HDR alone is overrated...

I remember when the Xbox One S first came out and there were reports of HDR capable games. I heard people(mostly console users) say HDR was more amazing than 4K and made a bigger difference. Needless to say this was likely damage control to compensate for the fact consoles were not 4K capable so they had HDR...which is also now getting more and more adopted on PC anyway.

I have a 4K HDR TV. A Samsung KS8000 which is apparently one of the better gaming TV's out there. It sure as hell doesn't hold a candle to an LG OLED display but it's still quite good. For those with a 4K capable TV, I invite you to do this exercise:

At 1:55 they start the comparison between HDR and SDR. I did the exercise on my KS8000 and had a difficult time spotting the difference at times. 4K on the other hand while it varies according to the distance you sit from your TV is something that is pretty difficult to miss. On PC the difference between 1080p and 4K is quite big. A part of that might be because PC's suck at downscaling but eh what can you do.

Regardless. Thoughts on HDR? I think combined with 4K+High frame rate(60+) it does enhance the experience but I'd still take 4K over HDR any day of the week at the moment. Maybe it'll get better over time but for now it's very meh on its lonesome.

The Human eye can't see that many Ks

Definitely a nice difference to me on the X1S and I have the KS8000, however it takes a good amount of calibrating to get it right. It depends on the game too, some games do HDR better than others, but for me I found nice differences with several games like Gears 4 FH3 and Forza 7 amongst others. As for it being better than 4K, I really have no idea I'll see in a few days, but I doubt HDR alone is better than 4K, because 4K is a huge res boost HDR makes colors pop out more, more range, and some finer details(like water drops on the floor, tarmac) seem more discernable, but I think the upgrade to 4K will have a bigger impact.

Some games definitely do it better than others. Horizon: Zero Dawn for instance does it very well. Shadow Warrior 2 was pretty bad at it at the time but maybe it improved.

I was simply expecting to be blown away by HDR and although I'm not denying it looks nicer it's not the game changer people hyped it up to be at the time. Neither is 4K. I think a combination of 4K+HDR is really a cut above 1080p+SDR but HDR alone? Not really.

@Juub1990: It definitely doesn't jump at you out of the box, actually for me on my KS8000 things looked worse at first when I enabled HDR, I only started seeing benefits later when I calibrated more and played more. One thing that is crucial is to properly calibrate the in game HDR brightness slider in addition to your tv being well calibrated

What are your TV settings? You calibrated yourself or you had that done by a professional?

@Juub1990: No I did myself and read a lot in AVS forums they have a great thread for owners of the KS8000.

Mainly its backlight at max 20(a must for hdr)

Brightness 45

Sharpness 0

Contrast max 100

Game mode On

Smart led high

Warm 2

Gamma 0

The rest is default settings mostly if I remember correctly(I'm at work now), the main argument of discussion is whether you should turn on Dynamic Contrast or not ....some people really love it at medium, others say you must turn it off so whites are not crushed.

Depending on the lighting in your room, if you prefer to game in the dark mostly or day, this means your settings might be different....there are no one set of settings that's best for all, but some things like backlight at 20 everyone says to have that.

I seem to recall you making some gushing PCmasterace post about how awesome 4K is and how you'll never go back. Now on the verge of the X1X its suddenly no big deal?

HDR is simply amazing. I use to own a KS8000 and I had it profressionally calibrated by Kevin Miller. Absolutely was stunned by the picture quality. When I moved from New York to Florida, I sold my stuff and picked up an OLED 55E7. Wow...even out of the box settings it was just gorgeous.

I managed to take a look at Dolby Vision content which is a more advanced form of HDR10 and I just amazed at the picture quality. The key though is calibration. Professional ISF calibration. Now, I know not everyone has the extra $350-400 or so to drop on a professional calibration but if you expect to get the most out of your set and you own a high end TV, it’s highly recommended.

