madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[ryrynz]

Suanm, please post screenshots of the OSD in both instances.

[Sunset1982]

I have a C8 too.
As far as I know you'll need a service remote or a phone which has an IR blaster to access the service menu.
For an android phones the app is called AnyMote not sure about iphone.

I can understand why LG limited the brightness for SDR. There are more and more cases with burn-in and if people could watch CNN or whatever all day with 500+ nits they probably would...

Another way is too use a logitech harmony remote if you got one...

[blu3wh0]

That sounds like something I should automatically do in madVR.

That would be great. May I also suggest putting the option to send BT.2020 metadata under the HDR options, as probably 99% of videos in this range would be in HDR. I'm sure there are people with use for it in calibration as well, but that means if I want to use it I would also need to create a profile to seperate rec 709 and BT.2020. I would think most TVs would handle calibrations for both.

At least for the LG OLED, there are two ISF calibration modes (bright and dark) for SDR that actually perform the same, so one could calibration one for HDR to SDR and the other for normal SDR, all on the same HDMI connection.

I don't have anything that would get me to the service menu right now, so I can't take measurements with the option suggested set. However, I would be careful so that this actually isn't setting HDR mode for SDR, meaning all the tone-mapping and processing that comes with it, instead of just increasing brightness. If someone gets a chance to measure the peak brightness, please check the gamma and luminance curves as well. It would be great if it was just peak brightness used to protect against burn-in, but I have my doubts.

[jokerb47]

Hello. I have a following bug. When I wake up my monitor by typing account password to unlock my system (win10x64 1709), and try to resume the playback of a video that was paused, I get only the sound playing, but the video plays for a second and freezes. And only reopening the file helps. I use madVR v0.92.16, but I experienced same bug with v0.92.14.
I have a script that puts my monitors to sleep when I lock the system. But this problem doesn't manifest if I unlock the system right away, only when I leave it locked for some time.

[SamuriHL]

I have a C8 too.
As far as I know you'll need a service remote or a phone which has an IR blaster to access the service menu.
For an android phones the app is called AnyMote not sure about iphone.

I can understand why LG limited the brightness for SDR. There are more and more cases with burn-in and if people could watch CNN or whatever all day with 500+ nits they probably would...

Thanks for the info. And yes, the burn-in issues are real so it's not too surprising that SDR brightness is limited. However, I can attest to the quality of the work that madshi has been doing in this area and it would be worth the risk IMO.

[creativeopinion]

Thanks for the info. And yes, the burn-in issues are real so it's not too surprising that SDR brightness is limited. However, I can attest to the quality of the work that madshi has been doing in this area and it would be worth the risk IMO.

There is no doubt that madshi is doing outstanding work and we all have been using madVR for quite some time but saying this is worth risking burn-in issues is too much in my opinion, unless you have warranty that covers such issues and you can be sure you can replace your screen without any problems or unless you simply have too much money and can afford replacing your TV any minute.

Also, my understanding is that changing this HDR module from normal to 'ON' is permanent. Not permanent like there is no option to go back but this would have an effect on all content including 'non HDR' content which then means you would have to to swtich this ON and OFF all the time depending on the content you want to watch. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but this doesn't sound like something I would want to do every single time between watching SDR/HDR content in order to make sure I can have the best quality available.

I don't know what other OLED users experienced using 'convert HDR to SDR' option so it's hard to tell if we can really take advantage from using this. I know one other person except me that experienced the same so going anything above 120 nits produces the picture that is just too dark and at the same time using 120 nits means you are watching content that is way too bright than intended.

Now everyone can decide for themselves. Personally I think I will stick to passthrough for the time being. But like I say, advising someone to risk burn-in issues is IMO too much and not a good advise. You can test it but if that can cause real damage to your screen I would say let it go.

[suanm]

Suanm, please post screenshots of the OSD in both instances.
Three snapshots are pasted to the message board.

[clsid]

Use external image host:
http://tinypic.com/
https://imgur.com/

[suanm]

Use external image host:
http://tinypic.com/
https://imgur.com/
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2u5rlac&s=9#.W6pC_5MSHb0
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fxwld1&s=9#.W6pEHJMSHb0

[suanm]

Hello masters here
Two snapshots are uploaded to external image host.
link:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2u5rlac&s=9#.W6pM9JMSHb1
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fxwld1&s=9#.W6pEHJMSHb0
What do you guys think of my questions?
I mean which image quality is better between 3839*2160 60hz mode and 3840*2160 30hz mode? I worry that madVR can't make 4:2:0 convert to 4:4:4 in 3840*2160 30hz mode,and can't make luma quadrupling upscalling work realling in the same 30hz mode,either

[j82k]

I don't understand why people get the idea that using madVR HDR to SDR even with the service menu tweak would be more risky than passthrough.
Burn-in is caused by content with static parts like game huds or channel logos and as far as I'm aware most people use madVR for movies which don't have any static parts.

Even if the service menu tweak would get you HDR brightness for SDR that doesn't mean that you have to watch regular SDR content at 100 Oled-Light. The reduced SDR brightness is just a protection for dumb people who always run their TV at max brightness for everything.

Also I did some testing and I'm pretty sure while this service menu tweak increases SDR brightness it is still below HDR. Only the sports preset (with the service menu tweak) is for whatever reason similar bright as HDR. But even with all picture enhancements turned off this preset causes big issues for me. In darker scenes there is sometimes some really weird vignetting effect that even moves around when the picture is paused. None of the other presets does that. I also tested the sports preset without the service menu tweak and the issue still remained.

