention several times how it looks to him in real life and that the camera doesn't do it justice.

Eh, you know what, forget it. I don't know why I get into it in the first place.

 

[JeloSWE]

redacted

redacted

 

[JeloSWE]

Hdr is such a complex and not standardized correctly standard... I just play in sdr since my pc 4k monitor lg 27uk650 head terrible hdr which is just super bright. The games are made in normal ips monitors anyway.

Btw do ps5 run ps4 games with hdr correctly? Maybe it's bc issue?
I will have ps5 in January... So I need to know where to disable hdr correctly. It's easy to disable in ps4

Back compatible titles basically looks the same in HDR on the PS5. The quality of the HDR implementation is per game. Many of the PS5 specific game releases have good to great HDR so far due to more of them respecting the HDR setting in the system menu. Spiderman PS4 had horribly low HDR peak, mostly tuned to limited OLED around 500 nits. Miles Morals and I assume the Remake also does look great as they not scale up to the capacity of your display based on your system settings. But as long as you're not playing on a monitor that can do proper HDR, most can't, I wouldn't bother to turn it on. I'd say you need a minimum of around 500 nit for it even to start looking like HDR.

 

[Whitecrow]

When HDR is washed out compared to SDR, you know it's broken.

HDR should be the same as SDR but with more detail and and color pop, not an entirely different image like if the "creator's intent' was different for SDR and HDR.

 

[Kuranghi]

When HDR is washed out compared to SDR, you know it's broken.

HDR should be the same as SDR but with more detail and and color pop, not an entirely different image like if the "creator's intent' was different for SDR and HDR.

While I agree that that can help you a good chunk of the time, thats not the best way to judge whether HDR is not as good as the SDR mode consistently imo.

For that I'd say find a place where its really dark in SDR but with a single harsh light source, they'll usually make the in-shadow part of the image pure black so as to maintain detail in the bright part of the image, when you switch to HDR you should see more detail in the bright part of the image but now the pitch black in-shadow part will actually be illuminated because it has the dynamic range to show both at the same time. This means you'll have a much greater sense of depth to the image in those scenes as well.

The effect of this is you might think the shadowed part is "greyer" or "washed out" but imo thats how it should look. I can see why people love the strong contrast in SDR but its probably partly because they are used to it and think thats how it should look when real-life isn't like that. Obviously some games don't want to look like real life so its still better to have the harsh contrast of the in-shadow area being pure black in those cases. Like in the Arkham games, if they had HDR.

I'm about to do another run of Jedi Fallen Order, so if anyone is interested I can show the exact effect I mean using screenshots of the SDR and HDR modes in such areas. The HDR image will be tonemapped to SDR so you can compare them, you won't see the increase in depth of the image as I do on my screen (or you would if you were playing it in HDR) but the gamma difference should still be apparent.

I'm willing to bet if I do that a lot of people will prefer the SDR image but thats partly because you won't see the increased depth to the image that HDR provides.

 

[YCoCg]

Shoot video with TV in HDR but record SDR, surely that won't pick up more bloom and look washed out due to how cameras work.

He literally explains constantly throughout the video about how it will look different on video to what he's seeing in person and explains how he's changing the exposure settings throughout to show off the best of both images when he's talking about them. Are you still on the "creators intent" train despite SDR coming out ahead majority of the time here?

 

[Kuranghi]

All this has reminded me that CES is soon, I can't wait to see the new sets. I asked Vinny about the 85" "10,000 nit" prototype Sony had at CES 2018 and he said it was the best image he ever saw on a consumer LCD. He said it made the 75" ZD9 look "kinda crappy" haha, amazing:




I'm guessing that prototype sort of became the ZG9 given the size, but I guess it could've been a super-souped-up ZF9 as well, given that was the first X1U set.

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

Shoot video with TV in HDR but record SDR, surely that won't pick up more bloom and look washed out due to how cameras work.

How ironic is it that you were the one (quite rudely I might add) calling Vincent an idiot.

 

[DanEON]

Yep, HDR is fine, it's the creators' intent, just like all the bugs.

 

[vpance]

The 1.05 patch notes said they tried to add warmth to the HDR. Wonder what that meant.

Spoiler

They have no idea what they're doing

 

[Kuranghi]

Spoiler

They have no idea what they're doing

Obligatory:

 

[Kuranghi]

Well now that its definitely 100% confirmed that Vincent is getting all his information from this thread we better keep posting.
I want love an explanation for whats wrong with Hitman 1 and 2's HDR modes, I play on PC so maybe its fine on console, but on PC its rubbish, Agent 47 looks like he's been slapped all over his face when he's usually quite pale. Would be a showpiece for HDR if they got it working properly. I really hope Hitman 3 rectifies this.

 

[Kokoloko85]

This game isnt out on the PS5 and XBSX yet.... just back compatible?