What Alucard_Prime said is correct; to enable HDR you have to have backlight at 20 and contrast at 100. It’s suppose to do it automatically but I remember it being an issue with the KS8000’s. So, unfortunately it has to be changed manually. As for the other settings, you could tweak a bit with the color and brightness; keep sharpness at 0, warm 2, etc. For the colors and white balance, I wouldn’t touch those unless you have a professional tweak it, every set is different and what one has done will be different from another set.

I notice a difference and I'm not even on an HDR display. Does that make sense?

Get a better TV pleb

I say in my post the difference between 1080p and 4K is quite big.

I paid good money for the TV and don't have access to Kevin Miller. Is the calibration by a professional worth that much money? At that point I wouldn't mind dropping 400$ on it. I'll have this TV for the foreseeable future. Better make the best of it.

Couldn't give a shit about it.

If you check on the AVS Forums, they have numerous professionals who work within certain states and travel to do the job. Ultimately, as far as getting your set calibrated, that is up to you. If you feel you're not getting the best in terms of visual quality out of your set or you're a videophile like myself then go for it. I know the price can seem steep and some people who spend $400-500 on a 4K TV wouldn't see sense in dropping almost the same to get it calibrated.

I feel if you drop some cash on your 4K TV and you want to get the full potential out of it, do some research on the TV and get it calibrated. You'll notice the difference. I remember Kevin Miller ended up giving me a daytime viewing mode, a nighttime viewing mode, an HDR mode, and then he tweaked game mode for me.

or anything above 24fps. Thats why movies are that! :D

Yeah I have to admit, I've yet to see a game with HDR enabled that has wowed me. I've seen a few games on my cousin's PS4 Pro (Horizon & Uncharted etc) hooked up to a Samsung 4k HDR TV & also an XB1 S running on a Panasonic OLED (playing Forza Horizon 3), and I wasn't massively impressed by it. It looks nice, don't get me wrong, but not as revolutionary as some are making out.

I was more impressed by the resolution/detail bumps.

I'm a member at that forum. They helped me set up my TV which was easy enough. Professional calibration is something I don't have the equipment for though. I never really saw what it looks like except for show floors in retail stores and we know these demos are made by people full of it. They look great in a brightly lit store, not so much in a living room. I'm simply afraid of dropping hundreds of dollars only to be just "wait that's it?". I did a lot of research at the time and concluded that it wasn't worth the price tag but that was just that, research. I never actually saw the difference which speaks louder than any review or opinions.

HDR is basically free; it comes at no performance drawbacks and requires no compromises. Even 1080p machines like PS4 and Xbox One S can do it. While it’s true that it won’t be a night and day difference, it’s also a clear path forward for graphics in the future. 4K will continue to force compromises on all but the strongest hardware, HDR won’t.

I would note HDR will get even better once it’s possible to use it at 4K 4:4:4 chroma on HDMI 2.1 with dynamic metadata (Unfortunately, it won’t likely work over HDMI 2.0, requiring new consoles and TVs).

Mmmm I understand. I would hate to drop money on something and then be like "wait that's it?" because it's happened to me before in the past on other things...lol. If that's the case then I wouldn't get the calibration then if I was in your shoes. If anything, maybe in the future you could also sell your KS8000 and pick up an OLED, they're dropping in price and I managed to get a great deal on the LG OLED 55E7.

I wanted to pick up an OLED TV but the prices are outrageous. Another big problem is the awful response time but I heard it got a lot better. I think it was the C7 I wanted but it was CAD 2.5K+ compared to the Samsung which was CAD 1.5K. I wasn't about to pay a grand extra just for OLED. Plus the KS8000 has much better response time and according to reviews was more suitable for gaming. I'm not a videophile so I cared little for the quality while watching movies. What really mattered to me was the gaming performance. I still love my KS8000 but when I look at those LG's I'm like damn.

I'll probably end up upgrading to an OLED by next year but I'll just give that TV to my brother. TV's sell for almost nothing on the second hand market. May as well save a family member the money.

