madVR - General discussion thread

[SamuriHL]

Seriously it wouldn't take much for him to see it. And he's one of the better reviewers out there so I would expect him to jump on that. That's frustrating. But if you can send him a clip the definitively shows the issue I think that'd be great.

[iSeries]

Seriously it wouldn't take much for him to see it. And he's one of the better reviewers out there so I would expect him to jump on that. That's frustrating. But if you can send him a clip the definitively shows the issue I think that'd be great.

I suspect he's on the payroll, so I'm not entirely surprised. And no, you really don't have to look very hard to see this issue :-(

On the plus side, I PMd Madshi regarding the idea for a 'targeted' dithering algorithm, which would apply extra dithering to near black, and he said he'd look into it...when he finds the time :-)

[SamuriHL]

That would be helpful if madshi could do that. I have very little faith in LG fixing anything. Hell, we're still waiting for the fix to the dimming issue. As for madshi, he's been busy. I thought he was going to whack out a new release but he went for another hdr test build. The work he's done on that hdr tone mapping is just simply phenomenal. It buries my UB820 at this point.

[iSeries]

That would be helpful if madshi could do that. I have very little faith in LG fixing anything. Hell, we're still waiting for the fix to the dimming issue. As for madshi, he's been busy. I thought he was going to whack out a new release but he went for another hdr test build. The work he's done on that hdr tone mapping is just simply phenomenal. It buries my UB820 at this point.

In his latest video he talks about the macroblocking (non) issue at the end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TthtKfCOzmU&t=13s

There's already a bunch of comments about the macroblocking issue, asking him to check all kinds of specific scenes. We'll see.

[SamuriHL]

Would be nice. I didn't know that they fixed the HDR dimming already so that's good. I just got that firmware pushed to me yesterday so I've not had time to really it out much. Hopefully they continue to be responsive and fix more issues.

[XMonarchY]

Could someone recommend settings for 1440p? The settings I use for 1080p cause massive stuttering at 1440p and my monitor is G-Sync-capable. I don't know if that makes a difference...

Here are the shots of settings I use for 1080p that cause video stuttering at 1440p. AFAIK, for 1080p, these settings are for the best quality:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qPlfDiFwBYnNNRza8KMHdtbNpvyZjHh6/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XG6HcNwdOPD0jlJJ6r3sYDHSZf3l312C/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LaeacleD2M-_7QZHleYtCXeeNJb7saeJ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-VjhofHXN3tqmZD1vEzu1bzHWFejvKVQ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I98I-eKIEPsNMvoKI5DKoaLqv-gOov_y/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13RYfIO78Fdeq_cM_kpWcsVcBaG7YuW20/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17pvnR2KRCycg1ypn8kevMXq9iMoR9tlF/view?usp=sharing

[mclingo]

Hi, hard to know really as your downscaling and you havent given us any idea what you are playing and whether you are matching refresh rates or not, are your rendering times high, if not the problem might be elsewhere.

[XMonarchY]

Hi, hard to know really as your downscaling and you haven't given us any idea what you are playing and whether you are matching refresh rates or not, are your rendering times high, if not the problem might be elsewhere.

I watch 1080p content, high to very high quality. I think I figured it out. I set image and chroma upscaling to Jinc and stutters stopped.

[nsnhd]

I watch 1080p content, high to very high quality. I think I figured it out. I set image and chroma upscaling to Jinc and stutters stopped.

Is your GTX 1080ti not able to upscale 1080p contents to 1440p using NGU ?

[XMonarchY]

Is your GTX 1080ti not able to upscale 1080p contents to 1440p using NGU ?

Looks like it can't, not with the rest of the settings, I guess.

[nsnhd]

Looks like it can't, not with the rest of the settings, I guess.

Then it's odd, maybe something wrong with your settings. I thought 1080ti has no problem upscaling to 4k ?

[Asmodian]

Yes, a 1080Ti should be able to do 1080p -> 1440p with NGU high and SSIM downscaling without breaking a sweat, even NGU AA high chroma upscaling and NGU veryhigh doubling should work.

[nussman]

But XMonarchY is using NGU AA very high for chroma ...
For me it looks like he sets the highest settings for 1080p and then wondering why these settings doesnt work for 1440p.

