Are you saying that all I am doing is darkening the overall picture by lowering brightness, and as such, it is just as "bad" as lowering the backlight? What if I was able to deal with a slightly darker picture just to have better blacks...wouldn't leaving backlight maxed out while toying with the brightness or gamma slider be a good compromise? Or would the incoming HDR signal not be tone mapped properly at that point?
Not as 'bad', just different. But only you can decide, if you can deal with the difference in image quality for the sake of reduced bloom, if you can then it might be worth it to you.
Gamma would be your better option though, as it was a more uniform effect across the whole image, rather than simply one element of it.
However, IMO this is only really going to be of use for dark scenes, and could have the effect of making bright scenes appear dull and too saturated/colour rich. As you will essentially be shifting the entire tone map down a few gradients.
So if tone mapping is dependent on the brightness setting, do you recommend leaving this on 0? Wouldn't it be possible, though, to maybe clamp down on the blooming by dropping brightness, being that it is affecting "picture punch," so to speak?
The brightness slider does NOT affect ANYTHING having to do with black levels in HDR?
The brightness setting only controls the black level, specifically the value of absolute black and thus where detail is clipped, even in HDR.
But the HDR punch doesn't really come from the blacks, it comes from the whites, highlights and the overall colour tone reproduction; as such Contrast and Gamma have a bigger effect in this regard.
Though adjusting contrast would only change your white clipping point, and destroy details in the bright areas, potentially making bloom worse; by creating a larger area of uniform brightness, rather than a gradient. Hence the recommendation of using gamma.
By lowering brightness and raising the clipping point, you would create and overall darker image, so the backlight would likely not be pushed as hard. This could help reduce bloom.
But you don't think he had a point about getting those black levels deeper?
No, he just raised the clipping point and destroyed all detail within shadows.
The fact the black level was raised, just gave him the impression of a darker picture. If he had done that in a truly dark room, that picture would have looked awful.
But these would be compromises in order to clamp down on blooming; I realize that we CANNOT achieve OLED-like blacks WHILE enjoying searing bright highlights with these panels, but what about a compromise of crushing some dark areas in order to eradicate some of the aggressive blooming I'm seeing on MY panel? I mean, it's really bad on certain discs, turning the letterbox bars gray at some points.
Or is your advice still to leave everything at their default HDR settings and switch to a different television technology?
I am a purist; so I would strive for the most accurate image, and look to change to an OLED at your earliest opportunity.
If you can handle the compromises, then make the adjustments.
Are you saying that I can drop gamma to -3 and that STILL wouldn't reduce the blooming because I'm in a totally dark room?
This would be dependant on what was in the scene. It will have a bigger effect on dark scenes, whilst potentially not helpoing at all on brighter scenes.
I see; at the end of the day, you do not suggest lowering either gamma or brightness to deal with this? Again -- what if I was willing to compromise on a slightly darker picture if it eliminated the aggressive blooming with letterboxed content, especially while keeping the backlight and contrast at max?
If you think you would be willing to make the compromise, then give it a go.
But remember that what changes you make might work for one film/disc, but not on another, it will be highly content dependant.
E.G. it might help reduce bloom in dark scenes, but might do nothing to reduce it in bright scenes, whilst making the bright scene appear duller and saturated.
Personally, if I was forced to pick one of those to adjust, I would choose Gamma. Purely, because the change would be more predictable overall, and less likely to outright destroy areas of the image.
Though it will still have a big impact of image accuracy.
-------------
@LCD HD covered it far more succinctly here...
It's possible that those settings might affect the dimming algorithm somehow.
And of course, if you reduce the brightness range (either by clipping blacks with black level, or compressing using gamma) blooming becomes less visible.
The problem is that these improvements will only look good on certain scenes.
I also agree with the only looking good on certain scenes.
As long as it improves your enjoyment, a
small difference is OK
, but I'm no purist.
For example, I run SDR at backlight 15... But the key is a
small difference. No extreme changes.
The bit about your enjoyment is the crucial part.