@Juub1990: I know even me I'm really satisfied with my KS8000, but OLED does look really nice, especially the blacks, but the difference in price with my KS8000 and a decent OLED was significant, I didn't feel it was worth it yet, and KS8000 has superb input lag with Game mode, and I play competitively online a lot so I just went with that and got a great price on it. No regrets, I mean OLED does look better but the KS8000 is no slouch either and is considered a mid-range 4K TV.

But next year if prices drop more on OLED I might sell it and get an OLED, I'm not in a hurry at all, yes OLED looks better but even side by side the KS8000 is no slouch either.

i have a LG OLED65E6P 4k TV....and for me HDR is also overrated. Yes it is only slightly noticeable in most movies. some benefit a bit more than others. but overall a let down for me.

That is true in terms of how TV's barely sell on the second hand market. I remember I got a deal on the 55'' KS8000 for $899 and I scooped it up immediately back in May. I ended up selling it about a month and a half back for $650 to a friend from work. The offers I was getting though were ridiculous...lol. I've gotten numerous offers for $300-400 dollars and this was even being advertised that it was calibrated by Kevin Miller...I guess the average consumer didn't care much for it.

And you can find some good deals from reputable vendors on Ebay. I know it's not the best choice for some because of the shipping, handling, etc but I bought both KS8000 and my most recent OLED from there and I've had no issues plus I saved a ton of money. This 55E7 I picked up for $1,999 flat. It all depends on who's the vendor that is selling and the reputation they carry as well in terms of refunds, warranty, etc.

Anyways, as for LG, the 2017 have been vastly improved and updated over the 2016 OLED's and if you end up upgrading by next year you'll more than likely find drops in prices on the 2017 models while they make way for the 2018 models. Most recently LG did an update and added a new mode to the TV called "technicolor" and it's a great mode that has already been fine tuned and calibrated by a bunch of "color scientists" as LG states. Bunch of nonsense but man the quality looks great. Gives a natural subtle look to what I watch, not too bright and not too black that it crushes it.

I don't care about HDR at all. I would rather get a good PC high-res monitor over tv any day. High quality of monitors by itself provide a picture as good as HDR.

@ivangrozny:

Last I heard it's precisely the area gaming monitors suffered--proper color reproduction.

Yeah same, I don't think it is a HDR video, it will need to be encoded with HDR10. I doubt you can select which parts are HDR and which are not, I'd expect the entire video will need to be HDR, which I doubt it is.

My guess is that the capture card just messes up the image so one looks washed out and the one on the left is how SDR would normally look.

@Yams1980: I actually think there’s only one 4K PC monitor that completely meets the HDR10 specifications including 1000 nit brightness right now. That’s the Dell UP2718Q... every other monitor falls short in some aspect. It’s definitely not a gaming monitor though and lacks high refresh rates, G-Sync or FreeSync.

There are supposedly HDR gaming monitors on the horizon coming from Acer and Asus though.

I have an IPS monitor and I can see the difference

Looked much better in hdr. Bit to bright in some spots the night scenes are fantastic.

I agree that HDR alone is a bit overrated, but it's quite the difference when you match it with 4K.

Never heard of such thing. Usually monitors are praised for their superior color rendering than regular tvs. The last time I remember I bought my monitor I was struck by the picture quality. Now I grew accustomed to it. For gaming, at least in case of PC, monitors beat TVs any day. I don't know how it works for consoles though. I am using my monitor for consoles as well, and it looks high quality too.

http://www.pcgamer.com/monitor-demo-shows-why-we-shouldnt-worry-about-hdr-just-yet/

I'm with you on having a good PC monitor is all I really care about. I don't care for 4K & HDR at the moment, but for now, I still think 1440p resolution still looks good to me that is and I'm satisfied with my 1440p/60fps G-Sync. 144hz is my next step next year.

