• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

I don’t understand HDR. Everything looks dark or dim on PS5.

Kinggroin

Kinggroin

Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,392
Uranus, get it?!? YOUR. ANUS.
Astral said:
I checked the advance settings and found color gamut. It's set to wide. I also found a Dynamic Contrast option and set it to High. That seemed to have done the trick. It's a huge difference. There's a Dynamic Color option but I can't really see the difference.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's not. Dynamic Contrast set to high will just distort the image per frame to maximize highlights (by crushing shadows and negatively affecting color accuracy). Just turn HDR off, dynamic contrast off, and adjust your brightness, saturation, and contrast as normal. You'll get a much more accurate image.
 
bitcloudrzr

bitcloudrzr

Member
May 31, 2018
13,924
Astral said:
I checked the advance settings and found color gamut. It's set to wide. I also found a Dynamic Contrast option and set it to High. That seemed to have done the trick. It's a huge difference. There's a Dynamic Color option but I can't really see the difference.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The TV may have been updated after the review was posted but you are probably still dealing with fake HDR. The panel itself needs to have 10bit colour and higher nits for brightness.
 
pswii60

pswii60

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,670
The Milky Way
finalflame said:
This comes up all the time. You are not going to enjoy HDR unless you have a mid-upper to high end modern TV. 300 nits peak brightness and no local dimming just isn't going to produce good HDR.

You are better off disabling it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, this.
Wingfan19 said:
I keep seeing this, but my C7 is still darker in HDR Game mode than any other mode and I have latest firmware. Did they not fix this on the 2017 models?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah OLEDs didn't get good for HDR until the 2018 models when DTM was introduced.
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

Member
May 24, 2019
22,192
pswii60 said:
Irrelevant to this thread. That's from a few years back when LG released a firmware update for the B6/C6 OLEDs which dimmed HDR in Game Mode, and was later fixed with a subsequent firmware update.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Game mode HDR is definitely still dim on my 4K LCD. I have to use "Standard" HDR, but setting the inputs to "PC" essentially game-mode-ifies that, graying out processing features.
 
Kinggroin

Kinggroin

Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,392
Uranus, get it?!? YOUR. ANUS.
Wingfan19 said:
HDR is meant to be used in a dark room (5 nits of light). So most of the calibration settings you see online are for that. Think of how dark a movie theater gets. You'll need to increase the panel brightness or OLED light if you game in a standard lit room.


I keep seeing this, but my C7 is still darker in HDR Game mode than any other mode and I have latest firmware. Did they not fix this on the 2017 models?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

HDR should never be darker in general. It should simply have more range between shadows and highlights, colors included., But your TV needs to have the proper nit output to accomplish this (your B7 absolutely should).
 
OP
OP
Astral

Astral

Member
Oct 27, 2017
28,098
Ok yeah I disabled it and it looks a lot better. As soon as I turn it back on it's as if a filter is over the image. I didn't notice it that much before since the PS4 didn't have this "always on HDR" thing.
 
Aztechnology

Aztechnology

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
14,137
Some HDR TV's shouldn't be able to list themselves as HDR imo. Sure they can read the metadata but are almost incapable of actually displaying it properly. Look for Ultra HD premium cert. It's not perfect, but at least it will be a device that probably ticks some of the boxes.

Better yet, use Rtings.com
 
Osu 16 Bit

Osu 16 Bit

QA Lead at NetherRealm Studios
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
2,923
Chicago, IL
so what is fake HDR doing? everyone always just says turn it off, but at least for me it does make a difference. Looks super, super vibrant.
 
headspawn

headspawn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,608
Rtings suggests turning on Dynamic Contrast for HDR content that appears too dim with this particular model.
 
bitcloudrzr

bitcloudrzr

Member
May 31, 2018
13,924
ZeroX said:
I have a similar model. People on here told me the same thing: it sucks for HDR. So I just disabled it. If you have to go through so many hoops and buy specific models and do online research etc for this sort of thing it's not worth the effort.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Rtings does in-depth, easy to understand, and easy to compare reviews for TVs so it is not that difficult to research.
 
Quinton

Quinton

Specialist at TheGamer / Reviewer at RPG Site
Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,273
Midgar, With Love
I quite dislike how TV manufacturers are permitted to use the "HDR" term even without real HDR. Back when I grabbed my 2017 TCL for like $300-$350, I knew it wasn't legitimate HDR. I don't mind that (although I'll certainly upgrade eventually) but it's just so irritating as a notion.

My Xbox Series X has been working like a dream except when it's perceived my television as HDR-capable -- I was getting second-long screen blackouts every few minutes until I went into the system settings and disabled it.
 