[huhn]

Hello masters here
Two snapshots are uploaded to external image host.
link:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2u5r...9#.W6pC_5MSHb0
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fxwld1&s=9#.W6pEHJMSHb0
What do you guys think of my questions?
I mean which image quality is better between 3839*2160 60hz mode and 3840*2160 30hz mode? I worry that madVR can't make 4:2:0 convert to 4:4:4 in 3840*2160 30hz mode,and can't make luma quadrupling upscalling work realling in the same 30hz mode,either

you run a 23 hz file at 30 or 60 fps there is nothing a custom resolution cna optimize here...

stay at the native resolution of your screen and try to frame rate match or use smoothmotion.

if madVR can do a 4:2:0 -> RGB conversation has nothing to do with the output resolution or framerate.

[suanm]

you run a 23 hz file at 30 or 60 fps there is nothing a custom resolution cna optimize here...

stay at the native resolution of your screen and try to frame rate match or use smoothmotion.

if madVR can do a 4:2:0 -> RGB conversation has nothing to do with the output resolution or framerate.
So that means madvr can let 4:2:0 convert to 4:4:4 in 30hz mode,doesn't it?
Actually i worry that in 3840*2160 30hz mode the output bandwith is insufficient.it may lead to the 4:2:0 conversion to 4:4:4 failure.
In my memory 3840*2160 30hz is only suitable for HDMI 1.4 output port.
HDMI 1.4 output port only transports 4K video with 4:2:0,not 4k video with 4:4:4

[Warner306]

I don't understand why people get the idea that using madVR HDR to SDR even with the service menu tweak would be more risky than passthrough.
Burn-in is caused by content with static parts like game huds or channel logos and as far as I'm aware most people use madVR for movies which don't have any static parts.

The SDR gamma curve makes more of the screen brighter, so the chances of burn-in increase.

I don't totally understand why someone with a display as bright as an OLED would want to use an SDR gamma curve to display HDR content. Projector owners champion this configuration, but it works much better when the display has limited brightness. A PQ curve will do a superior job of separating the various image elements with different amounts of brightness, like it was meant to be presented. A bright sun, for example, will stand out more when presented in PQ than SDR. SDR gamma tends to make large portions of the image brighter or darker. It is also possible to invite banding when the SDR curve is stretched too far, and you will reduce its accuracy without a proper calibration.

An HLG curve is a better example of a curve designed for HDR. It uses an SDR gamma curve for the SDR range and a much steeper logarithmic curve for HDR highlights. This will produce a better HDR effect than an SDR gamma curve alone and reduce the chances of banding.

[j82k]

I don't think what you're saying is true at all when using madVR's HDR to SDR. Average brightness totally depends on what you set the target peak nits to. So it could also be darker than HDR passthrough, which is what I'm after, darker overall picture but increased dynamic range compared to LG's tonemapping. Also I've never seen madVR produce any banding when it wasn't a source problem, quite the opposite I think 8-bit with dithering gives smoother gradients than whatever the LG produces when feeding it with 10-bit.

[SamuriHL]

There is no doubt that madshi is doing outstanding work and we all have been using madVR for quite some time but saying this is worth risking burn-in issues is too much in my opinion, unless you have warranty that covers such issues and you can be sure you can replace your screen without any problems or unless you simply have too much money and can afford replacing your TV any minute.

Also, my understanding is that changing this HDR module from normal to 'ON' is permanent. Not permanent like there is no option to go back but this would have an effect on all content including 'non HDR' content which then means you would have to to swtich this ON and OFF all the time depending on the content you want to watch. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but this doesn't sound like something I would want to do every single time between watching SDR/HDR content in order to make sure I can have the best quality available.

I don't know what other OLED users experienced using 'convert HDR to SDR' option so it's hard to tell if we can really take advantage from using this. I know one other person except me that experienced the same so going anything above 120 nits produces the picture that is just too dark and at the same time using 120 nits means you are watching content that is way too bright than intended.

Now everyone can decide for themselves. Personally I think I will stick to passthrough for the time being. But like I say, advising someone to risk burn-in issues is IMO too much and not a good advise. You can test it but if that can cause real damage to your screen I would say let it go.

To be clear, I wasn't advising anyone to do anything with their equipment. I was simply saying it's potentially worth the risk....to me. Given that I'm coming to OLED from a plasma screen, I'm already well versed in burn-in issues and how to prevent them. As I've no intention of leaving CNN on for 8+ hours a day (I'd pull my katana off the wall and commit seppuku first) my personal risk of burn-in issues would be fairly small. I'm NOT recommending anyone else mess with their OLED. The service menu is difficult to get to for a reason. Screwing with that invites problems....problems most people would be well advised to avoid.

Yes, the HDR->SDR is definitely too dark for us LG OLED users. 120 NIT target isn't going to fly. If I were to make any actual recommendations to other people it would be to leave the service menu alone and use HDR passthrough. Hopefully madshi can fix the current issues with the HDR using pixel math option.

In any case, I just wanted to clarify that my statement was my own personal opinion for myself and not a general recommendation that people go messing around with very expensive equipment.

[huhn]

So that means madvr can let 4:2:0 convert to 4:4:4 in 30hz mode,doesn't it?
Actually i worry that in 3840*2160 30hz mode the output bandwith is insufficient.it may lead to the 4:2:0 conversion to 4:4:4 failure.
In my memory 3840*2160 30hz is only suitable for HDMI 1.4 output port.
HDMI 1.4 output port only transports 4K video with 4:2:0,not 4k video with 4:4:4

that's part of the GPU not madVR.
and no HDMI 1.4 can do RGB UHD at UHD.
why do you even care you are clearly using hdmi 2.0.