Just sucks that most monitors only have 1 hdmi input. It's often cheaper and more viable to just get a 32 inch TV or whatever, generally you can make them look quite good if you can find professional calibration specs listed for that particular tv.

I'm using a Samsung 24" curved monitor I bought last year, it sucks. I can easily see the gradient lines in games and movies...terrible display that I really regret and the 1 hdmi is the final slap to the face.

Don't make a mistake. Good monitors are not cheap. Also if you checked the PC-related forums, you would know curved monitors suck. They are good for some specific games, but usually they are bad for everything else. I got mine for 600bucks 3 years ago, and somehow today it costs even more, 900, and it's super desirable for graphics designers. So I guess, like with any purchase, you chould choose carefuly and not rushing the purchase. Also, in PC gaming you can achieve HDR picture quality in games using SweetFx

you'd be a total blind fool to not see a difference.


LOL

@ivangrozny:

There's a tradeoff for speed VS accuracy. "gaming" monitors opt for speed, and sacrifice image quality in the process.

I took me a while in Gears 4 before I even noticed the game's HDR settings in the options, prior to that I thought the game looked rather dim when HDR was enabled, my TV is calibrated fine, but I had to actually adjust the HDR settings in the game itself, I had trouble finding the sweet spot for it. Thing is, the HDR slider in options in the game is kind of like the brightness slider where you move it until you can't see the left image or whatever, and my LG OLED really distinguishes the variance well so relying on the three images is pretty tough to set both brightness and HDR settings by how it asks you to do it, but I game in the dark, I generally set brightness just a bit higher than the default setting (depending on game, anywhere between 5-10%), and for Gears 4's HDR setting generally I found the HDR slider best set to roughly the same position as the brightness slider.

You can tell a difference, at least from my experience, within games themselves. As for the video, watching it on my PC so can't say for sure with that. Plus, the in-game HDR settings for this video might be set differently than a setting where you can really tell the difference on your TV, just mentioning in case you're saying you can't see any difference in the video.

Anyhow, I wonder how this will work out for the games 4K/HDR captures, and how it'll work trying to upload stuff to YouTube.

@FLOPPAGE_50: they even said in the video that some tvs are not doing HDR correctly. Easy to spot difference. YouTube app built into tv.

Ehhhh, no. Monitors just have less input lag, like 2-4 times less than tv, but it's not related to picture quality. For a good reason graphics designers pick monitors for work over TVs. In the same price range, monitors beat tvs any day. Period. This is their purpose. Monitors are meant that users work very close to them, this is why they have a better quality picture, or else you would suffer nausea and headaches.

Which is why I mention the TV as a viable option. PC's aren't really cheap either so a viable option is of course the console. It's all relative to how much you want to spend.

Honestly all this HDR thing looks more like SweetFx mod incorporated into hardware. You can achieve the same results on PC on any hardware via easy-to-install and big variety of SweetFx shader mods for free on any display. HDR just looks like a darker picture with higher color saturation.

@pimphand_gamer:

Go look at the stats on gaming monitors. There's a reason that film studios more or less skipped lcd and went from cart to oled for production.... Also look at the price of oled production monitors.

Consumer level gaming monitors have trash picture.

No offense, but you complain PCs aren't really cheap and TV is a viable option, but HDR TV cost what ? 1000+ American bucks. You can get a very nice monitor for 600 and spend the rest on PC. For 500-600 buck you can get a high quality 32 inches 4k G-sync/FreeSync display.

It's probably a bit closer to the budget end, where all the washed out, foggy displays usually lurk, that HDR standards are going to leave the biggest impact. Maybe you're not as impressed because you're used to the best?

This might be a dumb question, but does current HDR use the same technology as Valve's HDR from Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast (back in 2005)?

Wait for Dolby Vision....also, HDR isn't overrated....it makes a difference and makes things more life like thanks to the enchanced lighting, etc. Again, Dolby Vision is much more improved.

Until there's HDR in 100+ hz monitors it does very little to me in terms of gaming