 

[Burger]

Some incredible mental gimnastics going on here to justify the shitty HDR implementation

Nah, bruh. They tried to fix the HDR with this patch, so you can throw "creative intent" out of the window

Even citing Roger Deakins to try to justify this shit, I swear to God

You swear to god what? You couldn't interpret my comments properly? You misunderstood when I said I work in TV/Features and used an interview of Deakins to show how the creators are within their rights to not use the High part of High Dynamic range? You didn't get the bit where HDTV Test have been flat out wrong in saying content has been 'upscaled' from HDR? Proven wrong as in the people who made the thing said he doesn't understand what he's talking about?

Vincent Teoh should stick to reviewing TV's and not the shit that goes on them.

 

[DeaconOfTheDank]

So... I think I somehow managed to fix the tone-mapped HDR on Cyberpunk for PC. Take this with a grain of salt - I don't know shit about brightness levels and whatnot, but I know what true blacks look like.

Ironically, I'm getting true blacks and what looks to be an HDR picture with the game running in SDR mode. This was tested on my 55" LG C9 OLED. Here's what I'm doing:

1. Turned on Windows HDR setting
2. Went into Nvidia Control panel to force YUV422 10-bit color settings (Output Dynamic Range set to Limited)
3. TV has Black Level set to Low
4. TV has Dynamic Tone Mapping enabled
5. In-game HDR disabled (e.g. using SDR with Gamma adjusted for my TV)

That's it. I immediately noticed the intro/trademark screens showcasing true blacks when booting. The colors also seem to pop quite a bit more, contrast is a lot more fine-grained, and the washed out look is completely gone. My TV reports that I'm displaying an HDR picture, too. I have no idea why this has the effect that it does, especially considering the game is supposedly displaying SDR. Maybe forcing the SDR in the YUV422 10-bit container results in properly tone-mapped HDR?

I'll try to upload a picture later so people can verify whether I'm crazy or not.

 

[JeloSWE]

You swear to god what? You couldn't interpret my comments properly? You misunderstood when I said I work in TV/Features and used an interview of Deakins to show how the creators are within their rights to not use the High part of High Dynamic range? You didn't get the bit where HDTV Test have been flat out wrong in saying content has been 'upscaled' from HDR? Proven wrong as in the people who made the thing said he doesn't understand what he's talking about?

Vincent Teoh should stick to reviewing TV's and not the shit that goes on them.

While you're right about some shows truly note being HDR-ified from SDR, they still look almost like an SDR. To me it's a missed opportunity because I can imagine how awesome it could be compared to other truly impressive content I've seen. Sure, creative intent, but putting something that looks more or less SDR into an HDR container is a bit like playing 1080p movies on a 4K screen. Having seen pin sharp 4K material, most movies truly lacks that crispness due to 2K DI and speedier CGI pipeline. It's a bit like listening to a tape recorder when you have the option for CD quality. It's like displaying a 2D image on a 3D screen or using low bit rasteration instead of smooth 10-bit gradients. Sure it can be said you like the retro look and it's okay, but I still think the potential is there but not used due to personal tastes, which I don't agree with.

 

[JeloSWE]

So... I think I somehow managed to fix the tone-mapped HDR on Cyberpunk for PC. Take this with a grain of salt - I don't know shit about brightness levels and whatnot, but I know what true blacks look like.

Ironically, I'm getting true blacks and what looks to be an HDR picture with the game running in SDR mode. This was tested on my 55" LG C9 OLED. Here's what I'm doing:

1. Turned on Windows HDR setting
2. Went into Nvidia Control panel to force YUV422 10-bit color settings (Output Dynamic Range set to Limited)
3. TV has Black Level set to Low
4. TV has Dynamic Tone Mapping enabled
5. In-game HDR disabled (e.g. using SDR with Gamma adjusted for my TV)

That's it. I immediately noticed the intro/trademark screens showcasing true blacks when booting. The colors also seem to pop quite a bit more, contrast is a lot more fine-grained, and the washed out look is completely gone. My TV reports that I'm displaying an HDR picture, too. I have no idea why this has the effect that it does, especially considering the game is supposedly displaying SDR. Maybe forcing the SDR in the YUV422 10-bit container results in properly tone-mapped HDR?

I'll try to upload a picture later so people can verify whether I'm crazy or not.

If you have enabled HDR in Windows and then disable HDR in game, you are still effectively outputting an HDR image but the game will just output the SDR levels in that stream. That is not really a good and correct approach. What I've been doing in my Sony LCD TV is to enable a black compensations setting which deepens gray blacks, "Black Adjust" under Picture>Brightness for those that own a Sony. Try and find some thing similar on you OLED. Also, you really should try and use the same Range on both Source and Display, eg Limited or Full on both. Doing one on either will result in clipping of black and whites or graying black and whites. It's a poor workaround, but hey, if you are happy

 

[DeaconOfTheDank]

If you have enabled HDR in Windows and then disable HDR in game, you are still effectively outputting an HDR image but the game will just output the SDR levels in that stream. That is not really a good and correct approach. What I've been doing in my Sony LCD TV is to enable a black compensations setting which deepens gray blacks, "Black Adjust" under Picture>Brightness for those that own a Sony. Try and find some thing similar on you OLED. Also, you really should try and use the same Range on both Source and Display, eg Limited or Full on both. Doing one on either will result in clipping of black and whites or graying black and whites. It's a poor workaround, but hey, if you are happy

Yeah, I definitely agree with you - this shouldn't make any sense, but the image somehow looks correct? I know that I'm supposed to keep the Range the same on both ends (Range set to Limited on PC = Black Level set to Low on TV; Range set to High on PC = Black Level set to High on TV).