[XMonarchY]

But XMonarchY is using NGU AA very high for chroma ...
For me it looks like he sets the highest settings for 1080p and then wondering why these settings doesnt work for 1440p.

Yeah, but the posters above you say it should not cause issues even at those settings... BTW, for 720p content, those settings work great - no skips or anything like that. I can even set "Activate Doubling/Quadrupling" to (top-setting) "...always - supersampling" and (bottom-setting) - "...only if any upscaling is needed"

[nussman]

Rendering times with your settings and 1440p?

[mclingo]

Rendering times with your settings and 1440p?


in your MADVR folder create a folder called ShowRenderSteps, then while playing a movie press control+j, down at the bottom you'll see your rendering times, high times means its struggling with your setup.

configure MADVR to keep your times sub 20miliseconds but you can push it up to 30-40, I prefer not to overtax my system as it gets hot and loud.

You could do with doing some reading too, see here.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=259188

[Asmodian]

Yeah, but the posters above you say it should not cause issues even at those settings... BTW, for 720p content, those settings work great - no skips or anything like that. I can even set "Activate Doubling/Quadrupling" to (top-setting) "...always - supersampling" and (bottom-setting) - "...only if any upscaling is needed"

No. NGU high for chroma upscaling, NGU veryhigh for chroma upscaling is too much for a 1080Ti doing 1080 -> 1440. And, yes, it is expected those settings work for 720, you don't need to downscale 720 and chroma upscaling is easier on 720. Just use NGU high for chroma upscaling.

Those Activate options you mention do not change the rendering times.

[mclingo]

Hi, just want to come back to the issue I have with my system, one of two only issues i have left unsolved.

When I stop a 3D movie I completly lose HDMI handshake and get a black screen, it doesnt matter which player i use with MADVR, they all do it.

however if I put my desktop in 23hz, 1080p or 2160p beforehand, when the movie stop is correctly drops back to the previous desktop resolution.

I first thought it must be MADVR refresh rate switching but I've now found it also happens with MPC-HC refresh rate switching. The reason I didnt spot this I dont use it often. I thought it didnt do it in KODI DS but it does, what happens is KODI DS doesnt actually drop back to 60hz at all regardless how its set, it always drops back to the refresh rate of the 3d movie, 1080p 23hz, this is why i've never lost HDMI handshake with KODI DS.

So the issue is purely dropping back from 3D to a 2160p 60hz desktop or GUI.

Any other AMD card, 4k 3D Tv owners have the same issue?

[SamuriHL]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/12/24/oled-tvs-hit-by-severe-blocking-and-flashing-problems/#1a516bc86ed7

The issue got attention now. Thank you for getting them to jump on this! Maybe we'll finally see a resolution to this one.

[iSeries]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/12/24/oled-tvs-hit-by-severe-blocking-and-flashing-problems/#1a516bc86ed7

The issue got attention now. Thank you for getting them to jump on this! Maybe we'll finally see a resolution to this one.

Great news, right! Vincent Teoh reproduced the issue last week, and confirmed LG has been in contact with him about it. And now this article, which will surely reach a wide audience.

[SamuriHL]

Yea that's fantastic. Let's hope they can get to the bottom of it and it's firmware fixable. That would be stellar.

[mclingo]

good to see that this Chrominance overshoot problem is getting some some traction.

With regard to the general near black issues he touches on, i'm still not totally convinced about his opinion on near black performance in general though as he seems to intimate like others have that LG OLEDS have a “problem” with all near black material, albeit mainly highly compressed material due to low bit depth calculations at near black.

The thing is, i've had my EF950 OLED for three years now and i've never seen any near black issues with well mastered content, i've only ever seen macro blocking when its actually there on the content. What this suggests to me is that LG are choosing not the deploy algorithms to hide these problems, perhaps because they could damage an image which doesn't have any problems, so LG are showing us what the picture actually looks like warts and all and others are adding processing.

[iSeries]

good to see that this Chrominance overshoot problem is getting some some traction.

With regard to the general near black issues he touches on, i'm still not totally convinced about his opinion on near black performance in general though as he seems to intimate like others have that LG OLEDS have a “problem” with all near black material, albeit mainly highly compressed material due to low bit depth calculations at near black.