MrBS

MrBS

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,231
My main TV for a few years had 'HDR' peaking at 300nits as well and I was far better off with it disabled.

It got good reviews for HDR at the time which doubly aggravated me but at least TVs with similar specs get slammed for HDR non performance now.
 
Jakenbakin

Jakenbakin

Member
Jun 17, 2018
11,809
Last edited:
RivalGT

RivalGT

Member
Dec 13, 2017
6,396
Turning off HDR would be for the best here, the specs say its basically an SDR TV. No amount of calibration or messing with the settings will make anything look like HDR.
 
Osu 16 Bit

Osu 16 Bit

QA Lead at NetherRealm Studios
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
2,923
Chicago, IL
Aztechnology said:
Fake HDR? On the PlayStation do you mean HDR containers in SDR content or do you mean TV's that aren't really capable of doing HDR so are "fake".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


I mean a monitor not capable of it. I think mine is like, 350 nits or whatever. or 400.

To me it often looks amazing. But I am not sure if it's just really bright so that impresses me lol
 
Smokey

Smokey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,176
The answer is the TV. It's always the TV.

You need an upper mid or high tier TV to really appreciate HDR. Otherwise you're better off disabling it.
 
delete

delete

Member
Jul 4, 2019
1,189
Generally HDR works best when watching in a dark room actually, some tvs have features to compensate by using tone mapping.
 
ZeroX

ZeroX

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,266
Speed Force
bitcloudrzr said:
Rtings does in-depth, easy to understand, and easy to compare reviews for TVs so it is not that difficult to research.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's actually quite hard to research when you aren't in the US and your models are different and you have to try and figure out the closest equivalent

also more than 5 minutes of my time isn't worth spending and that's probably true of 99% of consumers.
 
Aztechnology

Aztechnology

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
14,137
Osu 16 Bit said:
I mean a monitor not capable of it. I think mine is like, 350 nits or whatever. or 400.

To me it often looks amazing. But I am not sure if it's just really bright so that impresses me lol
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
350-400 is still fine. It's capable of at least some nuance. The problem is it probably doesn't have local dimming and the color gammut may not be expanded? Hard to know. The brightness is fine for a monitor HDR though. It's the TV's with peak brightness at like 200 nits that are a joke.
 
bytesized

bytesized

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,882
Amsterdam
You probably have some kind of ECO mode enabled. That's what happened to me, i thought for months HDR on my TV was shit when i was just not really getting it at all.
 
logash

logash

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,733
HDR looks awesome for games that support it and do it well. I am not a fan of the tone mapped HDR on SDR content. That content looks really dim and has less color on my TV. Maybe that it what you mean? The perfect games to see this are anime games because they tend to have bright colors. Genshin Impact looks terrible with HDR on. I really hope Sony lets you turn that off eventually.
 
bitcloudrzr

bitcloudrzr

Member
May 31, 2018
13,924
ZeroX said:
It's actually quite hard to research when you aren't in the US and your models are different and you have to try and figure out the closest equivalent

also more than 5 minutes of my time isn't worth spending and that's probably true of 99% of consumers.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Model differentiation I understand, but for something that could cost around $1000 or more that you will keep for several years? 10-20 minutes is worth your time for that, even a quick glance can give you the info you need.
 
LordBlodgett

LordBlodgett

Member
Jan 10, 2020
806
That TV is unfortunately known to have dim HDR, and they never really fixed it like they did with their high end OLED models that year....
 
time-space

time-space

Member
Oct 27, 2017
54
I'm having a similar problem. The main menu of the ps5 with hdr on looks dim compared if I turn it off in the settings. However, when I play games that support hdr it seems to be working as expected. But ps4 games that don't support hdr look terrible. I can't figure out why this is happening for the life of me. I'm using a sony x950g.
 
logash

logash

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,733
time-space said:
I'm having a similar problem. The main menu of the ps5 with hdr on looks dim compared if I turn it off in the settings. However, when I play games that support hdr it seems to be working as expected. But ps4 games that don't support hdr look terrible. I can't figure out why this is happening for the life of me. I'm using a sony x950g.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It isn't your TV. Sony made it so that HDR is always on even with an SDR image. It tone maps the SDR image in a HDR container and it looks terrible. Netflix does the same thing. I hope Sony eventually lets you turn it off.
 
OP
OP
Astral

Astral

Member
Oct 27, 2017
28,098
Wow yeah this is sooooo much better on Demon's Souls too. The lava actually looks bright and hot as fuck and not muted.
 
