Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#111

Post by manigandham » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

blauditore wrote: post #37

bredren wrote: post #29

I’ve had the XDR Pro Display since June, and use it primarily for dev. I just trusted Apple in their focus on this direction. Suffice it to say I am very happy with it. What I like about conclusions of this piece is it points to how strategic Apple is thinking in its leverage due to the breadth of distribution of advanced hardware and software. Apple is able to set entire new standards of expectation for customers th…

> Apple is able to set entire new standards of expectation for customers that are _very_ hard for competitors to follow. The cheaper version of this display has a price tag of $5k, the more expensive one $6k. I never spent even remotely as much money on a display, so I cannot speak from first-hand experience. But a quick search for graphics-design displays yields several competitor products that have similar or bette…

There are both cheaper and far more expensive displays used for graphics design to special effects and major film mastering. In this case, Apple seems to be trying to bridge the gap with the XDR and create a new middle tier of price and functionality.

As for bleeding edge, Apple has pioneered plenty of technology. It's true that it builds upon foundations of technical designs and scientific discoveries by others but that applies to every other company as well. Very few organizations are capable of going straight from invention in a science lab to large scale commercial product all by themselves. If you judge by how much "new" technology has actually reached consumers though, Apple is clearly leading the field.

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#112

Post by no_op » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

janci wrote: post #108

no_op wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On conventional LCD displays you are presumably losing some contrast in SDR content here, because running the backlight brighter to allow for this will also elevate black. The rumor mill suggests Apple is planning a move to Mini-LED displays with thousands of local dimming zones, which would handily address this.

Not only contrast, but also the gamut. If display is capable of 255 levels of color and you remap 255 to e.g. 128 to leave the rest for HDR you have only half of the possible colors available for SDR. Or how is this supposed to work?

The feature only works on P3 displays, so gamut when displaying UI (which I'd assume is nominally within the smaller sRGB space) likely isn't an issue.

Also, per later comments, this feature only kicks in when you're actually viewing SDR content, so there's no downside (even contrast) in everyday use.

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#113

Post by CharlesW » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

peregren wrote: post #69

Dahoon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is know for taking something others invented and making it better/more user-friendly. That's great but it isn't being bleeding edge. Like the first few iPhones. Smartphones made better, but without simple functions like copy and paste for generations. I find it surprising anyone thinks apple's strength is being bleeding edge innovative. It can be counted on one hand how many times they have been so.

No sure about bleeding edge, because for the most part their products work but at different times they have defined: - Phones, (Original iPhone way ahead of competitors) - MP3 players (Original iPods) - Tablets, (Pretty much the only serious tablet as far as I can see) - Smart Watches, (Apple Watch still defines the category) - Ultra Books, (First MacBook Air) - All in One Desktop (iMac) - Mobile CPUs (Apple silicon…

> No sure about bleeding edge, because for the most part their products work but at different times they have defined:

I'm ex-Apple and an Apple fan as much as anyone, but I also have the benefit of being old. Not to take anything away from Apple's collective accomplishments, in many of these categories I'd say they "redefined" more than "defined".

There were many smartphones before the iPhone (the Palm Treos were great), many MP3 players before the iPod, many tablets before the iPad (the Microsoft Tablet PC came out about a decade before the first iPad), all-in-one PCs go back 40 years now, etc.

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#114

Post by SSLy » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

floatingatoll wrote: post #95

I have one regret from this article, and that’s the explanation that sRGB hex color #ffffff (255, 255, 255) is being remapped. It’s not. The OS simply isn’t restricting the display pipeline to sRGB anymore, and that allows content which exceeds sRGB to do so. #ffffff is L=100%. What is L=800%? It exists in HDR content, and we can’t just make the web color #ffffff a dim gray to the eye. We must start thinking in terms…

I agree with you in general, but one important aspect of "HDR" is 10+ color processing (not necessarily showing, FRC8+2 is already an improvement) on the displays. That lets you create more grays etc

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#115

Post by CharlesW » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

deergomoo wrote: post #100

kuschku wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competition was also before the XDR similarly priced. Asus had 2 or 3 at that price point, and Apple had the XDR. And then there's the Dell UP2718Q, almost entirely the exact same specs, but only 4K, at 1600€. Released 2017, years before the XDR.