@Warner306

a 1000 nit HDR image on a 1000 nit display will have the same image between a HDR signal with 1000 nits and an SDR image properly converted from the HDR image.

gamma, PQ and HLG are just different ways to store the data.

the banding part is a myths a proper dithered image will not show banding. banding is usually produce by the flawed image processing of TVs or other panel related things.
when switching between modes on a TV the transistor to power the pixel will not magical be able to produce PQ from gamma or closer to gamma response.

[SamuriHL]

I don't understand why people get the idea that using madVR HDR to SDR even with the service menu tweak would be more risky than passthrough.
Burn-in is caused by content with static parts like game huds or channel logos and as far as I'm aware most people use madVR for movies which don't have any static parts.

Even if the service menu tweak would get you HDR brightness for SDR that doesn't mean that you have to watch regular SDR content at 100 Oled-Light. The reduced SDR brightness is just a protection for dumb people who always run their TV at max brightness for everything.

Also I did some testing and I'm pretty sure while this service menu tweak increases SDR brightness it is still below HDR. Only the sports preset (with the service menu tweak) is for whatever reason similar bright as HDR. But even with all picture enhancements turned off this preset causes big issues for me. In darker scenes there is sometimes some really weird vignetting effect that even moves around when the picture is paused. None of the other presets does that. I also tested the sports preset without the service menu tweak and the issue still remained.

The sports preset is awful. I may have to invest in something that allows me to play around with the service menu as I would like to see what this looks like on my setup. We don't have to go nuts on SDR brightness in order to make use of the work madshi is doing. I'd be curious to see if anyone could measure it with that option set. Not in sports mode LOL

[Warner306]

Just look at the PQ curve. It is very flat at the bottom (almost SDR gamma 2.40) and then rises rapidly when the brightness increases. The SDR gamma curve can't replicate this brightness response. That is why the HLG curve was invented. SDR gamma was also replaced with PQ and HLG because tests found it leads to banding when the brightness range is stretched too far.

If you want to test if your display is handling color correctly, download the Life Untouched 4K HDR Demo (http://4kmedia.org/life-untouched-hdr-uhd-4k-demo/).

Find this scene and observe the color of the flower petals:

Flowers Correct Hue (http://madvr.com/doom9/hdr/lifeUntouchedGood.png)
Flowers Incorrect Hue (http://madvr.com/doom9/hdr/lifeUntouchedDumb.png)

If they are blue, there is a fair to good chance your display is handling color correctly. If they are purple, your display is probably shifting some hues.

[nevcairiel]

the banding part is a myths a proper dithered image will not show banding

Sure, you can prevent banding with dithering, but you do that at the expense of the noise floor.
All these transfer functions exist to move bitdepth around into areas where it matters for the format in question, because bitdepth is ultimately limited.

Gamma/SDR transfer functions are designed for a limited range of brightness, ie. the SDR brightness, so it spreads the bits around for that. If you try to push 1000 nits of brightness into a image transfer designed for ~120 nits or so, there will be a downside to that, because its not aware of the increased range of brightness.

PQ is designed to keep more bitdepth for the relevant parts (ie. 0-100 or so), and waste less bits on the 900 remaining nits, which are of less importance then the actual image detail.

Of course you can mask these differences with dithering, but ultimately a PQ curve is going to give you a better bitdepth distribution for HDR images, which have the majority of image data in a small subsection of the bitdepth range, and only highlights in 90% of the remaining space - as the transfer should reflect that.

[huhn]

@nevcairiel

correctly. properly used bit deep will lower the noise floor and depending on the source notable.

i will not dare to say PQ is worse than gamma and they help extreme for lossy compression just like bit deep.

but in the end the dispaly will convert everything to something close to gamma with the extra use of the backlight.
how do you even create a transistor powered pixel response like PQ with a dynamic brightness? and would it even help at all.

fun fact gamma was an artifactly by product from CRTs because that'S how they responded which helps quite alot for image compression these days just imaging it would be linear. but it was not created for SDR in mind it's just what we got.
@Warner306
colors have little to nothing to do with gamma or PQ. the color differences don't come from banding or bit deep relations. my first guess would be gamut mapping.

that'S the problem of these test they don't dither properly if they dod they would "only" talk about noise not banding.

[j82k]

The thing with Oleds is, they are terrible at near-blacks. Not only the uniformity but also the near-black gradation so I totally don't mind some dithering noise which hides this ugliness a little bit and also makes the gradation a little smoother. I wish Oleds would just dither the near-blacks by default like plasmas did. This would solve alot of problems and only cause a bit of noise.

edit: madshi should implement some algorithm to madVR for Oled owners that does heavy dithering to near-blacks and less and less on brighter parts of the picture. :D

[madshi]

About the screenshots comparison, I don't know anything at HDR (and I'm not really interested). In the end, the best images are the one with better contrast isn't it ?
Is it right to say it looks exactly like "dynamic contrast" options from TV ?
The best images are those that look nearest to how the HDR content would look like on a perfect 10,000nits display. Of course it's hard for us to judge because nobody has such a display. But you can get an impression by telling madVR to tone map to e.g. 1,000nits or 4,000nits. The tone mapped images for e.g. 200nits should look the same, just much brighter. Exactly "the same" is not possible, though, because of limitations in your display technology. Also, it's a bit hard to judge for our eyes/brain, because the vastly different brightness levels make it hard to judge.

Maybe a stupid question, but I remember reading on this very forum that we shouldn't use the Sony Camp demo because its mastering metadata was rubbish.
Is there another, correctly encoded, source? Or does that not matter anymore with the newer madVR versions and it can handle material with incorrect metadata?
It's true that the metadata is broken/missing with this demo. However, a good video renderer still has to be able to handle this situation. Furthermore, madVR now has the ability to actually measure each video frame in the demo, so the metadata isn't strictly needed, anymore.