The thing is, i've had my EF950 OLED for three years now and i've never seen any near black issues with well mastered content, i've only ever seen macro blocking when its actually there on the content. What this suggests to me is that LG are choosing not the deploy algorithms to hide these problems, perhaps because they could damage an image which doesn't have any problems, so LG are showing us what the picture actually looks like warts and all and others are adding processing.

It's pretty well known that LG uses <8bit processing near-black.

The flashing issue is of course something else entirely.

Link to Vincent's video regarding the flashing issue: https://youtu.be/KjObx--Oq8g

[mclingo]

yes i've heard that before about 8 bit at near black but LG has never stated this. Anyway, isnt 8 bit plenty of resolution for near black, before 4k all TVs processed at 8 bit didnt they or are we talking about a different type of processing here?

What I'm suggesting is that LG TVs dont fix any near black macro blocking issues that are on the source as well as other TVs, where others have suggested the LG TV's cause macro blocking at near black, i've never see this happen ever, I've always been able to reproduce the macroblocks on my LCD TV by turning up the gamma / brightness so they pop into view.


is there something i'm misunderstanding here about what is going on with this "processing"

[huhn]

processing in 8 bit is unheard of at least if we talk about none LG devices in a higher price reason. using 8 bit processing will unavoidably result in banding.

it is usually between 10-16 bit for image processing.

i'm pretty sure LG was announcing that they are going to use 10 bit for processing a couple of years ago and that was that.

[mclingo]

if this 8 bit processing was causing problems why dont we see problems on all material, why is it we only see problems on problematic compressed material, if non compressed material looks perfect then how can this 8 bit processing actually be causing any problems.

Just dont get it mate.

[huhn]

because you don't see doesn't mean others don't.

using a UHD BD of the mars space thingy shows significant banding on LG OLED back there. and we are not even talking about black parts here.

why do you think this blocking takes month to be notice?

people don't care they think broadcast looks good.

[mclingo]

because you don't see doesn't mean others don't.

using a UHD BD of the mars space thingy shows significant banding on LG OLED back there. and we are not even talking about black parts here.

why do you think this blocking takes month to be notice?

people don't care they think broadcast looks good.

we're not taking about banding, we're talking about macro blocking near black, arent these two different things?

[huhn]

we are talking about processing and low bit deep processing.

[mclingo]

but it was suggested that 8 bit processing was only happening at near black, are you saying that all processing was done at 8 bit, if that were so they'd be banding all just about everything surely?

[huhn]

as test suggest and as asmodian is confirming there is a banding issue even on newer oleds. it's not like 10 bit process or even 16 bit processing will fix it there is one more thing needed to make sure it's gone.

a nosy image will not show banding even with 8 bit processing.

and that was years ago it is mostly 10 bit now and only 8 bit at low black (where the 10 bit would be most needed) as iseries is suggesting.

[mclingo]

how do macroblocks get created by 8 bit processing/., I dont understand this, if 8 bit can make blurays look totally fine I dont see how they can randomly create macroblocks, it seems more likely to me the problems are already there on the source and some TV's can correct or hide them better than others.

can you give any example of scene in a movie where an LG TV is causing macroblocks that are not actually on the source at all?

[huhn]

not sure why you now return to macro blocks but but yes higher bit deep helps in preventing them when encoding. and h264 and HEVC need to be heavily starved to create real makroblocking and macro blocks don't flash and flashing means it is displayed at the wrong brightness.

if you have macroblocks it has a set brightness while on OLED is is getting extra bright which is a clear sign of broken processing.

and the next thing you should never forget is that a macro block like image part that is intentional will behaviour the same.

and what more do you need to know that it isn't present on a panasonic Oled but on the LG.

[mclingo]

I think we're talking cross purposes here, I was always talking about macroblocking, you brought in banding, I'm not talking about chrominance overshoot either, I'm talking about these awful chunks of macroblocks you get on highly compressed material, the sort of stuff people download from sky or netflix, or badly mastered blurays, poeople have stated that LG Tv cause some of these issues but I disagree.

