Samsung NU8000 Owners Thread

@IntelliVolume My advice is OLED, given the poor performance of my brother's FALD Sony.
On Disney+ he had to make subtitles 50% transparent. The default ones cause him major blooming problems.... This is not a joke, I've see it personally and it's really bad!


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Here's a good test pattern to play a bit with settings:


Goes all the way up to 10000nits. Just open it with the YouTube player and play with the NU settings.

On mine (49'' panel) the default HDR settings clip at around 800nits.
Lowering contrast I can make the scale visible up to 10000 nits. Setting Contrast Enhancer to High lowers the clipping point to around 650. Gamma is hard to judge.

What kind of Sony does he have?

My guess is that with a GOOD FALD, getting a bad one that blooms truly is a case of panel lottery...
 
I ended up bringing gamma back to 0 before watching the Avengers: Endgame UHD Blu-ray, because I remember Foster saying something about not touching this for HDR; in my mind, I just felt like this was messing up the overall tonal shift of the picture, even though it may have reduced the bleeding a LITTLE...

IIRC from reviews, the gamma on these Samsungs only adjusts the near black gamma, unlike on older Samsung sets or sets from other brands. So by lowering it, you would be essentially just raising the black clipping point and getting rid of all the detail in the dark areas of a scene. Though this does mean that in darker scenes, the overall scene will be darker; thus slightly lessening bloom.

However, I'm sure that when I was checking with mine during set up, it appeared to faciliate a shift in colour tones in general; not jkust those near black. But I'd have to test again to be sure, it could just be my memory playing tricks on me.

However, I don't think the trade off in detail loss from either scenario, is worth it.

At this point, short of maybe trying dropping the brightness (black level) all the way down or putting Contrast Enhancer on High, I think I am just going to accept the possibility that we received a bad panel and/or the edge lighting isn't for our dark room needs, and run the NU with the default HDR settings; gonna have to start looking at a new display, but I'm unsure if it's going to be an OLED or premium FALD.

Like with all possible solutions to the bloom issue; it is a trade off between lowering the picture quality but getting less bloom, or having a more accurate picture but suffering bloom.

I do think it is a case of a bad panel though, it sucks, but it happens.

Definitely save up the extra and get an OLED.

What kind of Sony does he have?

My guess is that with a GOOD FALD, getting a bad one that blooms truly is a case of panel lottery...

If you are determined to go FALD, maybe check the return policy of where you buy it from, and see what the terms are regarding bloom/light bleed.
 
IIRC from reviews, the gamma on these Samsungs only adjusts the near black gamma, unlike on older Samsung sets or sets from other brands. So by lowering it, you would be essentially just raising the black clipping point and getting rid of all the detail in the dark areas of a scene. Though this does mean that in darker scenes, the overall scene will be darker; thus slightly lessening bloom.
Thanks for finally getting back about this; indeed, here's what someone who has a home cinema consultation firm in the States (whom I am friendly with and who is an Oppo expert) told me about this:

Now, Gamma correction is not really a concept that applies to HDR video. That’s because the data in the HDR video stream already represents absolute light output levels for each pixel — as opposed to SDR where the data represents relative levels and you need to apply a response curve (Gamma) in addition to the black point and white point settings (Brightness and Contrast) to translate those into light output levels.

That means if your display has a Gamma slider that does anything when playing HDR content then the display is doing something which is not really “Gamma”. I.e,. the Gamma choices may alter other aspects of the processing in the display which they’ve chosen not to name! The problem is, there’s no way to know whether the thing you are achieving (blacker letter box bars) is screwing up something else in the image as only the display maker knows what that slider is actually doing.

For example, the “Gamma” setting may be adjusting the aggressiveness of the edge-LED lighting algorithm. That’s not “Gamma”, but might be a useful tool. The problem is, you don’t know whether improvements visible in one movie come at the expense of worse imaging in some other movie — because what the setting is doing is being kept a complete mystery.

THE ONLY WAY TO TELL IS TO CHECK THE RESULTS WITH AN OPTICAL SENSOR AND SOME CALIBRATION TEST CHART SOFTWARE.

This is the sort of thing a professional calibrator (an ISF Tech) would do for you. In addition, the ISF maintains databases of tips and tricks shared between the techs, meaning a tech ought to know ahead of time which tricks like this are already known to work for your model of TV, and which ones to avoid.