Speaking about SDR brightness, how do you guys manage the different brightness between HDR converted to SDR, and actual SDR? Surely one doesn't want the same brightness levels there. Manually? TVs certainly don't have much automation to speak of.
Well, I think many users are actually trying to get their HDR content just as bright as their SDR content. Which is why people are using very very low target nits settings like 100nits in madVR.

Personally, I don't think that's the purpose of HDR. So your question is quite valid. FWIW, the new "report BT.2020 to display" option might help a little, *if* your TV somehow reacts to that. But I suppose most TVs won't.

With my projector, SDR is relatively bright, and HDR is quite a bit darker. But that's fine for me. Of course I could try to make SDR darker to match HDR, but what's the point of that? Our eyes adjust very quickly to different brightness levels, at least in a bat cave like mine... :)

I can understand why LG limited the brightness for SDR. There are more and more cases with burn-in and if people could watch CNN or whatever all day with 500+ nits they probably would...
Actually, I think LG probably didn't limit the SDR brightness, instead they compromise for HDR by using the white subpixels more extensively. Which means color accuracy might suffer. At least that's what I've been told by an industry insider.

May I also suggest putting the option to send BT.2020 metadata under the HDR options, as probably 99% of videos in this range would be in HDR. I'm sure there are people with use for it in calibration as well, but that means if I want to use it I would also need to create a profile to seperate rec 709 and BT.2020. I would think most TVs would handle calibrations for both.
When I added this option I thought about where to put it and first considered the HDR page. But then I thought it would fit better in the calibration page because if this option switches your TV into different modes, you'll also need different calibration settings/profiles.

Hello. I have a following bug. When I wake up my monitor by typing account password to unlock my system (win10x64 1709), and try to resume the playback of a video that was paused, I get only the sound playing, but the video plays for a second and freezes. And only reopening the file helps. I use madVR v0.92.16, but I experienced same bug with v0.92.14.
I have a script that puts my monitors to sleep when I lock the system. But this problem doesn't manifest if I unlock the system right away, only when I leave it locked for some time.
I'm aware of this problem, probably Direct3D erroring out after a long sleep. I don't have a solution for that at this point. Maybe some time in the future.

Also, my understanding is that changing this HDR module from normal to 'ON' is permanent. Not permanent like there is no option to go back but this would have an effect on all content including 'non HDR' content which then means you would have to to swtich this ON and OFF all the time depending on the content you want to watch. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but this doesn't sound like something I would want to do every single time between watching SDR/HDR content in order to make sure I can have the best quality available.
True. But isn't there a "brightness" slider in the menu with which you can set differently for each HDMI input? This way maybe you can turn the brightness down for SDR sources, and use in on full power only for your HTPC?

I don't know what other OLED users experienced using 'convert HDR to SDR' option so it's hard to tell if we can really take advantage from using this. I know one other person except me that experienced the same so going anything above 120 nits produces the picture that is just too dark and at the same time using 120 nits means you are watching content that is way too bright than intended.
That doesn't seem very logical to me. If you find the image with a setting above 120 nits too dark, then by all means use 120 nits. If it's brighter than intended then who cares? Doesn't the same logic apply just the same to using HDR passthrough mode? Is the image then just as bright as 120 nits? If so, isn't that brighter than intended, too?

The SDR gamma curve makes more of the screen brighter, so the chances of burn-in increase.
That doesn't make any sense to me. The gamma curve (PQ or power or BT.709) is only a communication format between HTPC and TV. Both PQ and power/BT.709 gamma should end up in the same data inside of your TV, if madVR and TV are both setup correctly.

The key difference is that sending PQ means your TV will activate its own HDR -> SDR algorithm. While when sending power/BT.709 gamma, the TV will deactivate it's HDR -> SDR algorithm, and madVR can do that processing instead.

I don't totally understand why someone with a display as bright as an OLED would want to use an SDR gamma curve to display HDR content. Projector owners champion this configuration, but it works much better when the display has limited brightness. A PQ curve will do a superior job of separating the various image elements with different amounts of brightness, like it was meant to be presented. A bright sun, for example, will stand out more when presented in PQ than SDR. SDR gamma tends to make large portions of the image brighter or darker.
That's all completely incorrect, IMHO.

It is also possible to invite banding when the SDR curve is stretched too far, and you will reduce its accuracy without a proper calibration.
Nope, not true. madVR never ever produces banding. There's no banding even if you lower the display bitdepth to 4bit. Give it a try, if you don't believe me.

Also I've never seen madVR produce any banding when it wasn't a source problem, quite the opposite I think 8-bit with dithering gives smoother gradients than whatever the LG produces when feeding it with 10-bit.
:)

Yes, the HDR->SDR is definitely too dark for us LG OLED users. 120 NIT target isn't going to fly.
You're saying 120nits target is too dark? Strange enough projector users are actually using *much* higher values on AVSForum. And projectors are much dimmer than OLEDs!

If I were to make any actual recommendations to other people it would be to leave the service menu alone and use HDR passthrough. Hopefully madshi can fix the current issues with the HDR using pixel math option.
Which current issues are you talking about?

a 1000 nit HDR image on a 1000 nit display will have the same image between a HDR signal with 1000 nits and an SDR image properly converted from the HDR image.

gamma, PQ and HLG are just different ways to store the data.

the banding part is a myths a proper dithered image will not show banding. banding is usually produce by the flawed image processing of TVs or other panel related things.
when switching between modes on a TV the transistor to power the pixel will not magical be able to produce PQ from gamma or closer to gamma response.
Yes!!

Just look at the PQ curve. It is very flat at the bottom (almost SDR gamma 2.40) and then rises rapidly when the brightness increases. The SDR gamma curve can't replicate this brightness response.
Given enough bitdepth (or dithering): Yes, it can.

