HDR Is it a game changer ?

Taxboy

Taxboy

Taxboy

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I know my question is probably a bit controversial but its not intended to be a troll

For those who have gone for HDR TV's is it the game changer suggested by the manufacturers and if so where has it made the leap over non HDR

Additionally is there much HDR source material available currently
 
Dunno about a game changer but properly done it can really bring some scenes to life and make things look higher quality overall. Personally though I've not seen a TV setup yet where I don't notice within a short time how relatively hacked up the curent implementation is and that ruins it for me though the mainstream consumer is probably more easily fooled.
 
I definitely prefer it over non-HDR content, but I wouldn't call it a game changer. OLED is the real game changer, when we bought our LG 65C7, we were blown away at the difference an infinite contrast ratio can have on the whole colour spectrum.

As for content, most films are 4k HDR now, as well as Netflix series and an increasing amount of games.
 
Yup - makes far more difference than the jump from HD to UHD alone.
No crushed blacks, no grey blacks - fell in love with it when I first saw it and get frustrated when I want to watch something that doesn't support HDR.

OLED - neh, no game changer there. True blacks but low nit output. MicroLED, now that could be the technology we need and will definitely be a game changer.
 
No its not a game changer. Found it too bright at first but then adjustments and updates to players etc seemed to have calmed it down. I can live without it.
I think going from an LED TV to OLED is a game changer, everytime I go in Currys and look at them the picture quality of the OLED TV's is stunning.
 
stoofa said:
Yup - makes far more difference than the jump from HD to UHD alone.
No crushed blacks, no grey blacks - fell in love with it when I first saw it and get frustrated when I want to watch something that doesn't support HDR.

OLED - neh, no game changer there. True blacks but low nit output. MicroLED, now that could be the technology we need and will definitely be a game changer.
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you might want to read some reviews. using HDR content a lot of LCD's cannot show peak brightness. only under testing on an all white screen do they have a high nit output. also if they do go that high the blacks turn to grey and it effects contrast levels.

LCD's are crap basically for picture quality unless you go very high end. but at those prices you may as well just buy OLED with it's superior colours and blacks.

OLED > ALL
 
Psycho Sonny said:
OLED > ALL
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+1

HDR, in it's current state, is wasted on an OLED. It might be a great tech for non-OLED panels, but I've yet to test it.

Also my LG is set to 75% brightness, and I sometimes turn it down at night. Zero issues with brightness.
 
HDR is alright. The main problem is that it is very dependant on the execution. So in some instances you're going to be like 'Wow!', while in others you are going to struggle to see the difference. And that's for movies/shows, the situation is even more dire for games. As others have said, as well, you are going to have to pony up a pretty penny to get a TV capable of actually "doing" HDR properly, i.e. >=1000nits highlights, full array local dimming, wide colour gamut, etc. Essentially I would say proper HDR is reserved for something like a Sony Z9D & Samsung Q9FN/Q900R. The OLEDs tend to do well this year too as they have managed to finally up the brightness enough so that they can compete.

All that being said, is it really worth paying 2-3-4-5 times more for such HDR performance? Probably not unless you're that particular about it, in which case you'd probably know that already. I wouldn't go out of the way to recommend someone make such a purchase if they're not very fussy cinephiles - or unless they ooze money.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
OLED > ALL
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This is a good video on OLED Vs LED

Saying none is better then the each other as you should choose the one that best for your kind of usage and room brightness
I find OLED vs LED is very much the same as the old Plasma VS LED/LCD
As plasma screens also had better black levels, Less brightness & could suffer image retention/screen burn vs LCD screens

 
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Poneros said:
HDR is alright. The main problem is that it is very dependant on the execution. So in some instances you're going to be like 'Wow!', while in others you are going to struggle to see the difference. And that's for movies/shows, the situation is even more dire for games. As others have said, as well, you are going to have to pony up a pretty penny to get a TV capable of actually "doing" HDR properly, i.e. >=1000nits highlights, full array local dimming, wide colour gamut, etc. Essentially I would say proper HDR is reserved for something like a Sony Z9D & Samsung Q9FN/Q900R. The OLEDs tend to do well this year too as they have managed to finally up the brightness enough so that they can compete.