VanWinkle

VanWinkle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,094
You really want at least 500 nits real scene brightness, AND local dimming, to have a good HDR experience. If you don't, you're probably going to have a worse image than just having it turned off.
 
mentok15

mentok15

Member
Dec 20, 2017
7,302
Australia
Based on BF1 HDR setting my few year old Samsung 4k has a peak brightness of 900 nits, is this good enough for HDR? It looks pretty good to me.
 
AgeEighty

AgeEighty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,401
I've got a 2016 LG OLED and while the picture is phenomenal, the HDR definitely isn't what I'd like it to be. My model doesn't even support Dolby Vision and this makes me so sad.
 
SRTtoZ

SRTtoZ

Member
Dec 8, 2017
4,624
Trust your eyes. I know HDR is pretty 'shitty' on cheaper sets but try both SDR and HDR and see what you enjoy better. On my old Samsung 4k TV I had to turn on Dynamic Contrast just because it helped make HDR brighter even though it screwed up other parts of the image. I enjoyed it more though so whatever. Obviously now I don't have that problem with the LG CX but yea just trust your eyes. People keep telling me to go Warm 2 but it looks too pissy for my liking so I stuck with Warm 1.
 
DreadfulOmen

DreadfulOmen

Member
Feb 6, 2018
1,124
Pargon said:
It's not just that.
The SDR spec intends for content to be viewed at 100 nits brightness, but this is not enforced and most HDR TVs are capable of displaying it at 5× that brightness - or more.
In comparison, the HDR spec is designed to display content at its intended brightness level, and most displays do not even reach 1/5 of the maximum supported brightness - so they do not have the ability to increase its brightness without compressing the dynamic range.

This means that many people end up watching SDR out-of-spec and a lot brighter than intended, while HDR content is forced in-spec (or closer to it) and appears much darker.
If you compare a calibrated SDR image to an HDR one, the HDR image is generally going to be brighter - though it's often that there are elements of the picture which are brighter, rather than the entire image.
In a dark room - as HDR is intended to be viewed - a high average picture brightness can be uncomfortable to watch, so a lot of content does not raise the average screen brightness significantly above SDR levels.

I think a lot of people are going to prefer the look of high-brightness SDR to an HDR image.
And many HDR TVs are capable of displaying SDR images with much more vivid/saturated colors than HDR too.
Again: it's not as the content was intended to be viewed, but many do not care about that and just want a bright vibrant image.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This right here.
 
catpurrcat

catpurrcat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,790
Aztechnology said:
Fake HDR? On the PlayStation do you mean HDR containers in SDR content or do you mean TV's that aren't really capable of doing HDR so are "fake".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Nah there are TV's with marketing garbage attached to the good name of HDR, with names like "True Tone HDR" or something ridiculous, creating legions of consumers who now believe HDR to be trash technology.
Take your pick of names. The TV makers have only themselves to blame for creating cynicism around HDR technology.
 
Tohsaka

Tohsaka

Member
Nov 17, 2017
6,794
What's the minimum amount of nits a TV needs to bother using HDR? Mine (Samsung Q60T) supposedly has around 450 or so from what I've read and apparently that's not great. I just got it a couple months ago and I've been using the rtings recommended settings but I don't really know if I want to bother fiddling with it anymore after seeing all these videos.
 
Yoh

Yoh

Member
Nov 19, 2017
337
I have owned the LG UH8500 for about 4 years and I couldn't never activate the HDR option on any game that had that choice. It was basically inaccessible as my TV wasn't compatible with it even though it has an HDR option....
 

Deleted member 36054

Banned
Dec 12, 2017
4,652
Tohsaka said:
What's the minimum amount of nits a TV needs to bother using HDR? Mine (Samsung Q60T) supposedly has around 450 or so from what I've read and apparently that's not great. I just got it a couple months ago and I've been using the rtings recommended settings but I don't really know if I want to bother fiddling with it anymore after seeing all these videos.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'd say around 700 nits. 1000 is ideal since that is what HDR 10 is mastered at.
 
VodkaFX

VodkaFX

Member
May 31, 2018
929
Tohsaka said:
What's the minimum amount of nits a TV needs to bother using HDR? Mine (Samsung Q60T) supposedly has around 450 or so from what I've read and apparently that's not great. I just got it a couple months ago and I've been using the rtings recommended settings but I don't really know if I want to bother fiddling with it anymore after seeing all these videos.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I am using Q60T as well. For HDR content its pretty decent considering the price.

Just make sure you disable the PWM dimming which affects dark scenes. You'll have to enter the service menu to do this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.