Doing this stuff is tricky because displays vary not only in how bright they can raise individual pixels (the max level usually touted in marketing), but how much of the screen they can raise to a given brightness without screwing up — for example your letter box blooming or lowering the overall output.

And it is frequently the case that settings interact, which means coming up with the compromise solution which achieves the most pleasing result across all aspects of the imaging is a neat trick. Again, this is the sort of thing a pro calibrator should bring to the table to earn his fee.


Bottom line is if you try this and it produces a result you like, then great. But without measuring what’s being produced, there’s really no way to know if you are damaging other aspects of the imaging.

And:

Only Samsung knows for sure what they were trying to accomplish with a “Gamma” slider that actually functions when playing HDR content. Like I said, it probably implements some entirely different change in the processing — something that’s not actually “Gamma”.

SO, if you play with that slider you may or may not get a useful result, and there’s really no good way for you to check it (short of proper calibration testing) except to view a lot of different content and see if it really is doing good things or not.

What do you make of this?
However, I'm sure that when I was checking with mine during set up, it appeared to faciliate a shift in colour tones in general; not jkust those near black. But I'd have to test again to be sure, it could just be my memory playing tricks on me.

However, I don't think the trade off in detail loss from either scenario, is worth it.
But didn't you once tell me that gamma, as it relates to HDR, is more of a "fixed" value of some sort that SHOULDN'T be messed with really? I remember us talking about gamma versus brightness and you said you'd first lower the brightness slider in order to darken blacks before doing anything with gamma (for HDR), but you also mentioned to me that NONE of these controls are going to really control the LUMINANCE, which would be taken care of with the BACKLIGHT setting, thus lowering the backlight would be the viable way of dealing with this...

Does that sound about right?
Like with all possible solutions to the bloom issue; it is a trade off between lowering the picture quality but getting less bloom, or having a more accurate picture but suffering bloom.

I do think it is a case of a bad panel though, it sucks, but it happens.

Definitely save up the extra and get an OLED.
We're definitely considering a panel replacement; I understand what you're saying about the tradeoff, and that's what I'm trying to balance right now. I don't know if it's worth bringing the gamma all the way to, say, "-3" on the slider or maybe lowering the brightness to deal with the black bar blooming, or if this just isn't worth messing up the HDR picture too much.

SHOULD the gamma slider ideally be at "0" with HDR? Does this work similarly to SDR, where "0" represents around 2.4 or so gamma with the NU8000 (unless I'm mistaken)? I'm perfectly fine with gamma being on "0" for SDR, being that we controlled black levels by dropping the backlight to "11" (thanks to your help), but my concern now is with HDR.

Did you happen to see the video I shared a page or so back from our friend MR 4K UPSCALER, in which he uses the John Wick 2 UHD Blu-ray to show the effects of dropping gamma to "-3" on his old KS8000? It seemed to really get rid of any light bleeding in the clip he played, but my panel shows significantly more blooming than his did...
If you are determined to go FALD, maybe check the return policy of where you buy it from, and see what the terms are regarding bloom/light bleed.
Fair enough.

Let's go about this a different way, though; I had found some threads over at AVS which focused on the Sony LCDs, and there were some pro calibrators there who were suggesting dropping the gamma on those sets to "-2" to decrease blooming -- which is partly where I got the idea to touch the gamma. I was also told by some in that forum that by using Samsung's Contrast Enhancer, notably on the High setting, the blacks will get darker and, as such, the letterbox bars will darken...though I don't know how much truth is in that (I haven't tried it yet because, honestly, the BRIGHTNESS of HDR in our dark room with CE turned OFF is just fine).

With regard to the Sonys -- I realize that's a different brand and that the sets use different implementations, somewhat, with regard to local dimming and such (I believe I was in a thread that focused on a FALD model), but what do you make of the suggestions to drop GAMMA to reduce blooming? Should I just leave everything at the HDR-Movie defaults (save for the small tweaks I made by turning off Digital Clean View and setting the Auto Motion Plus to my preferences) and deal with the blooming until I get a new television?
 
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I've been playing with my 2018 65' NU8000 picture settings lately and I'm not sure if I should be using it's "Game Mode" (which is apparently preferred in articles/calibration settings) while playing on PS5.

