My HDR seems overly dark, looking for suggestions

[DQ]

It's tone mapping. How many nits is your TV? I assume it's not been calibrated? If the metadata isn't being sent properly, or the video you're playing is mastered to a higher nit level, the tv will default to 4000 nits and apply a snike ton of tone mapping. Depending on how well your TV tracks pq eotf up to its max nit level, where it'll then clip, you may be under or over tracking. If it's dark it's likely under tracking. Calibration can correct this and other issues.

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Thanks for the information. I will look into calibration. I did look up the specs of the TV and could not find nits anywhere. I am wondering if the HDR implementation on the TV (its a few years old now) is not great and if maybe that is the reason for this.

https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/premium-uhd-tvs/55--class-ru8000-premium-smart-4k-uhd-tv--2019--un55ru8000fxza/#specs

EDIT - I did tweak several settings that helped. Turned off a number of auto picture tune shenanigans and changed a few color/contrast settings. The picture is more natural now for sure but I still think the brightness is off for HDR.

 

[cartman0208]

Please have a look at this article

https://www.techhive.com/article/583856/samsung-ru8000-review.html

It says your TV has a peak brightness of 350 nits, other tests reach up to 400, which is a bit on the low side.
1000+ nits should be a good value nowadays. Seems your TV is not up to the game

 

[DQ]

Please have a look at this article

https://www.techhive.com/article/583856/samsung-ru8000-review.html

It says your TV has a peak brightness of 350 nits, other tests reach up to 400, which is a bit on the low side.
1000+ nits should be a good value nowadays. Seems your TV is not up to the game

It's got a couple years on it unfortunately. It will have to do for now.

 

[SamuriHL]

Given that you may want to invest in building an htpc and use madvr for tone mapping. It can target your tv's lower max nit level which means it'll be closer to the director's intent and not quite so dark.

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[DQ]

Given that you may want to invest in building an htpc and use madvr for tone mapping. It can target your tv's lower max nit level which means it'll be closer to the director's intent and not quite so dark.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using Tapatalk

Thank you for the suggestion. From my perspective, however, I rather just wait awhile and get a better TV. I have run a HTPC before and it was fun but I prefer the setup I have now to be honest.

Thanks to all who helped me out on this one.

 

[SamuriHL]

If you get a new TV and you don't want to run an external dynamic tone mapping solution, then you want to get a TV that can get as close to 1000 nits as possible. You'll want the TV doing as little tone mapping as possible for the vast majority of titles. (I.E. the majority of titles are mastered to 1000 nits....there are many that are 4000 but they are not the majority). TV's are not especially good at tone mapping, even ones that include so-called dynamic tone mapping solutions (looking at you, LG). Better to get the TV to follow the PQ eotf curve as closely as possible and give it a nit range you don't have to tone map much if at all.

 

[DaveO88]

your problem is rather that everything is viewed as a source from the TV.
That's why HDR is too dark, if you make it brighter, normal TV content becomes too bright. This is the same if you look at the image settings as global and are therefore always the same. However, smartTVs are able to handle each setting for each source separately, but everything cannot come from the same source, that is
Plex -> Receiver -> Roku -> TV
this is a completely wrong approach as all content comes from the same source and thus image settings are viewed globally
If you want to see HDR content differently than with other image settings, the HDR content must also be set up as a separate source

 

[DQ]

your problem is rather that everything is viewed as a source from the TV.
That's why HDR is too dark, if you make it brighter, normal TV content becomes too bright. This is the same if you look at the image settings as global and are therefore always the same. However, smartTVs are able to handle each setting for each source separately, but everything cannot come from the same source, that is
Plex -> Receiver -> Roku -> TV
this is a completely wrong approach as all content comes from the same source and thus image settings are viewed globally
If you want to see HDR content differently than with other image settings, the HDR content must also be set up as a separate source

In this case that is not possible because all of the sources come out of the same hardware which is the Roku.

 

[DaveO88]

right , and therein lies the problem.
in such a case you need a network player, something like an Android media player or CloneOppo so that your network resources become an independent source

 

[DQ]

right , and therein lies the problem.
in such a case you need a network player, something like an Android media player or CloneOppo so that your network resources become an independent source

I don't think (in this case) that helps me much. I think for whatever the reasons are it's just the way the TV displays HDR. I know this because of a test I did that someone suggested to play a movie from a USB stick. And it too was fairly dark. I think ultimately I will need a new TV at some point.

 

[DaveO88]

Well, if you do it with the USB stick, you can change the values in the image settings without affecting other material, so first change the values until the HDR material is bearable to look at