All that being said, is it really worth paying 2-3-4-5 times more for such HDR performance? Probably not unless you're that particular about it, in which case you'd probably know that already. I wouldn't go out of the way to recommend someone make such a purchase if they're not very fussy cinephiles - or unless they ooze money.
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Thanks for that. My question arose as I'm looking at the Samsung NU8000 which doesn't score that highly for HDR. It would seem that to get decent HDR I would be looking at OLED money, which Im not looking to splash out on. It seems it's the Samsung for me at about £700 last time I looked
 
I think local-dimming is important for it to really work well. The problem is the number of TVs with local dimming that can handle it are still very few. The newer direct lit LED panels are getting better and this year there do seem to be a few more choices. Next year I expect things will be even better.
 
woppy101 said:
HDR is not about brightness it’s about speculator highlights, look at RDR2 the HDR is not done properly(it’s upscaled SDR) and it actually makes the picture worse than SDR because all it does is just over brighten everything losing shadow details and bright highlights.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJgXQ3qNg74
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It's an interesting video, but he's adjusting settings on the TV by eye, which means his screen isn't properly calibrated so it's hard to put stock in his point if his baseline is whatever he set it to. If the screen were professionally calibrated, there wouldn't be a need to alter any of the settings on SDR or HDR modes as black levels and the colour gamut would have been tuned to industry standards. Also, I'm not sure what that program is that he keeps switching back to, but the image displayed on that has been taken with black levels 16-235 but is being displayed by something expecting 0-255, which is why it looks kinda green and washed out.
 
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benjii said:
It's an interesting video, but he's adjusting settings on the TV by eye, which means his screen isn't properly calibrated so it's hard to put stock in his point if his baseline is whatever he set it to. If the screen were professionally calibrated, there wouldn't be a need to alter any of the settings on SDR or HDR modes as black levels and the colour gamut would have been tuned to industry standards. Also, I'm not sure what that program is that he keeps switching back to, but the image displayed on that has been taken with black levels 16-235 but is being displayed by something expecting 0-255, which is why it looks kinda green and washed out.
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You might want to have a look who Vincent Teoh is lol there are manufacturers that put stock in what Vincent says, the screen was properly calibrated as that was the video he released a week prior, what he was pointing out was that RDR2 HDR was just hugely increased brightness that lost details in the high and low parts of the image.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Vincent_Teoh

I will also link flatpanels if you don’t trust hdtvtest
https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1541147439
 
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For me HDR has a much bigger impact than resolution but a lot of the impact HDR has also depends on the TV your looking at it on. There are so many different levels of HDR. You can buy a cheap LCD that does HDR but it might not have the brightness ability or the picture quality to be able to show it at its best. It can certainly be a game changer though. Iv gone from an E6 OLED which was my first HDR experience to the Samsung 8K set that does 4000 nits which pretty much shows HDR at the best it can currently be.

Mad max for example I watched on a E6, a Samsung Q9FN and last week a Q900R. The HDR in the storm scene on the Q900R was the most mind blowing HDR iv ever seen. The colours and brightness and detail I saw made me actually replay that scene a few times just because of how good it looked. That was the most impressive HDR iv personally seen and not just a big difference from SDR but also a big difference from what my OLED could produce. Having that much brightness along with a 8K set and RGB panel to show off that immense amount of colour was just stunning.
 
There are 8bit colour TV's with HDR implemented so it's all a bit of a mess really and the HDR Premium certification has two different categories for both LCD and OLED with LCD requiring a higher peak brightness to compensate for poorer black levels.

I think OLED will undoubtedly look better but I'd be quite worried about lifespan, retention and burn in when using HDR, particularly when you hear about RDR2's fake HDR implementation and how the HUD is being shown in peak brightness.
 
Oled retention is panel specific. Some have it others don't. Unfortunately it's a risk you take with this TV technology and regardless of its cost its inherent and your either lucky or unlucky with the panel. As for HDR I'm lucky and have a top tier Panasonic oled tv. It's a very nice feature but once your used to it you want the next best thing. Game changer depends on your perspective on PQ. It's better to have it then not, but these 8 bit +FRC HDR panels are not really HDR at all compared to a full 10 bit with high nit brightness.
 
HDR is nice, but not a game changer for me. The extra depth oled adds in every scene, not just when things get dark, is. It's very crt in look - something I've not seen in any led. There's certainly some content that looks better with high end led btw. And if you only watched 4k HDR content there'd be a stronger argument for the tech (altho I'd still lean towards oled).
 
HDR is a game changer but OLED is more of a game changer.

The only content that I have seen which "appears" to look better on LCD is low quality content and that's down to LCD flaws such as low contrast ratio/poor black levels helping to mask issues such as banding, luma noise and so on where as OLED shows up imperfections in the source far more.
 
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