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What is HDR, anyway?

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Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#21

Post by sandofsky »

gyomu wrote: post #5

As a photographer, I get the appeal of (this new incarnation of) HDR content, but the practical reality is that the photos I see posted in my feeds go from making my display looking normal to having photos searing my retinas, while other content that was uniform white a second prior now looks dull gray. It's late night here so I was reading this article in dark mode, at a low display brightness - and when I got to th…

While it isn't touched on in the post, I think the issue with feeds is that platforms like Instagram have no interest in moderating HDR.

For context: YouTube automatically edits the volume of videos that have an average loudness beyond a certain threshold. I think the solution for HDR is similar penalization based on log luminance or some other reasonable metric.

I don't see this happening on Instagram any time soon, because bad HDR likely makes view counts go up.

As for the HDR photos in the post, well, those are a bit strong to show what HDR can do. That's why the Mark III beta includes a much tamer HDR grade.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#22

Post by mxfh »

Does anyone else find the hubris in the first paragraph writing as off-putting as I do?

"we finally explain what HDR actually means"

Then spends 2/3rds of the article on a tone mapping expedition, only to not address the elephant in the room, that is the almost complete absence of predictable color management in consumer-grade digital environments.

UIs are hardly ever tested in HDR: I don't want my subtitles to burn out my eyes in actual HDR display.

It is here, where you, the consumer, are as vulnerable to light in a proper dark environment for movie watching, as when raising the window curtains on a bright summer morning. (That brightness abuse by content is actually discussed here)

Dolby Vision and Apple have the lead here as a closed platforms, on the web it's simply not predictably possible yet.

Best hope is the efforts of the Color on the Web Community Group from my impression.

https://github.com/w3c/ColorWeb-CG

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#23

Post by hypeatei »

gyomu wrote: post #5

As a photographer, I get the appeal of (this new incarnation of) HDR content, but the practical reality is that the photos I see posted in my feeds go from making my display looking normal to having photos searing my retinas, while other content that was uniform white a second prior now looks dull gray. It's late night here so I was reading this article in dark mode, at a low display brightness - and when I got to th…

This happens on Snapchat too with HDR videos. Brightness increases while everything else dims... including the buttons.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#24

Post by eschatology »

the__alchemist wrote: post #4

So, HN, are HDR monitors worth it? I remember ~10 years ago delaying my monitor purchase for the HDR one that was right around the corner, but never (in my purchasing scope) became available. Time for another look? The utility of HDR (as described in the article) is without question. It's amazing looking at an outdoors (or indoors with windows) scene with your Mk-1 eyeballs, then taking a photo and looking at it on a…

Yes but with asterisks; Best way I can describe it:

You know the 0-10 brightness slider you have to pick at the start of a game? Imagine setting it to 0 and still being able to spot the faint dark spot. The dynamic range of things you can see is so much expanded.

Early HDR screens were very limited (limited dimming zones, buggy implementation) but if you get one post 2024 (esp the oled ones) they are quite decent. However it needs to be supported at many layers: not just the monitor, but also the operating system, and the content. There are not many games with proper HDR implementation; and even if there is, it may be bad and look worse — the OS can hijack the rendering pipeline and provide HDR map for you (Nvidia RTX HDR) which is a gamble: it may look bleh, but sometimes also better than the native HDR implementation the game has).

But when everything works properly, wow it looks amazing.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#25

Post by Jhsto »

the__alchemist wrote: post #4

So, HN, are HDR monitors worth it? I remember ~10 years ago delaying my monitor purchase for the HDR one that was right around the corner, but never (in my purchasing scope) became available. Time for another look? The utility of HDR (as described in the article) is without question. It's amazing looking at an outdoors (or indoors with windows) scene with your Mk-1 eyeballs, then taking a photo and looking at it on a…

I've been thinking of moving out of the Apple ecosystem but after seeing Severance on my iPhone Pro screen I feel like I want the keep the option to have the same HDR experience for movies specifically. With HDR support landing in Linux just a month ago I'm inclined to spend on a good monitor. However, I have IPS HDR 600 monitor but I never felt that the screen was as glorious as the iPhone screen.