That is why the HLG curve was invented. SDR gamma was also replaced with PQ and HLG because tests found it leads to banding when the brightness range is stretched too far.
Please don't confuse encoding/mastering with playback/rendering. Very different things.

For encoding/mastering, dithering doesn't work well. The reason for that is that videos are lossily encoded, and lossy encoders have trouble with noise, grain and dithering. You need to use very high encoding bitrates to make sure that noise, grain and dithering doesn't get completely lost. And even with high bitrates, that stuff still gets lost to some extent. Because of that, for encoding/mastering it's important to have high bitdepth, and PQ helps there, too, with it's more intelligent gamma curves.

However, during playback/rendering, the whole chain is fully lossless. There's no lossy compression going on anywhere in between madVR and TV. So every dithered bit should reach the display untouched. As a result, bitdepth is much less important, because madVR's dithering is of very high quality.

PQ has the benefit (and curse) of defining an exact nits value for each pixel. But there's not a single consumer display (I know of) that can render BT.2020 10,000nits. So every TV out there has to process the PQ data in such a way that it is fairly represented within the technical limitations of the TV. This process of dumbing the PQ/HDR data down to the capabilities of the TV is usually called "tone mapping". You can let your TV do that, or you can let madVR do that. Which would you rather trust to do this processing in highest quality? :p

There's no HDR magic going on in TVs. Sending HDR content untouched as PQ to the TV from madVR doesn't magically turn your TV into a HDR miracle. Your TV will simply internally convert PQ to whatever internal format the TV works with. If you let madVR send power/BT.709 gamma to your TV, you simply move the tone mapping from your TV to madVR. That's it. The only difference between an HDR and SDR display is that the HDR TV has a firmware which can do tone mapping. (Ok, some TVs might switch to "overdrive" mode when receiving PQ data.)

Sure, you can prevent banding with dithering, but you do that at the expense of the noise floor.
All these transfer functions exist to move bitdepth around into areas where it matters for the format in question, because bitdepth is ultimately limited.

Gamma/SDR transfer functions are designed for a limited range of brightness, ie. the SDR brightness, so it spreads the bits around for that. If you try to push 1000 nits of brightness into a image transfer designed for ~120 nits or so, there will be a downside to that, because its not aware of the increased range of brightness.

PQ is designed to keep more bitdepth for the relevant parts (ie. 0-100 or so), and waste less bits on the 900 remaining nits, which are of less importance then the actual image detail.

Of course you can mask these differences with dithering, but ultimately a PQ curve is going to give you a better bitdepth distribution for HDR images, which have the majority of image data in a small subsection of the bitdepth range, and only highlights in 90% of the remaining space - as the transfer should reflect that.
True, but this is much more important for encoding/mastering than for playback. I doubt anybody could see the dithering noise floor in madVR's 10bit output. *Maybe* when pressing your nose to a 3m wide screen. But then, most TV panels can't do 10bit+ native, anyway. So they will internally dither, thus increasing the noise floor on their own. So when talking about the transport format between HTPC and TV, I doubt PQ has any visible benefit whatsoever, in terms of either banding or noise floor.

The thing with Oleds is, they are terrible at near-blacks. Not only the uniformity but also the near-black gradation so I totally don't mind some dithering noise which hides this ugliness a little bit and also makes the gradation a little smoother. I wish Oleds would just dither the near-blacks by default like plasmas did. This would solve alot of problems and only cause a bit of noise.

edit: madshi should implement some algorithm to madVR for Oled owners that does heavy dithering to near-blacks and less and less on brighter parts of the picture. :D
I've actually already thought about that! It's hard to develop such an algo, though, without being able to test it with an OLED. And I don't have an OLED atm.

[mclingo]

There is no doubt that madshi is doing outstanding work and we all have been using madVR for quite some time but saying this is worth risking burn-in issues is too much in my opinion, unless you have warranty that covers such issues and you can be sure you can replace your screen without any problems or unless you simply have too much money and can afford replacing your TV any minute.

Also, my understanding is that changing this HDR module from normal to 'ON' is permanent. Not permanent like there is no option to go back but this would have an effect on all content including 'non HDR' content which then means you would have to to swtich this ON and OFF all the time depending on the content you want to watch. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but this doesn't sound like something I would want to do every single time between watching SDR/HDR content in order to make sure I can have the best quality available.

I don't know what other OLED users experienced using 'convert HDR to SDR' option so it's hard to tell if we can really take advantage from using this. I know one other person except me that experienced the same so going anything above 120 nits produces the picture that is just too dark and at the same time using 120 nits means you are watching content that is way too bright than intended.

Now everyone can decide for themselves. Personally I think I will stick to passthrough for the time being. But like I say, advising someone to risk burn-in issues is IMO too much and not a good advise. You can test it but if that can cause real damage to your screen I would say let it go.

you are only really at risk with bright static images, movies will be fine.

However if you turn it off it will be off for gaming and TV too where you are most likely yo get static images and therefore burn in.

ABL is also something you should not turn off but I have, I just couldnt live with it. I dont doing gaming and I use an all back them / audio hide my taskbar etc etc.

So far no problems and my OLED will be 3 years old shortly.

[SamuriHL]

You're saying 120nits target is too dark? Strange enough projector users are actually using *much* higher values on AVSForum. And projectors are much dimmer than OLEDs!


Ack, no, sorry I wasn't clear! No I'm saying I set it to 200 for a good compromise. Above 200 and it starts to get darker. 120 is very bright indeed and at least for me isn't necessary. But even at 400 it's not TOO dark. If I were in a blacked out room I could get away with it no problem. My ambient light is a bit too high so I require something slightly brighter which is why I settled on 200 for now. Hopefully that makes sense. I don't want to go below 200.