When I've turned it off, games seems more smooth than while I'm using it. (which doesn't make sense since Game Mode should turn off most post-processing stuff and make input lag almost "non-existent") Additionally, I had Blur and Judder Reduction set to 10 on both settings.

Are my eyes deceiving me or should I just ignore "Game Mode" altogether to get the best gaming/visual experience?

Thanks.

You are right that using "Game Mode" disables most post-processing in order to reduce input lag; but it could also be that you prefer the look of a processed image, and that is the difference you are noticing.

Unless you are playing online eSports games, where you need the super fast response time, I don't think the normal amount of input lag using the normal picture presets is really noticable anyway.

I don't use the "Game Mode" on mine, as I prefer having the extra picture options available to me, rather than having them all disabled for the sake of a few milliseconds of reduced input lag.
 
What kind of Sony does he have?

My guess is that with a GOOD FALD, getting a bad one that blooms truly is a case of panel lottery...

This one:

It's a 49'' panel, same size as mine.
I consider it superior to the NU, specially in brightness and color. And overall backlight is more stable, probably due to FALD. I'm not a Samsung fanboy!

But blooming is worse than the NU, no question about it.
Might be due to some settings, or simply because it's a much brighter panel with slightly lower native contrast... but it's there and I'm sure it would bother you.

The rtings review mentions the blooming problem:
"The X900F has deeper black levels, but there is more visible blooming."
 
This one:

It's a 49'' panel, same size as mine.
I consider it superior to the NU, specially in brightness and color. And overall backlight is more stable, probably due to FALD. I'm not a Samsung fanboy!

But blooming is worse than the NU, no question about it.
Might be due to some settings, or simply because it's a much brighter panel with slightly lower native contrast... but it's there and I'm sure it would bother you.

The rtings review mentions the blooming problem:
"The X900F has deeper black levels, but there is more visible blooming."

I have this set in a 65 and it does exhibit some blooming but it is far better than both the nu8000 (55) and q7f (also 55) which I had used before it.
 
Yeah, lads...

I'm having a hard time believing the 900F is WORSE with blooming than the NU...

Does Rtings mention any settings to use on the Sony to reduce HDR blooming?
 
I justify the differences between sets with panel lottery, different sources and different settings.
My point here is "try before you buy", exactly because you'll hear completely opposite opinions ;-)

But going by the Rtings objective measurements, native contrast is lower on the Sony. And this is the most important thing on an lcd panel.

They make up for it with FALD, but they also use higher backlight (to reach a higher sustained peak brightness) and that's the source of blooming. The panel is simply not good enough for the performance they try to get out of it.

Rtings mentions these settings on the Sony and the potential problems:
The 'High' setting of the 'Auto local dimming' will give you the strongest and most aggressive local dimming but in some case, the local dimming can be too aggressive when on 'High' and can dim too much some parts of the screen, or it can lag a bit behind..
...
When set to 'High'... on some occasions... small highlights can get dimmed on fast movements....
 
I justify the differences between sets with panel lottery, different sources and different settings.
My point here is "try before you buy", exactly because you'll hear completely opposite opinions ;-)

But going by the Rtings objective measurements, native contrast is lower on the Sony. And this is the most important thing on an lcd panel.

They make up for it with FALD, but they also use higher backlight (to reach a higher sustained peak brightness) and that's the source of blooming. The panel is simply not good enough for the performance they try to get out of it.

Rtings mentions these settings on the Sony and the potential problems:
The 'High' setting of the 'Auto local dimming' will give you the strongest and most aggressive local dimming but in some case, the local dimming can be too aggressive when on 'High' and can dim too much some parts of the screen, or it can lag a bit behind..
...
When set to 'High'... on some occasions... small highlights can get dimmed on fast movements....
Yes, I've seen those particular comments about Sony LCDs on their site. That's what prompted me to enter a discussion with Foster here about possibly lowering the NU's local dimming to "standard," as this would emulate a Sony setting of "medium" (which I think Rtings recommends if the HDR dimming is too aggressive on "high" for Sony panels), but he informed me the local dimming is quite different between a Sony FALD and a Samsung edge lit LCD, eventually convincing me to leave local dimming on high for the NU so it can hit the peak brightness targets.

