I've had a new 55 inch QLED for a few months now. When enabling HDR it tends to auto set the brightness to maximum. Now, although I absolutely love HDR, I did notice my eyes tend to tire much more quickly now.
Is it just me?
Is it just me?
HDR is more straining on the eyes, right?
- Thread starter Sems4arsenal
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It can be, depending on the content on screen and the nit output of the TV.
A good solution for that is gentle bias lighting when watching HDR in a dark environment, like a LED strip you put on the back of your TV. It's what I use and it works very well for preventing eye strain. And no need for a complicated system, for most TVs a single LED strip would suffice. There are plenty of companies selling those. Just make sure the solution you'll be buying is outputting 6500K white light. Fancy colors and non-6500K white is significantly less effective in reducing eye strain.
A good solution for that is gentle bias lighting when watching HDR in a dark environment, like a LED strip you put on the back of your TV. It's what I use and it works very well for preventing eye strain. And no need for a complicated system, for most TVs a single LED strip would suffice. There are plenty of companies selling those. Just make sure the solution you'll be buying is outputting 6500K white light. Fancy colors and non-6500K white is significantly less effective in reducing eye strain.
Note that while your TV sets brightness to max that it's mostly setting what the peak brightness is. It's up to the content to decide the actual brightness, so the answer here will be that it depends on the content. You can tone down the peak brightness on your TV if it helps though.
Part of this is having a QLED with extremely high nit peaks, and possibly your dynamic tone mapping setting the overall brightness of the picture too high. I'd look at some videos about your screen to see if you can make it more "natural" which usually pushes brightness down when it's not meant to be bright.
The worst is high-end LCDs in SDR with brightness maxed, which is how they are configured in some stores. SDR is worse than HDR, because the average brightness stays higher.
I don't find it a problem with OLEDs since the brightness is more limited in all dimensions (intensity, duration, and fraction of the screen).
I don't find it a problem with OLEDs since the brightness is more limited in all dimensions (intensity, duration, and fraction of the screen).
i think the symptoms people associate with computer vision syndrome or whatever (fatigue from screens) is mostly due to people not blinking as much as they should while looking at screens.
I may be wrong but I always thought that the 6500k white bias lighting was more for perceived color accuracy not eye strain. I prefer warmer bias lighting for a more relaxed feel personally and find 6500k a bit harsh looking.
HDR shouldn't strain your eyes, no. With SDR images, the whole range of brightness is 100 nits. With HDR, that range goes up. But the parts of the image that are meant to be in "SDR range", e.g. 100-200 nits, aren't going to be much brighter than they would be in SDR. With HDR what you're getting is increased highlight brightness, so even when your HDR television is set to 100 backlight, if a scene is supposed to be 45 nits avg, it's still going to be only 45 nits. What gets brighter is when the sun is also in the scene, and it might reach closer to 1000 nits but only in the small window of the image where the sun is present.
Of course, this all gets thrown at the window when you enable settings on your TV like "dynamic tonemapping" that take that 100 nit SDR range portion of the image and brighten up to 400+ nits. In this case yes, on average the content you are watching will be brighter and could lead to eye strain in dark environments. That's why it's best to calibrate towards accuracy and not use settings that artificially boost brightness.
Of course, this all gets thrown at the window when you enable settings on your TV like "dynamic tonemapping" that take that 100 nit SDR range portion of the image and brighten up to 400+ nits. In this case yes, on average the content you are watching will be brighter and could lead to eye strain in dark environments. That's why it's best to calibrate towards accuracy and not use settings that artificially boost brightness.
Maybe its just set too bright? I have seen most TVs tend to favor high brightness out of the box. Mine is now set at minimum backlight.
I think you're right about color accuracy. But isn't it recommended for both color accuracy and eye strain? Hmm... I'm not sure now.
In any case, if a warmer bias lighting works for you that's what's important! :)
Worth mentioning that OLEDs output significantly less blue light than LCD variants though. Something to keep in mind for anyone affected by blue light.
I said this in another thread recently, but I suspect that it could be similar to small text being a result of game developers sitting close to monitors when designing UIs.
HDR implementations are probably pushing the average brightness higher, more than they are increasing dynamic range, because they aren't being implemented in a darkened room as intended.
A bright and comfortable image to look at in a bright room or overlit office environment can be uncomfortably bright in a dark room.
That's not to say it's easy to fix, though.
If your game was not intended to use HDR from the start, it can be difficult to retrofit it in later.
But if you started with an HDR workflow, your SDR output is likely to end up looking better, too.
You do get used to it the more you use HDR, though.
I've nearly finished Outer Wilds with modded-in HDR, and while some elements were uncomfortable at first (the HUD is too bright) I'm not finding it to be as much of a problem now.
I do find that I'm not blinking as much when I'm watching HDR for some reason though, so I had to use eye drops a couple of times after playing it.
Going outdoors covers your entire vision and causes your pupils to constrict accordingly.
You're compressing the dynamic range back into being closer to an SDR image.
To begin with: if you don't have a neutral gray wall behind the TV, you aren't going to be seeing a D65 surround from the bias light anyway.
And it should be dim enough that it's not a major influence on the picture - no brighter than 5% or 10% gray.
In some respects, a CRT could be more comfortable than LCD since there's almost no motion blur.
HDR implementations are probably pushing the average brightness higher, more than they are increasing dynamic range, because they aren't being implemented in a darkened room as intended.
A bright and comfortable image to look at in a bright room or overlit office environment can be uncomfortably bright in a dark room.
That's not to say it's easy to fix, though.
If your game was not intended to use HDR from the start, it can be difficult to retrofit it in later.
But if you started with an HDR workflow, your SDR output is likely to end up looking better, too.
You do get used to it the more you use HDR, though.
I've nearly finished Outer Wilds with modded-in HDR, and while some elements were uncomfortable at first (the HUD is too bright) I'm not finding it to be as much of a problem now.
I do find that I'm not blinking as much when I'm watching HDR for some reason though, so I had to use eye drops a couple of times after playing it.
It generally doesn't work like that because most people's TVs are covering ≤30° of their vision in a darkened room.
Going outdoors covers your entire vision and causes your pupils to constrict accordingly.
If you are turning down the backlight (or OLED pixel brightness) then you aren't really watching HDR any more.
You're compressing the dynamic range back into being closer to an SDR image.
If you have the color temperature set correctly, it shouldn't be as necessary to use blue light filter glasses, unless you are particularly sensitive to it interfering with sleep; but then you would be better using blue-blocking glasses.
Having a warmer bias light could influence your perception of the image on-screen, but I do agree that it's not a major concern unless you're in the business of color grading content.
To begin with: if you don't have a neutral gray wall behind the TV, you aren't going to be seeing a D65 surround from the bias light anyway.
And it should be dim enough that it's not a major influence on the picture - no brighter than 5% or 10% gray.
I don't see the relation in the slightest, but it really depends on a number of factors.
In some respects, a CRT could be more comfortable than LCD since there's almost no motion blur.
Firing a canon in Sea of Thieves in the middle of the night does that to me as well.