Which current issues are you talking about?


When using the HDR pixel shader math option the image is EXTREMELY dark. This was reported earlier for v0.9.16 I believe.

[madshi]

No I'm saying I set it to 200 for a good compromise. Above 200 and it starts to get darker. 120 is very bright indeed and at least for me isn't necessary.

When using the HDR pixel shader math option the image is EXTREMELY dark. This was reported earlier for v0.9.16 I believe.
I'm confused. Don't these things contradict each other? Either 200 is fine, or the image is extremely dark. Both things can't be true at the same time?

[SamuriHL]

I'm confused. Don't these things contradict each other? Either 200 is fine, or the image is extremely dark. Both things can't be true at the same time?

2 COMPLETELY different things. :) And I guess I didn't make this clear sigh. SO HDR->SDR at 200 is good. Anything above 400 gets pretty dark.

Separate issue....HDR using pixel shader math (meaning sending HDR as you know) is very dark no matter what it's set to. That's recent to v0.9.16. So two completely different things.

[madshi]

Ah, you meant the "process HDR" option, not the "convert HDR to SDR" option. Yes, that's buggy and needs fixing.

[SamuriHL]

Yes sorry for not being clear. Lots going on lately so my brain is all over the place.

[el Filou]

On my plasma I'm setting HDR nits to 200 and it's plenty bright.
I use one of the three calibrated profiles (there's Custom, Pro 1, Pro 2) which I've set to maximum brightness, and manualy select it when I play an HDR movie with madVR.

[famasfilms]

not sure whats going on with yours to be honest but mines currently working ok after a full reinstall of MADVR, AMD drivers and KODI DS.

There was no way I was going to change my HDMI mode every time I wanted to play a HDR movie though mate, I would have still gone with the calibration in MADVR.

Update your SIG with your details.

give us some idea of your full setup and processing chain and lets see if we can get to the bottom of it.

Sound to me like you dont have something setup right somewhere, if colours are washed out, HDR has always worked fine in all modes for me.

Eh? Nothing needs fixing with my setup, SDR and HDR work fine, the only requirement is that I change from PC mode to Home Theatre on the TV to watch HDR.

The only reason it's on PC mode to begin with is because that's how the calibrator set it up, starting playback and MadVR display mode switching turns the TV into Home Theatre mode and onto the calibrated settings

Now that I think about it I could just leave it in home theatre mode all the time

For reference, the earlier reply to my post in March about colour differences for HDR in PC vs HT is here: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1837356#post1837356

"On 2016 LG Oleds (not sure about 2017) HDR is messed up when using PC HDMI input icon. Not sure what the TV is doing with HDR in pc-mode but it looks as if it was using a wrong color gamut or something like that.

I haven't watched mad max in HDR yet, so I don't know how colorful it is but other movies will look desaturated and dull when using pc-mode HDR. "

"Home Theater seems to have much better coverage on my TV. It is still mostly 4:4:4 but 4:2:2 shows up more than it does when set to PC, so there is extra processing that has some color blending. Good for video but not great for a monitor or precise chroma upscaling."

"Make sure you enable Deep Color on that HDMI input, because my E6 does UHD at 23.976 / 24 on the PC label. However, PC label absolutely ruins HDR on the LG E6, locks settings, and makes it look washed out. You also cannot get 4:4:4 without using the "PC" label. So if you are using the display as both a desktop monitor and an HTPC, gotta switch between PC mode and non-PC mode depending on HDR. It sucks, shame on LG for never fixing it. "

So I guess you could leave it on Home Theatre if all you do is watch video's, but my PC is not just a HTPC

[j82k]

On 2016 LG Oleds (not sure about 2017) HDR is messed up when using PC HDMI input icon. Not sure what the TV is doing with HDR in pc-mode but it looks as if it was using a wrong color gamut or something like that.


They actually fixed the messed up HDR/color gamut when using pc-mode on 2018 LG Oleds with the latest firmware update.
Maybe 2016 and 2017 models will follow....

Only took them 2.5 years. :rolleyes:


I've actually already thought about that! It's hard to develop such an algo, though, without being able to test it with an OLED. And I don't have an OLED atm.

Yeah I can see that this would be nearly impossible without having an Oled to test with, as it would probably require a lot of trial and error.

Someone buy madshi an Oled. :)

[nevcairiel]

Well, I think many users are actually trying to get their HDR content just as bright as their SDR content. Which is why people are using very very low target nits settings like 100nits in madVR.

Personally, I don't think that's the purpose of HDR. So your question is quite valid. FWIW, the new "report BT.2020 to display" option might help a little, *if* your TV somehow reacts to that. But I suppose most TVs won't.

I figure with an actual HDR TV, and all their excess brightness, you definitely don't want to get sunburned from SDR content, while with HDR content you may want to use the brightness for highlights etc. madVR seems to be able to produce a HDR to SDR signal that would enable this (ie. one that looks "too dark" in normal SDR brightness, but possibly just fine with cranked up brightness), while avoiding all the terrible HDR processing in many TVs. Well maybe future TVs will somehow allow external tonemapping while still accepting PQ (ie. the "process HDR" mode in madVR)

[SamuriHL]

Wouldn't that be nice! The current situation at least with LG OLED is not great in that regard.

[ryrynz]

The thing with Oleds is, they are terrible at near-blacks.

Depends on your model, All three manufacturers made advancements in this area recently, Sony is the best in this area ATM.