I completely understand where macroblocking comes from an encoding / decoding point of view but thats not what i'm talking about, we are talking about how LG TVs simply show the picture thats getting pumped into them via a HDMI cable / HTPC / BLURAY, there should be minimal processing if like me you most bells and whistles turned off.

People have suggested that LG TVs have a problem displaying near black material, I just dont see that, pretty much every movie I have has some near black scenes and only a tiny amount show problems, and where I see those problems I also see them too on my 2017 samsung LCD, they are always on the source, i've asked people many times to show me a scene where an LG TV creates macroblocks in a scene, nobody has.

I'm just trying to understand where this claim has come from, I think people are getting mixed up between source and non source issues.

[huhn]

aren't you black clipping?

so LG oled cause flashing macro blocks but you say they show it as it should be because they clearly don't show the image that'S pumped in them.

OLED have banding problems and macroblack flashing that they created by bad processing if you do bad processing like low bit deep no dithering you add massive image problem to the source and degraded near black with low bit deep.

a BD has YCbCr data and a OLED has WRGB as an display so how do you show anything on them without heavy processing and if you do processing you need an high bit deep to lower the error from it.

[nevcairiel]

It has been well established in the past pages that this issue primarily effects 2018 LG OLEDs, according to your signature you have a 2015 OLED. So ....what exactly is your point? You don't see the issue on different hardware? Congratulations :)

[mclingo]

It has been well established in the past pages that this issue primarily effects 2018 LG OLEDs, according to your signature you have a 2015 OLED. So ....what exactly is your point? You don't see the issue on different hardware? Congratulations :)

my point is clearly made, read my todays posts again, i'm not repeating it a third time.

[mclingo]

doesnt matters guys, I was just trying to find out why people think OLEDs cause macroblocking at near black (not banding or the new flashing issue), I dont think they do, it just gets battered around a lot on forums a lot and I cant find any evidence for it.

[nevcairiel]

Your "point" is not really working if even LG is finally taking it seriously now.

Sure, the source has these issues, TVs don't usually generate macroblocks, thats an encoding thing afterall. But the question is about the magnitude of the issues. If you see the same amount of problem on an OLED as on an LCD, as you stated, thats fine, and how it should be. Or say how its displayed on a PC monitor, those don't have any image processing at all, and show the "true" source.
If the OLED shows a vastly exaggerated problem, then thats bad and should be taken seriously. Lucky for you it seems to affect mostly 2018 models, and not yours.

LG 2018 OLEDs don't "cause" macroblocking, but in these cases they may exaggerate macro blocking thats already there, which is still deteriorating the image, beyond its own source problems.

[Asmodian]

People think OLED causes macroblocking because they rise from black too fast. My 2017 LG’s gamma between 0 and 5% is very low, which doesn’t cause macroblocking but does exaggerate it. When doing a 21 point or higher resolution gamma measurement I never get a consistent 2.2 or 2.4 gamma all the way to 0. With such a low black level OLED TVs need to raise very slowly from black to have a pure power gamma but LEDs don’t dim well so between 0 and 10% is hard for the processing to get right. It needs to dither or something to be that dim without being off, similar to plasma but not as extreme.

[iSeries]

LG 2018 OLEDs don't "cause" macroblocking, but in these cases they may exaggerate macro blocking thats already there, which is still deteriorating the image, beyond its own source problems.

Exactly!

[iSeries]

People think OLED causes macroblocking because they rise from black too fast. My 2017 LG’s gamma between 0 and 5% is very low, which doesn’t cause macroblocking but does exaggerate it. When doing a 21 point or higher resolution gamma measurement I never get a consistent 2.2 or 2.4 gamma all the way to 0. With such a low black level OLED TVs need to raise very slowly from black to have a pure power gamma but LEDs don’t dim well so between 0 and 10% is hard for the processing to get right. It needs to dither or something to be that dim without being off, similar to plasma but not as extreme.

Madshi did say he'd consider implementing an algo that applies extra dithering to very near black, which would be absolutely super. He is of course tied up with the holidays and HDR to SDR to not likely to be soon though.

[SamuriHL]

Your "point" is not really working if even LG is finally taking it seriously now.