Bit of a random rant, but despite being so common, 27” at 4K is a really poor combination for a computer monitor. At 1x scaling, everything is too small, but at 2x scaling it’s far too big. So you have to go for a non-integer scale, which on macOS at least results in reduced image quality and graphics performance (it renders to a different sized frame buffer and then scales it). The ideal is 5K, which is double 2560x…

> …essentially the only 5K displays available are the LG one made in partnership with Apple, which is over a grand and has numerous quality issues…

Are these documented anywhere? I have one (it's glorious) and I've not had a problem with it, but it'd be interesting to see the list.

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#116

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #103

Androider wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's flawlessly undetectable in terms of brightness -- the interface white and grays don't change at all. In order to pull this off, you need to know exactly how many nits bright the display is, as well as having complete software control of the actual hardware brightness. On Windows, you have neither. Enabling HDR mode completely throws off your current colors and desktop brightness and you have to reset both your…

So basically until displays advertise their physical specifications to Windows, and the Windows display stack takes advantage of that to auto-calibrate, it cannot match this kind of output. I wonder what happens if you try this on the LG 5K hooked up to a mac. It is physically the same panel that's in the iMac, so in theory it can present the same range. But if the OS needs to know the exact physical abilities of the…

I was just going to ask the same question. Everything is pointing to macOS working so well because they own the entire chain. Throwing in the external monitors that Apple promotes would suggest that Apple might also work as smoothly with it as their own. So one more test would be to use a really nice monitor not promoted by Apple.

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#117

Post by ttul » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

jasomill wrote: post #94

AnssiH wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't encountered such issues with LG C9. I don't need to touch the settings on my TV when enabling/disabling Windows HDR (which puts my TV in HDR mode), the previous SDR-mode desktop brightness is achieved in HDR mode just fine. Though I remember having read that the Windows HDR stuff works slightly differently for internal monitors (e.g. in laptops), is your experience with those?

I imagine this depends on the configuration of the TV, if only because — if your C9 is anything like my slightly older LG IPS HDR TV — backlight brightness, color calibration, and other settings that affect the brightness of full-scale SDR white can be freely configured in any of the SDR modes without affecting the levels of any other SDR mode, or of any HDR mode at all. In other words, assume SDR "Game" mode is set…

Dolby Vision traces its origins to the acquisition of Brightside Technologies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrightSide_Technologies), which was itself a spin-off from a group at the University of British Columbia. I wonder how extensively Dolby has profited from the patents it accumulated via that acquisition, since many of the key ideas behind HDR displays must surely be covered by them.

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#118

Post by dharma1 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 11:04 PM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #87

The industry is in a very strange place right now. HDR monitors are both quite expensive and unimpressive compared to the HDR OLED TVs.. For the 5-6k that this display from Apple costs, I would certainly expect it to be an OLED display at LEAST. But it's not. How is this the best we can get and it's NOT OLED? Dimming zones for 6k? I don't understand what's going on, I just want a nice OLED monitor that will fit on my…

Apple will be releasing miniled displays next year, which should be pretty close to oled in terms of contrast, but without the screen burn issues

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#119

Post by ben0x539 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

floatingatoll wrote: post #95

I have one regret from this article, and that’s the explanation that sRGB hex color #ffffff (255, 255, 255) is being remapped. It’s not. The OS simply isn’t restricting the display pipeline to sRGB anymore, and that allows content which exceeds sRGB to do so. #ffffff is L=100%. What is L=800%? It exists in HDR content, and we can’t just make the web color #ffffff a dim gray to the eye. We must start thinking in terms…

> and UI elements have little reason to use this extended opportunity space

It's gonna be five minutes before everybody's extra important call-to-action buttons and probably ads are max brightness too

Re: Apple’s “Extended Dynamic Range” Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

#120

Post by floatingatoll » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

SSLy wrote: post #114

floatingatoll wrote: post #95

I have one regret from this article, and that’s the explanation that sRGB hex color #ffffff (255, 255, 255) is being remapped. It’s not. The OS simply isn’t restricting the display pipeline to sRGB anymore, and that allows content which exceeds sRGB to do so. #ffffff is L=100%. What is L=800%? It exists in HDR content, and we can’t just make the web color #ffffff a dim gray to the eye. We must start thinking in terms…

I agree with you in general, but one important aspect of "HDR" is 10+ color processing (not necessarily showing, FRC8+2 is already an improvement) on the displays. That lets you create more grays etc

Yeah, I considered rewriting to try and use colors as percentages and show the idiv x/256 banding problem of hexadecimal colors, but for today's purposes, I will be satisfied if I inspire long-time web programmers to start realizing that sRGB hex is a dead end way to think about color. It was enough to discuss the problem of peak luminosity being greater than 100% sRGB luminosity and I couldn't find any way to do a better job at the one without doing a worse job at both.