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What is HDR, anyway?

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Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#241

Post by gwbas1c »

alerighi wrote: post #98
gwbas1c wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't own a single 4k or HDR display Don't feel like you have to. I bought a giant fancy TV with it, and even though it's impressive, it's kinda like ultra-hifi-audio. I don't miss it when I watch the same show on one of my older TVs. If you ever do get it, I suggest doing for a TV that you watch with your full attention, and watching TV / movies in the dark. It's not very useful on a TV that you might turn on wh…

I don't either see a point of having 4K TV vs 1080p TV. To me is just marketing, I have at my house both a 4K and a 1080p and from a normal viewing distance (that is 3/4 meters) you don't see differences. Also in my country (Italy) TV transmissions are 1080i at best, a lot are still 570i (PAL resolution). Streaming media can be 4K (if you have enough bandwidth to stream it at that resolution, which I don't have at my…

You still watch broadcast TV?

Jokes aside, when a 4k TV has a good upscaler, it's hard to tell the difference between 1080 and 4k. Not impossible; I certainly can, but 1080 isn't distracting.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#242

Post by gwbas1c »

anon7000 wrote: post #128
gwbas1c wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't own a single 4k or HDR display Don't feel like you have to. I bought a giant fancy TV with it, and even though it's impressive, it's kinda like ultra-hifi-audio. I don't miss it when I watch the same show on one of my older TVs. If you ever do get it, I suggest doing for a TV that you watch with your full attention, and watching TV / movies in the dark. It's not very useful on a TV that you might turn on wh…

I totally love HDR on my OLED TV, and definitely miss it on others. Like a lot of things, it’s weird how some people are more sensitive to visual changes. For example: - At this point, I need 120hz displays. I can easily notice when my wife’s phone is in power saver mode at 60hz. - 4k vs 1080p. This is certainly more subtle, but I definitely miss detail in lower res content. - High bitrate. This is way more important…

> At this point, I need 120hz displays. I can easily notice when my wife’s phone is in power saver mode at 60hz.

Yeah, the judder is a lot more noticeable on older TVs now that I have a 120hz TV. IMO, CRTs handled this the best, but I'm not going back.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#243

Post by Terr_ »

> Our eyes can see both just fine.

This gets to a gaming rant of mine: Our natural vision can handle these things because our eyes scan sections of the scene with constant adjustment (light-level, focus) while our brain is compositing it together into what feels like a single moment.

However certain effects in games (i.e. "HDR" and Depth of Field) instead reduce the fidelity of the experience. These features limp along only while our gaze is aimed at the exact spot the software expects. If you glance anywhere else around the scene, you instead percieve an unrealistically wrong coloration or blur that frustratingly persists no matter how much you squint. These problems will remain until gaze-tracking support becomes standard.

So ultimately these features reduce the realism of the experience. They make it less like being there and more like you're watching a second-hand movie recorded on flawed video-cameras. This distinction is even clearer if you consider cases where "film grain" is added.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#244

Post by qingcharles »

altairprime wrote: post #131
Suppafly wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>HDR support is very lacking in PCs atm. I think it's because no one wants it.

No; Windows 10 barely supports it, and of my hundreds of Steam games, exactly none have any code making use of it; seemingly only AAA mega-budget games have the pipeline bandwidth, but e.g. Dune Imperium and Spaceways have no reason to use it and so don’t bother. Windows 11 focused on improving wide color support which is much more critical, as any game shipping for Mac/Win already has dealt with that aspect of the p…

It's an absolute mess on Windows. It's one area where I totally bow to Apple's vertical integration which makes this stuff flawless.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#246

Post by EasyMark »

aidenn0 wrote: post #62

> A big problem is that it costs the TV, Film, and Photography industries billions of dollars (and a bajillion hours of work) to upgrade their infrastructure. For context, it took well over a decade for HDTV to reach critical mass. This is also true for consumers. I don't own a single 4k or HDR display. I probably won't own an HDR display until my TV dies, and I probably won't own a 4k display until I replace my work…

I have to think you are are the 1-3% outlier though. Everyone I know has an HDR screen even my friend who never buys anything new, but he did run out and buy an HDR tv to replace his old one that he gave to his son.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#247

Post by EasyMark »

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…

for movies yes. for vim/vscode nope.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#248

Post by qingcharles »

hbn wrote: post #212
wirybeige wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use HDR for general usage, Windows ruins non-HDR content when HDR is enabled due to their choice of sRGB tf. Luckily every Linux DE has chosen to use the gamma 2.2 tf, and looks fine for general usage. I use a mini-led monitor, and its quite decent, except for starfields, & makes it very usable even in bright conditions, and HDR video still is better in bright conditions than the equivalent SDR video. https://githu…

Windows HDR implementation is janky as hell. For months after I got my monitor I couldn't take screenshots because they'd all appear completely blown out, like you cranked the brightness to 300%. Eventually I did some digging and found there's a setting in Snipping Tool that just... makes screenshots work on HDR displays. It also seems to add another layer of Your Desktop Trying To Sort Its Shit Out when launching a…

Agree. Wide gamut and HDR is janky as hell on Windows. I have multi-mon with one SDR and one HDR and that plays havoc with things. But even Microsoft apps aren't updated. I'm pretty certain even Explorer still doesn't support HDR or wide gamut for thumbnails so everything looks either under or oversaturated in the previews. If you open stuff in the default Photos app there is a "flash of content" where it displays it in the wrong profile before it maps it to the correct one, too.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#249

Post by qingcharles »

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…

For the love of gods, read the reviews though. Most HDR displays will make the picture worse not better because they have only implemented enough to put a sticker on the box.

You have to spend really good money to get a display which does HDR properly.

Re: What is HDR, anyway?

#250

Post by dahart »

munificent wrote: post #235
dahart wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But even then, the sentence in question doesn’t use the abbreviation Yes it does. Why are you still looking at a different sentence than the one I quoted?? HDR in this context isn’t referring to just any dynamic range. If it was, then it would be so vague as to be meaningless. Tone mapping is closely related to HDR and very often used, but is not necessary and does not define HDR. To me it seems like your argument…

Oh, sorry, you're right. Mentioning the abbreviation is a red herring. The full quote is: "But what if we don't need that tradeoff? What if I told you that analog photographers captured HDR as far back as 1857? Ansel Adams, one of the most revered photographers of the 20th century, was a master at capturing dramatic, high dynamic range scenes. It's even more incredible that this was done on paper, which has even less…

> It seems pretty clear to me that in this context the author is referring to the high dynamic range of the scenes that Adams pointed his camera at.

Yes, this is the problem I have with the article. “HDR” is not characterized solely by the range of the scene, and never was. It’s a term of art that refers to an increased range (and resolution) on the capture and storage side, and it’s referring to a workflow that involves/enables deferring exposure until display time. The author’s claim here is making the term “HDR” harder to understand, not easier, and it’s leaving out of the most important conceptual aspects. There are some important parallels between film and digital HDR, and there are some important differences. The differences are what make claiming that nineteenth century photographers were capturing HDR problematic and inaccurate.

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