[madshi]

Someone buy madshi an Oled. :)
:D

I figure with an actual HDR TV, and all their excess brightness, you definitely don't want to get sunburned from SDR content, while with HDR content you may want to use the brightness for highlights etc. madVR seems to be able to produce a HDR to SDR signal that would enable this (ie. one that looks "too dark" in normal SDR brightness, but possibly just fine with cranked up brightness), while avoiding all the terrible HDR processing in many TVs. Well maybe future TVs will somehow allow external tonemapping while still accepting PQ (ie. the "process HDR" mode in madVR)
I guess another option would be to use profiles to make SDR content darker manually, e.g. by decreasing madVR's "brightness" setting for SDR content.

[nevcairiel]

I guess another option would be to use profiles to make SDR content darker manually, e.g. by decreasing madVR's "brightness" setting for SDR content.

I considered that, but then my Desktop/10ft interface would still be burning. No good solutions!

[madshi]

I considered that, but then my Desktop/10ft interface would still be burning. No good solutions!
Oh, that's true. Maybe toned down GPU gamma ramps? Or maybe does your TV support IP control? If so, you could switch your TV into different modes through IP control.

[nevcairiel]

Or maybe does your TV support IP control? If so, you could switch your TV into different modes through IP control.

Not that I'm aware of. But i guess I could explore what CEC might offer. Maybe two inputs with automatic switching through CEC might work, even if a bit of a yanky setup.

[jokerb47]

Hello. I have a following bug. When I wake up my monitor by typing account password to unlock my system (win10x64 1709), and try to resume the playback of a video that was paused, I get only the sound playing, but the video plays for a second and freezes. And only reopening the file helps. I use madVR v0.92.16, but I experienced same bug with v0.92.14.
I have a script that puts my monitors to sleep when I lock the system. But this problem doesn't manifest if I unlock the system right away, only when I leave it locked for some time.
Hello madshi. Thanks for the quick reply. Glad to know you aware of this problem. I just want to add, that I doubt that my particular system is at fault. I've had this bug with AMD drivers 17.11.1 and now 18.8.1. Have all latest updates. I tried default madvr settings, as well as my custom settings. What I did yesterday is setting "when and how shall the GPU be flushed" all 4 settings to flush&wait(sleep). And I thought that helped, because the whole 2 times after about 10 minites of monitor sleep(but also cpu powerstates go down by ParkControl), the bug dissappeared.

But then I decided to leave the machine running for the night, with monitors in sleep, and bam in the morning that video won't play. So at this point I don't believe just changing madVR settings will help. I'll temporary revert this JRiver profile to EVR, but after madVR the picture is not sharp at all)

[mclingo]

Eh? Nothing needs fixing with my setup, SDR and HDR work fine, the only requirement is that I change from PC mode to Home Theatre on the TV to watch HDR.
....C

The only difference the mode makes on mine is that PC mode disables all motion processing, beyond the fact it used to fixed my colour saturation problem with SDR 23hz material there were no other differences.

There is no diff between home threatre and bluray on mine at all for colour or HDR.

Now my colour sat problem is fixed switching modes does nothing at all to colour on mine, but mine is a frst gen OLED and may be different to later models.

I'm using Deep colour on all three HDMI's.

[mclingo]

Hello madshi. Thanks for the quick reply. Glad to know you aware of this problem. I just want to add, that I doubt that my particular system is at fault. I've had this bug with AMD drivers 17.11.1 and now 18.8.1. Have all latest updates. I tried default madvr settings, as well as my custom settings. What I did yesterday is setting "when and how shall the GPU be flushed" all 4 settings to flush&wait(sleep). And I thought that helped, because the whole 2 times after about 10 minites of monitor sleep(but also cpu powerstates go down by ParkControl), the bug dissappeared.

But then I decided to leave the machine running for the night, with monitors in sleep, and bam in the morning that video won't play. So at this point I don't believe just changing madVR settings will help. I'll temporary revert this JRiver profile to EVR, but after madVR the picture is not sharp at all)

I think you are asking a bit too much of you system to resume playback after the PC has been to sleep, too many variables there, why would you leave the movie playing anyway, just set you player to remember its position in the movie and close it before you machine goes to sleep.

[ryrynz]

Madshi, any chance you could send a dummy load to the GPU when resuming playback so the clock ramps up before the playback starts? Should hopefully fix that second or so of stuttering.

[jokerb47]

I think you are asking a bit too much of you system to resume playback after the PC has been to sleep, too many variables there, why would you leave the movie playing anyway, just set you player to remember its position in the movie and close it before you machine goes to sleep.
Only the monitor goes to sleep(I guess first the gpu and then the monitor). ParkControl just parks the cores and changes power plan to PowerSaver(the CPU doesn't go to sleep). And the movie is just paused. Yes, JRiver does save the playback time, so I can stop the file and reopen it, but for some reason for short videos(like 10min or less), JRiver doesn't save playback time.

Actually, forget ParkControl, I tried disabling it(so cpu is always in HighPerformance), I still caught this bug.

[mclingo]

The thing with Oleds is, they are terrible at near-blacks. :D

Hi, this isnt strictly true. I have a first gen LG oled and I can tell you that if you put a good signal into it you'll get a good one out.

Being bad a near blacks seemed to be the mantra I LCD owners and reviewers pedalled a lot to the point where i believed it myself and spent what seemed to be hours trying to find out if I had a good or bad example of my TV as something else that was suggested was that some were better than others.
The issue with OLED is not that they are poor at near blacks, its that near blacks tend to house macroblocking and compression artefacts which aren’t masked like on an LCD.
This isn’t because LCD’s are good at near blacks per sey, its because it cant show pure black so where you would see a blocky black mess in a shadow on an OLED you would just see a smooth dark grey none black area on LCD. If you turn up the brightness on an OLED and lose pure black the blocks disappear. I have both an OLED and a fairly decent LCD so I know this to be the case.