I think as you and Foster here both explained, the underlying problem in this mess is the BACKLIGHT level and the way it should ideally be cranked to maximum for HDR -- this yields the nasty light bleeding I'm seeing in the dark, and there may be no way around that (though I can't explain why Foster's NU, based on the videos he sent me using Avengers: Endgame as a source, stayed black in the letterbox bars with the same settings I'm using).

There was a YouTube video of someone playing Avengers: Endgame on their LCD which exhibited the exact kind of nasty blooming I am -- but I can't find it again.....:facepalm:

I'm trying to work around this, keeping the contrast and backlight on max while tinkering with other adjustments that may reduce the light spill into the bars -- but, as Foster also explained at one point, the issue is one of LUMINANCE, and as such, settings like brightness and gamma won't really work on the problem. :suicide::suicide::suicide:
 
Here's the video I was talking about; THIS is pretty much what I see on my NU when viewing this 4K disc, albeit NOT quite so bad:

 
Yeah, lads...

I'm having a hard time believing the 900F is WORSE with blooming than the NU...

Does Rtings mention any settings to use on the Sony to reduce HDR blooming?
Yes, I've seen those particular comments about Sony LCDs on their site. That's what prompted me to enter a discussion with Foster here about possibly lowering the NU's local dimming to "standard," as this would emulate a Sony setting of "medium" (which I think Rtings recommends if the HDR dimming is too aggressive on "high" for Sony panels), but he informed me the local dimming is quite different between a Sony FALD and a Samsung edge lit LCD, eventually convincing me to leave local dimming on high for the NU so it can hit the peak brightness targets.

Yeah, different issue for the Sony vs Samsung. But I have personally seen 2 that bloom worse than my NU, but both were brighter, and did look better with some dark content if said content didn't have any particularly bright elements in the scene; all TVs have their strengths and weaknesses.

Because of your very precise dark room requirement, I would strongly suggest demoing the TV in a dark room, prior to purchase. And ideally, purchase the exact TV you demo, not just that model of TV; as it is possible that a different TV might not perform as well as the one you demo.

though I can't explain why Foster's NU, based on the videos he sent me using Avengers: Endgame as a source, stayed black in the letterbox bars with the same settings I'm using.

It could be that I won the panel lottery.

I'm trying to work around this, keeping the contrast and backlight on max while tinkering with other adjustments that may reduce the light spill into the bars -- but, as Foster also explained at one point, the issue is one of LUMINANCE, and as such, settings like brightness and gamma won't really work on the problem. :suicide::suicide::suicide:

There isn't a workaround for it, unfortunately. Getting better blacks isn't really your issue; you need to have dimmer highlights, so that they are less likely to bleed into your dark areas.

The only real way to do this, is to reduce the backlight to a lower value. But this will reduce the impact of HDR.

Here's the video I was talking about; THIS is pretty much what I see on my NU when viewing this 4K disc, albeit NOT quite so bad:



That's an IPS panel, so has a much worse contrast ratio, poorer blacks & poorer backlight uniformity; compared to a VA panel such as the NU uses.
 
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Yeah, different issue for the Sony vs Samsung. But I have personally seen 2 that bloom worse than my NU, but both were brighter, and did look better with some dark content if said content didn't have any particularly bright elements in the scene; all TVs have their strengths and weaknesses.

Because of your very precise dark room requirement, I would strongly suggest demoing the TV in a dark room, prior to purchase. And ideally, purchase the exact TV you demo, not just that model of TV; as it is possible that a different TV might not perform as well as the one you demo.



It could be that I won the panel lottery.
You could have indeed won the panel lottery; Endgame does NOT look like that on my set.
There isn't a workaround for it, unfortunately. Getting better blacks isn't really your issue; you need to have dimmer highlights, so that they are less likely to bleed into your dark areas.

The only real way to do this, is to reduce the backlight to a lower value. But this will reduce the impact of HDR.
But wouldn't dropping something like brightness (black level) to maybe -3 or so dim highlights at least into the black bars? Doesn't that affect near black gamma?
That's an IPS panel, so has a much worse contrast ratio, poorer blacks & poorer backlight uniformity; compared to a VA panel such as the NU uses.
Indeed, my bleed isn't QUITE that bad -- but the black bars do get lit up like that when extreme bright objects creep near them from the main image. Immediately following that, you can see the dimming system in my panel "clamp down" as quickly as possible to dim the light out, but at that point it's usually into the next dark scene.

