New LG TV, HDR ruins everything

[cxzczxds]

Hi,

I'm no AVS purist nor am I looking to get the best of the best in terms of picture quality but I do want some basic stuff to be normal or decent. I recently bought a new LG TV (LG 43NANO786QA) with HDR10 support and it performs so bad on content with HDR that I regret buying it. It's not that I find the HDR functionality disappointing, it's that HDR makes darker scenes almost unwatchable because the dark parts are too dark. It completely removes details such as facial expressions, objects, textures because it's too dark see. This is even with my curtains closed, with the curtains open and daylight coming in it's even worse.

Now maybe you would say, turn HDR off and I would say: I'm more than happy to do so but for most content I simply can't. In the built-in apps like Netflix, Disney+, Prime there is no option to turn it off and the TV itself provides zero options to do so. I've Googled around and in older LG TV's you apparently had a submenu in the picture mode that enables you to turn HDR to high, low or off but that option isn't present in this TV. I also tried to tune the screen with every available option I had:

• Brightness
• Contrast
• Tone mapping
• Black level
• Auto dynamic contrast
• AI Brightness
• Etc

On/off, low/high but the darker pictures with HDR content are still extremely sh*t to watch. I currently have my panel set to Brightness 100, Contrast to 80 and Black level to 80 to make it somewhat watchable but it's still far from good and I don't think I can go any higher because these levels are obviously already giving the picture a whitish/gray haze. I've btw got an Amazon Fire TV HDMI stick and in the settings of this device you can disable HDR which makes a huge difference so I've seen the difference but I would preferably use the TV's apps (one of the reasons I bought it in the first place) plus, Disney+ doesn't do 4K without HDR enabled (at least not with the stick).

Is this normal for such a TV or am I just too nit picky on this? Do you guys think turning off HDR will be an option in future WebOS releases? I've got one of those service remote controls coming in tomorrow to enter the factory/service menu and whilst I don't plan on changing a lot of stuff, do you guys think I could maybe fix my annoyances there or even turn HDR off completely?

Thanks in advance for reply's.

 

[dts]

This tv uses an ips panel and doesn't have a high nit peak brightness...so you aren't going to get the best HDR experience with it being a budget lg tv...

 

[cxzczxds]

This tv uses an ips panel and doesn't have a high nit peak brightness...so you aren't going to get the best HDR experience with it being a budget lg tv...

It isn't really high end indeed but I thought it was more of mid ranger. Either way, yeah that's fine that HDR sucks on such low nit peak panels and somewhat expected but how to disable it? That's my whole issue I have with this TV.

The service remote came in today but unfortunately no options in the service menu that seem to point to disabling HDR or similar. Plenty of options and parameters though and maybe it's burried or labeled as something else but I'm not tampering with anything unless I'm sure what the option/parameter applies to.

 

[Kapkirk]

You might have more luck tuning the Cinema preset, there is usually a bit more shadow detail on offer with this preset. Thing is, you have the TV now so try to make the best out of it.
I have an Panasonic OLED, I am not particularly a fan of overly bright TV's or HDR, some people love it but I don't. I find the whites too strong and they give me headaches so actually run at a much lower brightness than normal. I tend to use the cinema preset for all my viewing but tune it down to my liking so I have a nice balance of shadow, blacks and whites thats is easier on the eye.
You should be able to achieve a watchable picture on the LG even though it's not a high end TV.
Have a look to see if you can turn auto contrast off or low, some set have this feature with different settings. Keeping the contrast down will help.
There are usually people with the same TV's on youtube guiding you through the different settings so also worth a look.