This is most apparent on highly compressed streamed material, some of it is completely unwatchable but this is not the fault of OLED, it’s the source.
Later gen units have deployed some processing to deal with this but these source problems but I’ve heard that some stuff still looks pretty bad.
This is why I use MADVR, this really helps with compression artefacts and macroblocking to the point where some material is watchable again.
I good example of this is Snowpiercer, this was completely unwatchable some early OLEDs, you could crush some problems away but that would just make something else pop. With MADVR you can pretty much deal with all the problems by deploying reduce banding artefacts on high.
One thing new OLEDs are better at is quantisation errors at near black. Brightness on early units was quite notchy in that there would be a large jump between brightness 49-50 but then nothing again until 53. This could cause quantisation problems where you could get raised blacks but again only on poorly compressed material.
The latest SOLO movie is full of near blacks and greys, I have ZERO issues on my OLED.

[mclingo]

Only the monitor goes to sleep(I guess first the gpu and then the monitor). ParkControl just parks the cores and changes power plan to PowerSaver(the CPU doesn't go to sleep). And the movie is just paused. Yes, JRiver does save the playback time, so I can stop the file and reopen it, but for some reason for short videos(like 10min or less), JRiver doesn't save playback time.

Actually, forget ParkControl, I tried disabling it(so cpu is always in HighPerformance), I still caught this bug.

just not sure its a bug, there are all sorts of issues with HDMI CEC and other stuff which could cause, you are making you life more difficult by pausing the movie, just stop it and start it mate.

[SamuriHL]

Hi, this isnt strictly true. I have a first gen LG oled and I can tell you that if you put a good signal into it you'll get a good one out.

Being bad a near blacks seemed to be the mantra I LCD owners and reviewers pedalled a lot to the point where i believed it myself and spent what seemed to be hours trying to find out if I had a good or bad example of my TV as something else that was suggested was that some were better than others.
The issue with OLED is not that they are poor at near blacks, its that near blacks tend to house macroblocking and compression artefacts which aren’t masked like on an LCD.
This isn’t because LCD’s are good at near blacks per sey, its because it cant show pure black so where you would see a blocky black mess in a shadow on an OLED you would just see a smooth dark grey none black area on LCD. If you turn up the brightness on an OLED and lose pure black the blocks disappear. I have both an OLED and a fairly decent LCD so I know this to be the case.

This is most apparent on highly compressed streamed material, some of it is completely unwatchable but this is not the fault of OLED, it’s the source.
Later gen units have deployed some processing to deal with this but these source problems but I’ve heard that some stuff still looks pretty bad.
This is why I use MADVR, this really helps with compression artefacts and macroblocking to the point where some material is watchable again.
I good example of this is Snowpiercer, this was completely unwatchable some early OLEDs, you could crush some problems away but that would just make something else pop. With MADVR you can pretty much deal with all the problems by deploying reduce banding artefacts on high.
One thing new OLEDs are better at is quantisation errors at near black. Brightness on early units was quite notchy in that there would be a large jump between brightness 49-50 but then nothing again until 53. This could cause quantisation problems where you could get raised blacks but again only on poorly compressed material.
The latest SOLO movie is full of near blacks and greys, I have ZERO issues on my OLED.

This is quite true. I come from a Panny plasma screen and I can honestly say the OLED is quite a leap forward. But you're 100% correct that it will emphasize poor source quality. Last night watching Mayans on my cable system where they compress everything to 720p59 at around 3mbps the night scenes were attrocious on my OLED. But that's not the OLED's fault! The source was highly compressed and the OLED didn't mask it. Nor do I think it should IMO. Black levels on this thing has been extremely impressive. Like you, I found Solo to be excellent on the OLED.

[mclingo]

passive MVC 3D OLED is just sick as well, is by far the best viewing experience you'll ever have on a 65+ inch TV, obviously IMHO, its wipes the floor with HDR for immersion and wow factor.

This is why i havent upgraded mine and another reason why I use MADVR + LAV

[ashlar42]

Just to see if I understood things discussed in the last few pages correctly... (I currently still use a Kuro plasma, so I can't test HDR).

madVR offers the option to tone map HDR. This is of great use for people with projectors, as those are quite limited in the amount of nits they can produce.
OLEDs could benefit as well, as they are less capable than LCDs in this regard (nits produced), but, at least for LGs, there's no way to deactivate internal HDR tonemapping without going SDR (thus limiting panel light output below HDR requirements).

Correct so far?

madshi states that TVs are not "smart" enough to deactivate their internal tonemapping routines. What I don't understand is: if madVR already outputs a tone mapped picture and the user has inputted correct peak brightness values for their TV... what would the TV tone map for? Am I correct in assuming that the problem stems from OLED not having a peak brightness "per se" but a peak brighness depending on highlights size? In madVR HDR configuration tab there's just a single "target peak nits" value to input.

If one checks measurements such as these: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/c8#comparison_1675, it's pretty clear that the peak brighness varies immensely according to the zone to be displayed at high nits, due to ABL. As such, and given the current single value input available, I doubt that madVR can provide a better tone mapping results than the internal system in an OLED screen. Am I wrong/missing something? Is there a chance we could have a more flexible configuration for the target peak nits, in order to better serve OLED screens?

Thanks for reading and for answers. And thanks forever to madshi for all he does for us HTPC lovers. :)

[SamuriHL]

passive MVC 3D OLED is just sick as well, is by far the best viewing experience you'll ever have on a 65+ inch TV, obviously IMHO, its wipes the floor with HDR for immersion and wow factor.

This is why i havent upgraded mine and another reason why I use MADVR + LAV

Yea, I wish I had jumped on OLED sooner than I did. No more 3D capable displays kicking around (or very expensive older ones if you can find them). I moved my Panny plasma to another room to keep 3D alive but there's no madvr capability in that room. There's always a trade-off. LOL