I was honestly just messing around with signal and was pleasantly surprised with the results. I'm curious, what are some negative side effects of the settings I'm using? Considering that the game is using "fake" HDR (tone-mapped SDR to HDR), I feel like this is just a different way of accomplishing the same thing.

Could anyone humor me and try out the steps I listed? I feel like I'm going crazy here lol.

 

[Burger]

While you're right about some shows truly note being HDR-ified from SDR, they still look almost like an SDR. To me it's a missed opportunity because I can imagine how awesome it could be compared to other truly impressive content I've seen. Sure, creative intent, but putting something that looks more or less SDR into an HDR container is a bit like playing 1080p movies on a 4K screen. Having seen pin sharp 4K material, most movies truly lacks that crispness due to 2K DI and speedier CGI pipeline. It's a bit like listening to a tape recorder when you have the option for CD quality. It's like displaying a 2D image on a 3D screen or using low bit rasteration instead of smooth 10-bit gradients. Sure it can be said you like the retro look and it's okay, but I still think the potential is there but not used due to personal tastes, which I don't agree with.

You need to come to terms with the fact that not all content is going to be like that shitty demo video in the TV shop.

It's not a 'retro look', it's just a look.

It's like saying Charlie Kaufmans latest film "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" is technically broken because it was mastered in 4:3.

 

[vpance]

So... I think I somehow managed to fix the tone-mapped HDR on Cyberpunk for PC. Take this with a grain of salt - I don't know shit about brightness levels and whatnot, but I know what true blacks look like.

Ironically, I'm getting true blacks and what looks to be an HDR picture with the game running in SDR mode. This was tested on my 55" LG C9 OLED. Here's what I'm doing:

1. Turned on Windows HDR setting
2. Went into Nvidia Control panel to force YUV422 10-bit color settings (Output Dynamic Range set to Limited)
3. TV has Black Level set to Low
4. TV has Dynamic Tone Mapping enabled
5. In-game HDR disabled (e.g. using SDR with Gamma adjusted for my TV)

That's it. I immediately noticed the intro/trademark screens showcasing true blacks when booting. The colors also seem to pop quite a bit more, contrast is a lot more fine-grained, and the washed out look is completely gone. My TV reports that I'm displaying an HDR picture, too. I have no idea why this has the effect that it does, especially considering the game is supposedly displaying SDR. Maybe forcing the SDR in the YUV422 10-bit container results in properly tone-mapped HDR?

I'll try to upload a picture later so people can verify whether I'm crazy or not.

I think it's a decent workaround since your TV is doing all the tonemapping to HDR. But do you even need to do the dynamic range trick? Could be crushing black level.

AFAIK the game is fine in SDR. All you have to do is tell your TV the source is HDR (from Windows) and set the game to SDR from the options.

 

[JeloSWE]

You need to come to terms with the fact that not all content is going to be like that shitty demo video in the TV shop.

It's not a 'retro look', it's just a look.

It's like saying Charlie Kaufmans latest film "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" is technically broken because it was mastered in 4:3.

Hahah shop demos, well I have seen a few that are nice at least. I really liked the HDR in The Meg (yes not an Oscar movie) but it looks far more striking on my TV than 200 nit shows does. I haven't seen that movie so can't say if I'd warm up to that aspect ratio but I know it's a pain in the but watching old 4:3 shows on a 16:9 TV. And I'm not saying anything is broken, I'm saying that just put SDR looking shows in SDR, why even bother with the HDR container if you are not going outside of that dynamic range?

 

[Hugare]

You swear to god what? You couldn't interpret my comments properly? You misunderstood when I said I work in TV/Features and used an interview of Deakins to show how the creators are within their rights to not use the High part of High Dynamic range? You didn't get the bit where HDTV Test have been flat out wrong in saying content has been 'upscaled' from HDR? Proven wrong as in the people who made the thing said he doesn't understand what he's talking about?

Vincent Teoh should stick to reviewing TV's and not the shit that goes on them.

Because it was obvious that it was not CDPRs intention to make this game look washed out in HDR

Otherwise the image wouldnt look so different in SDR, or they wouldnt outright try to fix HDR with a patch

But you can keep up wth the mental gimnastics if you want tp justify a problem that the developer has already tried to fix

 

[DeaconOfTheDank]

I think it's a decent workaround since your TV is doing all the tonemapping to HDR. But do you even need to do the dynamic range trick? Could be crushing black level.

That's possible, the image does seem quite a bit darker. I'm currently doing a quest that takes place at night (fixed time of day) and some areas are pretty dark. I'll get back to you once I've completed the mission and can roam around the city during the day.