Did you get a chance to look at this video?



I experimented with dropping the gamma, after watching this, to -2, not -3, and it DID reduce some of the blooming...but I was worried it was doing something to the overall picture "curve" based on what you once told me about gamma and HDR...

What do you make of what he was doing there?
 
IntelliVolume, your root problem is poor black levels due to high Backlight.
As we've discussed, backlight controls BOTH black and white levels. They both move together.

Doing very approximate maths, based on 5400:1 native contrast and disregarding dimming:
Backlight 50 = 600nits white and 0.11nits black
Backlight 11 = 100nits white and 0.02nits black

We get that HDR black is 5x brighter compared to SDR.

To compensate for this Samsung has dimming. But it only helps on dark scenes with low highlights.
As soon as the backlight needs to go up, it's as you say: "the black bars do get lit up like that when extreme bright objects creep near them from the main image".

You are seeing the panel limitations in terms of contrast (affecting black levels).
To keep the same SDR black level (0.02nits) in HDR, the panel would need a 30000:1 contrast ratio....

I'm sorry, there's no way around this, it's a hardware limitation. Gamma or brightness will have no effect over it.
 
You could have indeed won the panel lottery; Endgame does NOT look like that on my set.
Pretty much everything looks good on mine. I have very few complaints, despite planning to upgrade to an OLED as soon as I see a good deal.

But wouldn't dropping something like brightness (black level) to maybe -3 or so dim highlights at least into the black bars?
Yes, but only as a side effect of creating an overall darker picture. But this would have the same negative impact of reducing the highlights, though to a lesser degree than using backlight controls.

Reducing the backlight would have a bigger impact whilst retaining the black level details, but the specular highlights would be greatly reduced.

Doesn't that affect near black gamma?
Works differently depending on if you are watching SDR or HDR.

In SDR, it affects near black gamma only; this is a Samsung choice.

In HDR, it affects the whole PQ curve, due to how HDR tone mapping is handled it has to adjust all tones by the equivalent value on the curve.

Indeed, my bleed isn't QUITE that bad -- but the black bars do get lit up like that when extreme bright objects creep near them from the main image. Immediately following that, you can see the dimming system in my panel "clamp down" as quickly as possible to dim the light out, but at that point it's usually into the next dark scene.
This is a symptom of the bright being too bright, and the pixel filters not being able to contain it (panel's native contrast); it isn't the darks, not being dark enough.

That dimming can be reduced/removed via the service menu. If you wanted to do this, I advise you proceed with care.

Did you get a chance to look at this video?


I did. I still think he is an idiot, that spreads misinformation.

You can clearly see he has killed black level detail, as there are image elements that just become impossible to notice; such as the detail in the singers hair in the nightclub scene, the alcoves of the caves, the man's suit infront of the statue, etc.

His room is also clearly not as dark as he is describing, thus the blacks will look better against the ambient light.

I experimented with dropping the gamma, after watching this, to -2, not -3, and it DID reduce some of the blooming...but I was worried it was doing something to the overall picture "curve" based on what you once told me about gamma and HDR...

What do you make of what he was doing there?
In HDR, it will affect the whole curve, purely because that is how the TV tone maps in HDR.

It will reduce bloom slightly, due to creating an overall darker image where the bright parts aren't as bright overall. However, bloom will still occur when a bright enough image element is close enough to a dark area.

As we have talked about previously, this is an issue of luminance, not black level. So is better dealt with via backlight, than either brightness or gamma. But obviously, this has issues with regards to HDR performance.
 
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Thanks, chaps...will respond to this in kind as soon as I can.
 
IntelliVolume, your root problem is poor black levels due to high Backlight.
As we've discussed, backlight controls BOTH black and white levels. They both move together.
Yes, I understand what backlight is doing and that it controls the entire luminance level of the panel (hence why Foster always recommended that I use a low SDR level for this, like 11, as that would control bleed/bloom better than fooling with anything else).

The thing I was trying to ascertain is whether something like brightness (black level) or gamma control could possibly lower the perception of the blooming somewhat, being that, for example, brightness is supposed to affect black levels across the screen (in the case of these newer Samsungs, the slider controls "near black gamma," but let's take that out of the equation for the moment).