Sure, the source has these issues, TVs don't usually generate macroblocks, thats an encoding thing afterall. But the question is about the magnitude of the issues. If you see the same amount of problem on an OLED as on an LCD, as you stated, thats fine, and how it should be. Or say how its displayed on a PC monitor, those don't have any image processing at all, and show the "true" source.
If the OLED shows a vastly exaggerated problem, then thats bad and should be taken seriously. Lucky for you it seems to affect mostly 2018 models, and not yours.

LG 2018 OLEDs don't "cause" macroblocking, but in these cases they may exaggerate macro blocking thats already there, which is still deteriorating the image, beyond its own source problems.

This. Exactly this right here. Us C8 (and other 2018 LG) owners most definitely have a problem. And we are VERY happy LG is at least aware of it. Whether it can be fixed or not is debatable because this could be a MFG problem that is worse on some displays than others. Vincent explained it pretty well in his video on the problem. The comparison between 2018 LG vs Panasonic OLED with the black ramp definitely shows the issue with near black. This may or may not be new for 2018 (I don't know, I don't own anything but a C8) but it's definitely an issue for us.

[SamuriHL]

Madshi did say he'd consider implementing an algo that applies extra dithering to very near black, which would be absolutely super. He is of course tied up with the holidays and HDR to SDR to not likely to be soon though.

It looks as though we are pretty near to a new madvr release. So maybe after that he might have time to look into it. The HDR stuff is freaking phenomenal in the latest builds. I REALLY wish I had a 1070 or 1080 at this point though. The new algo is awesome but it's not without a cost.

[nsnhd]

I REALLY wish I had a 1070 or 1080 at this point though. The new algo is awesome but it's not without a cost.
Do you think that for 1080p displays, a gtx 1060 6gb can run the best settings of the new algo (not the max settings maybe) ?

[SamuriHL]

Do you think that for 1080p displays, a gtx 1060 6gb can run the best settings of the new algo (not the max settings maybe) ?

Oh yea, no question. He's added some new trade quality options for the new HDR to SDR algo so you can definitely tune it to work. I was right on the edge of NGU AA medium with all the trade quality options turned off and his new luminance restore algo. I've not tried the latest build as I think he's using a faster version now. It's one of the things that has a new trade quality option so I know I can definitely make it work for UHD 24fps content. 60 is just out of reach for the settings I use. I'll set up a profile to tweak that at some point. Or I'll get a new job and a 2070. Either or. :D But yea, you can definitely make that work for you. I'm on a UHD screen but the downscaling will work for you.

[Warner306]

Do you think that for 1080p displays, a gtx 1060 6gb can run the best settings of the new algo (not the max settings maybe) ?

Check scale chroma seperately, if it saves performance and downscale with SSIM 2D if you need more performance.

[chros]

Check scale chroma seperately, if it saves performance and downscale with SSIM 2D if you need more performance.

Yep, that's what I'm doing on 1080p TV.

[mclingo]

People think OLED causes macroblocking because they rise from black too fast. My 2017 LG’s gamma between 0 and 5% is very low, which doesn’t cause macroblocking but does exaggerate it. When doing a 21 point or higher resolution gamma measurement I never get a consistent 2.2 or 2.4 gamma all the way to 0. With such a low black level OLED TVs need to raise very slowly from black to have a pure power gamma but LEDs don’t dim well so between 0 and 10% is hard for the processing to get right. It needs to dither or something to be that dim without being off, similar to plasma but not as extreme.

Spot on mate, this is the exact reply I was waiting for, this all makes sense to me now, why most of my stuff looks great and why poorly mastered / compressed material looks worse on my OLED tnan my LCD, even taking into consideration the LCD flaws.

Thanks.

[iSeries]

It looks as though we are pretty near to a new madvr release. So maybe after that he might have time to look into it. The HDR stuff is freaking phenomenal in the latest builds. I REALLY wish I had a 1070 or 1080 at this point though. The new algo is awesome but it's not without a cost.

I'm on a 1050ti so definitely not enough, I'll be looking at an upgrade a little later in the year though. I've been following the thread over at avs but not really used any of the test builds for a while.

And hopefully he'll find time, it's amazing how much better extra dithering makes near-black look on an oled. Flashing issue aside, I think all oled owners would benefit from it :-)