I'd also be interested in hearing whether it makes sense to look into OLED HDR 400 screens (Samsung, LG) or is it really necessary to get an Asus ProArt which can push the same 1000 nits average as the Apple XDR display (which, mind you, is IPS).

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#26

Post by sergioisidoro »

Just one other thing. In Analog you also have compensating developers, which will exhaust faster in darker areas (or lighter if you think in negative), and allow for lighter areas more time to develop and show, and hence some more control of the range. Same but to less degree with stand development which uses very low dilutions of the developer, and no agitation. So dodging and burning is not the only way to achieve higher dynamic range in analog photos.

About HDR on phones, I think they are the blight of photography. No more shadows and highlights. I find they are good at capturing family moments, but not as a creative tool.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#27

Post by whywhywhywhy »

the__alchemist wrote: post #4

So, HN, are HDR monitors worth it? I remember ~10 years ago delaying my monitor purchase for the HDR one that was right around the corner, but never (in my purchasing scope) became available. Time for another look? The utility of HDR (as described in the article) is without question. It's amazing looking at an outdoors (or indoors with windows) scene with your Mk-1 eyeballs, then taking a photo and looking at it on a…

Dunno if it's just my screen or setup but on windows I have a Dell U4025QW and HDR on the desktop just looks strange, overly dull. Looks good in games but I have to manually turn it on and off each time on the screen.

On my Macbook Pro only activates when it needs to but honestly I've only seen one video [1] that impressed me with it, the rest was completely meh. Not sure if its because it's mostly iPhone photography you see in HDR which is overall pretty meh looking anyway.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwCFY6pmaYY I understand this isn't a true HDR process but someone messing with it in post, but it's the only video I've seen that noticeably shows you colors you can't see on a screen otherwise.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#29

Post by skhameneh »

gyomu wrote: post #5

As a photographer, I get the appeal of (this new incarnation of) HDR content, but the practical reality is that the photos I see posted in my feeds go from making my display looking normal to having photos searing my retinas, while other content that was uniform white a second prior now looks dull gray. It's late night here so I was reading this article in dark mode, at a low display brightness - and when I got to th…

I’m under the impression this is caused by the use of “HDR mode”(s) and poor adaptive brightness implementations on devices. Displays such as the iPad Pro w/ OLED are phenomenal and don’t seem to implement an overactive adaptive brightness. HDR content has more depth without causing brightness distortion.

In contrast, my TV will change brightness modes to display HDR content and disables some of the brightness adjustments when displaying HDR content. It can be very uncomfortably bright in a dark room while being excessively dim in a bright room. It requires adjusting settings to a middle ground resulting in a mixed/mediocre experience overall. My wife’s laptop is the worst of all our devices, while reviews seem to praise the display, it has an overreactive adaptive brightness that cannot be disabled (along with decent G2G response but awful B2W/W2B response that causes ghosting).

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#30

Post by repelsteeltje »

beachwood23 wrote: post #18
gyomu wrote: post #5

As a photographer, I get the appeal of (this new incarnation of) HDR content, but the practical reality is that the photos I see posted in my feeds go from making my display looking normal to having photos searing my retinas, while other content that was uniform white a second prior now looks dull gray. It's late night here so I was reading this article in dark mode, at a low display brightness - and when I got to th…

Completely agree. To me, HDR feels like the system is ignoring my screen brightness settings. I set my screen brightness to a certain level for a reason . Please don’t just arbitrarily turn up the brightness! There is no good way to disable HDR on photos for iPhone, either. Sure, you can turn off the HDR on photos on your iphone. But then, when you cast to a different display, the TV tries to display the photos in HD…

> To me, HDR feels like the system is ignoring my screen brightness settings.

You might be on to something there. Technically, HDR is mostly about profile signaling and therefore about interop. To support it in mpeg dash or hls media you need to make sure certain codec attributes are mentioned in the xml or m3u8 but the actual media payload stays the same.

Any bit or Bob being misconfigured or misinterpreted in the streaming pipeline will result in problems ranging from slightly suboptimal experience to nothing works.

Besides HDR, "spatial audio" formats like Dolby Atmos are notorious for interop isuues

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