In other words, I was wondering if -- and I would accept there would be some kind of compromise with overall brightness a little using an edge-lit panel to do this -- I could lower the brightness or gamma slider down to reduce the perceived level of blooming, even if the overall punch of HDR would be diminished a bit (assuming I keep backlight and contrast at max).

I experimented with this once before, a long time ago, but I can't remember why I didn't think it was necessarily working (lowering only brightness, if I am not mistaken); it was like the blooming was still there, but I didn't lower the slider too much...
Doing very approximate maths, based on 5400:1 native contrast and disregarding dimming:
Backlight 50 = 600nits white and 0.11nits black
Backlight 11 = 100nits white and 0.02nits black

We get that HDR black is 5x brighter compared to SDR.
Understood.
To compensate for this Samsung has dimming. But it only helps on dark scenes with low highlights.
As soon as the backlight needs to go up, it's as you say: "the black bars do get lit up like that when extreme bright objects creep near them from the main image".
Understood.
You are seeing the panel limitations in terms of contrast (affecting black levels).
To keep the same SDR black level (0.02nits) in HDR, the panel would need a 30000:1 contrast ratio....

I'm sorry, there's no way around this, it's a hardware limitation. Gamma or brightness will have no effect over it.
Okay...I suppose this answers what I was asking above....

But let me put this to you: If black level or gamma controls wouldn't have any effect on the bloom phenomenon, why do some folks suggest this as a way of dealing with it? I already posted that video of the guy who lowered his gamma to -3 on his KS8000 to get better black levels (using the John Wick 2 UHD Blu-ray as a test example), which Foster responded to and which I will get back to as soon as I can, but there are other videos and comments I can point to which lean in this direction...

On Reddit, in some Sony LCD discussions, there are people who recommend dropping gamma on those sets to deal with blooming, claiming by doing so it would reduce the overall problems from bright highlights without destroying HDR completely. There are also videos like this one:



In it, he talks about dropping the gamma to compensate for some blooming if someone is experiencing it (he also seems to have dropped black level, too), even though I realize this is a Sony and it specifically refers to Dolby Vision (which our Samsungs don't support).

There's even a member of this forum who I have been speaking to (and who frequents other forums I'm part of) who keeps his NU7100's gamma on -3 (you can see the discussions we have been having in a thread in this section of the forum, below this one); the thing is, though, I don't know if I should be lowering the gamma or the brightness or BOTH in my quest to clamp down on some of the light blooming.

Are you suggesting I just leave brightness and gamma at 0 while keeping backlight and contrast at 50 for HDR?
 
Yes, but only as a side effect of creating an overall darker picture. But this would have the same negative impact of reducing the highlights, though to a lesser degree than using backlight controls.

Reducing the backlight would have a bigger impact whilst retaining the black level details, but the specular highlights would be greatly reduced.
Indeed, I realize that lowering the backlight would be futile for HDR highlights, so I'm trying to work around that while keeping that maxed out...

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?
Works differently depending on if you are watching SDR or HDR.

In SDR, it affects near black gamma only; this is a Samsung choice.

In HDR, it affects the whole PQ curve, due to how HDR tone mapping is handled it has to adjust all tones by the equivalent value on the curve.
Oh, okay -- I didn't realize there was a difference between the way this slider works in terms of SDR and HDR...

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?
This is a symptom of the bright being too bright, and the pixel filters not being able to contain it (panel's native contrast); it isn't the darks, not being dark enough.

That dimming can be reduced/removed via the service menu. If you wanted to do this, I advise you proceed with care.
I just assumed the aggressive dimming I'm seeing with HDR is due to the high local dimming setting...
I did. I still think he is an idiot, that spreads misinformation.
LOL; somehow I knew you wouldn't be kind to him...

But you don't think he had a point about getting those black levels deeper?
You can clearly see he has killed black level detail, as there are image elements that just become impossible to notice; such as the detail in the singers hair in the nightclub scene, the alcoves of the caves, the man's suit infront of the statue, etc.
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?
His room is also clearly not as dark as he is describing, thus the blacks will look better against the ambient light.
Yes, that's true -- but I didn't think the ambient light was that significant. I'll have to -- gulp! -- endure watching the video again...

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?
In HDR, it will affect the whole curve, purely because that is how the TV tone maps in HDR.

It will reduce bloom slightly, due to creating an overall darker image where the bright parts aren't as bright overall. However, bloom will still occur when a bright enough image element is close enough to a dark area.

As we have talked about previously, this is an issue of luminance, not black level. So is better dealt with via backlight, than either brightness or gamma. But obviously, this has issues with regards to HDR performance.
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?

Then, the question becomes....what do I reduce, the brightness OR gamma....or do I reduce them BOTH? :nono::suicide::confused:
 
But let me put this to you: If black level or gamma controls wouldn't have any effect on the bloom phenomenon, why do some folks suggest this as a way of dealing with it?
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.

Are you suggesting I just leave brightness and gamma at 0 while keeping backlight and contrast at 50 for HDR?

My suggestion is not to deviate much from the recommended values.
But a small change to one or two settings is not a problem in my view.
For example Backlight 40 and contrast 45 are still quite bright. And gamma-1 or +1 might not change much.

As long as it improves your enjoyment, a small difference is OK :smashin:, but I'm no purist.
For example, I run SDR at backlight 15... But the key is a small difference. No extreme changes.
 
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.
So those scenes with very bright highlights will still light up the bars, yes?
My suggestion is not to deviate much from the recommended values.
But a small change to one or two settings is not a problem in my view.
For example Backlight 40 and contrast 45 are still quite bright. And gamma-1 or +1 might not change much.

As long as it improves your enjoyment, a small difference is OK :smashin:, but I'm no purist.
For example, I run SDR at backlight 15... But the key is a small difference. No extreme changes.
What's wrong with backlight at 15 for SDR? Sounds like you're in the purist camp to me (that's just a couple of notches above where many of us keep it, including Rtings, at 11). ;)

But from what I understand up until this point, the only "recommended" values for HDR are keeping backlight and contrast maxed, and having local dimming on high. I said "default" settings in my previous post to you because, by default, brightness and gamma come set to "0"(in both SDR and HDR modes) -- so those aren't necessarily recommended, right? We CAN alter them?

Let me put it like this:

I've decided to keep backlight, contrast and local dimming maxed out for HDR. Now, I need to find a way, through brightness (black control) or gamma, to get that blooming somewhat under control. The thing is, I don't know which of these is better to lower to achieve that -- would it be gamma or brightness? What would tame those wild moments of extreme highlights just a bit so that the black bars aren't QUITE as lit up?

Here's something else I will put to you: How about looking to my DISC PLAYER'S settings to mitigate the blooming? My Panasonic player boasts a plethora of settings to tweak the picture, even though this is usually frowned upon by purists, including a massive suite of controls when viewing HDR10 material.

Here's what the standard picture adjustment menu looks like on the player when you open it up during disc playback:

1619127448143.png



Now, when playing a UHD Blu-ray, this menu opens up when a certain button on the remote is pressed and a disc is spinning:

1619127512292.png


As you can see, there are an almost overwhelming amount of ways to manipulate the picture via the player; normally, I keep the HDR Optimizer ON but leave everything else at "0." Is it remotely possible that using the Brightness, Gamma or Tone Curve sliders, as seen above, may tweak the black levels so that I don't really see the blooming? That Dynamic Range Slider really just adjusts the overall intensity of the HDR -- which can be done using some presets which Panasonic provides via the remote (Standard, which is the default for darker rooms, and which I use), Bright Environment, Natural Environment and I think one other -- so when you drop the slider, it supposedly makes the picture darker and when you raise it, the overall intensity goes up. I've always left this at zero.

I don't know how much of this stuff I should mess with when playing a disc -- but maybe THESE controls are more useful than the Samsung's?
 
I'm also now being told that I might try a complete reset of the TV to see if this improves the dimming algorithm somehow; not sure if this is worth re-entering all the settings again for the two HDMI inputs I'm using, but I'm thinking this won't suddenly alleviate the blooming I'm experiencing...
 
That Dynamic Range Slider really just adjusts the overall intensity of the HDR -- which can be done using some presets which Panasonic provides via the remote (Standard, which is the default for darker rooms, and which I use), Bright Environment, Natural Environment and I think one other -- so when you drop the slider, it supposedly makes the picture darker and when you raise it, the overall intensity goes up. I've always left this at zero.
(not much time right now so I'll just comment on this)

Looking at a review (Panasonic DP-UB9000 4K Blu-ray Player Review) I think you should try that Dynamic Range slider.
If it works as I think, it might lower your clipping point to something that your panel can handle better. A lower point would be less demanding on backlight and should solve dimming, while preserving some of the HDR experience.

But I'd also try turning the HDR optimizer OFF.
From my experience with my Sony player (with basic but similar HDR mapping option) and streaming, the NU doesn't work well with HDR metadata manipulation.
Dolby Vision content causes the same backlight problems you describe - I have to turn Dolby Vision off on my player. I know it should make no difference but it does.
 
(not much time right now so I'll just comment on this)

Looking at a review (Panasonic DP-UB9000 4K Blu-ray Player Review) I think you should try that Dynamic Range slider.
If it works as I think, it might lower your clipping point to something that your panel can handle better. A lower point would be less demanding on backlight and should solve dimming, while preserving some of the HDR experience.
But doing this is essentially what the HDR Optimizer is supposed to do -- which is why I leave it ON.

You address this below:
But I'd also try turning the HDR optimizer OFF.
From my experience with my Sony player (with basic but similar HDR mapping option) and streaming, the NU doesn't work well with HDR metadata manipulation.
Dolby Vision content causes the same backlight problems you describe - I have to turn Dolby Vision off on my player. I know it should make no difference but it does.
I honestly don't think the Optimizer is the problem, because I saw these issues when I used the Cambridge player before the Panasonic, which doesn't have any HDR tone mapping features. The blooming into the black bars was still really bad when light got near the edges of the letterboxing.

Here's the thing with playing with that Dynamic Range Adjuster:

As I mentioned before, there are certain HDR "picture presets" you can choose from on this player when viewing an HDR-encoded Blu-ray, and these are directly tied in to that Dynamic Range slider. They include "Standard," "Natural Environment," Bright Environment" and one other I can't recall right now; you can flip through these if you need a boost to the overall brightness of the image if you're watching HDR in a brighter environment, with "Standard" being the default for a dark room (which is what I keep it on).

As you flip through these presets, what basically happens is that the Dynamic Range slider is adjusted one way or the other; so a setting of "Standard" is basically the middle position, while the brighter presets represent an increase on the slider.

Here's what they look like as you flip through them:

1619209369137.png


1619209406114.png


1619209458208.png


I just keep this on "Standard" because I'm watching in a dark room; now, I CAN play around with that Dynamic Range adjuster, but should LOWERING this affect the blooming?
 
Hard to know exactly what those "picture presets" do. Seems to me they adjust the curve to make the image brighter. In theory that could make blooming worse (more light).
The range slider might be better in this case, if it reduces highlights... but hard to tell without testing.

The thing is, you are changing HDR mapping by unknown quantities. Very hard to predict the result.
My suggestion is to test all those settings methodically, over the same movie sequence. Start with "off" to define a baseline, and then go though all the settings. Otherwise it's just guesses.


PS - interesting that you post images from StarTrek. I have that disk in 4k HDR and I can tell that it looks really great!
 
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Hard to know exactly what those "picture presets" do. Seems to me they adjust the curve to make the image brighter. In theory that could make blooming worse (more light).
The range slider might be better in this case, if it reduces highlights... but hard to tell without testing.

The thing is, you are changing HDR mapping by unknown quantities. Very hard to predict the result.
My suggestion is to test all those settings methodically, over the same movie sequence. Start with "off" to define a baseline, and then go though all the settings. Otherwise it's just guesses.


PS - interesting that you post images from StarTrek. I have that disk in 4k HDR and I can tell that it looks really great!
Thanks LCD; with regard to Trek -- those weren't my personal pics...just ones I found online that showed the different presets and their "look." I actually don't care for the JJ Abrams' reboot of this franchise, being a diehard fan of the original series and crew, but we do own the 2009 film on regular Blu-ray because my wife liked it.

With regard to the presets: You are right about playing around with anything regarding HDR, even in the player, because it will be screwing with tone mapping; if ANYTHING, I would REDUCE that Dynamic Range Adjustment slider to tame the highlights/blooming (so it would somehow dip "below" the "Standard" preset a bit, but it's not clear how much).
 
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.

Then, the question becomes....what do I reduce, the brightness OR gamma....or do I reduce them BOTH? :nono::suicide::confused:
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 :smashin:, 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.
 
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