PS5 Displays SDR Content in HDR Container

Psychotron · Nov 7, 2020

Update: Sony has added an option to only enable HDR for games that support it.

Something I've seen mentioned a few times that has me concerned is that the PS5 is always in HDR mode, even on the main menu.

This is done to eliminate the quick black screen you get when switching between SDR and HDR. It keeps your tv and it's settings as they would be in HDR mode all the time and simply tone maps when SDR is present. (I could be explaining that wrong and invite correction)

Personally, I'm not a fan of this approach and it's something that really annoyed people when Apple TV 4K came out. My settings are very different on my television between the two modes. I'm sure some may find no issue with this at all, but I thought it deserved a bit of attention. I'm not saying it should be removed, but rather a content dependent toggle should be added, if it's not there already. At this time I've not seen anything mentioned about it being there.

Also mentioned by Digital Foundry.

dallow_bg · Nov 7, 2020

Yeah, I'll be turning it off.

cheeseholidays · Nov 7, 2020

Do not like

Gitaroo · Nov 7, 2020

Like Windows 10 also. People says it's broken but I think it's working for me most of the same beside when you use custom resolution. If Xbsx auto hdr is anything comparable to the LG hdr effect mode I expect the results are all over the place also.

Wollan · Nov 7, 2020

A very good thing as it avoids the TV from switching in and out of HDR mode which is a bit annoying. It is now constant across the board.

dallow_bg · Nov 7, 2020

Wollan said:
I very good thing as it avoids the TV from switching in and out of HDR mode. It is now constant across the board.

At the expense of color accuracy and increased power consumption.

Gitaroo · Nov 7, 2020

Wollan said:
I very good thing as it avoids the TV from switching in and out of HDR mode. It is now constant across the board.

Yes, I don't see what's not to like here. It's the perfect solution if they want to stick to accuracy. As cool as auto hdr on xbsx, as I said on the post above, will be a mix results that makes you go into the menu setting to turn on and off for each games unless they have per game profile.

bsigg · Nov 7, 2020

Gitaroo said:
Yes, I don't see what's not to like here. It's the perfect solution if they want to stick to accuracy. As cool as auto hdr on xbsx, as I said on the post above, will be a mix results that makes you go into the menu setting to turn on and off for each games unless they have per game profile.

This isn't that.

Gitaroo · Nov 7, 2020

bsigg said:
This isn't that.

Isn't what?

Lump · Nov 7, 2020

I too hate that the Apple TV 4k defaulted to that same deal and I immediately turned that off. SDR needs to stay SDR and HDR needs to stay HDR. It's bad enough when streaming services like Disney+ shove a bunch of SDR content into HDR wrappers, which makes a lot of that content look outright worse.

Ozymandias · Nov 7, 2020

I do not like this at all. I have different settings between sdr and hdr. Will have to try this out but it should have an option to disable it.

Gitaroo · Nov 7, 2020

Lump said:
I too hate that the Apple TV 4k defaulted to that same deal and I immediately turned that off. SDR needs to stay SDR and HDR needs to stay HDR. It's bad enough when streaming services like Disney+ shove a bunch of SDR content into HDR wrappers, which makes a lot of that content look outright worse.

It should not if the TV is calibrated correctly, look brighter should be the only side effect.

ShapeGSX · Nov 7, 2020

The game icons in the UI are blinding on my Q90R TV. Odd because he states that he's not capturing HDR?

HypnoToad344 · Nov 7, 2020

I'll just recalibrate my TV and find a sweet spot. I consider this to be a positive.

Lionheart · Nov 7, 2020

I thought one of the benefits of hdmi 2.1 is the ability to switch hdr and sdr without flickering?

bsigg · Nov 7, 2020

Gitaroo said:
Isn't what?

This isn't the same as what the Series X is doing.

All this does is force SDR content out at the settings for HDR on your TV. Content isn't having HDR applied via AI like Auto HDR.

Gitaroo · Nov 7, 2020

bsigg said:
This isn't the same as what the Series X is doing.

All this does is force SDR content out at the settings for HDR on your TV. Content isn't having HDR applied via AI like Auto HDR.

I never said it was. In fact the exact opposite of what I said.

Lump · Nov 7, 2020

Gitaroo said:
It should not if the TV is calibrated correctly, look brighter should be the only side effect.

Nope, zero-effort HDR content on my set looks much darker than it should. My set is one of the brightest HDR sets out there but zero-effort HDR content look demonstrably worse than it would if it were SDR. Disney+ is the worst offender though, but sometimes Amazon and Netflix will release some garbage HDR as well. It's more of an exception than the rule at least.

dallow_bg · Nov 7, 2020

Gitaroo said:
It should not if the TV is calibrated correctly, look brighter should be the only side effect.

No, it wouldn't be. There's a reason there was an outcry from professional calibrators when the Apple TV 4K came out and it forced HDR on everything.

Deleted member 43 · Nov 7, 2020

Yeah that sucks, they need to make this an option.

The PS5 OS is coming in really hot, I can see this being addressed along with a lot of the other OS issues in the hopefully not too distant future.

canderous · Nov 7, 2020

I really hate this functionality. It's why I stopped using the netflix app on xbox, because it always stuck in HDR mode even when playing SDR content. The only way to defeat it was to quit netflix, turn off HDR in system settings, then relaunch netflix (then repeat the process when you want HDR again). SDR content with the TV in HDR mode just doesn't look right.

I know some older TVs switch between SDR and HDR slowly, though on my OLED it is basically instant. An option to use this or not would be nice.

ss_lemonade · Nov 7, 2020

Wait, won't this affect how SDR content looks like? The same thing happens when you enable Windows 10's HDR option and play SDR games that run in borderless window. They added a brightness slider but that doesn't fix the color issues I saw the last time I had my PC connected to my TV.

Gitaroo · Nov 7, 2020

Lump said:
Nope, zero-effort HDR content on my set looks much darker than it should. My set is one of the brightest HDR sets out there but zero-effort HDR content look demonstrably worse than it would if it were SDR. Disney+ is the worst offender though, but sometimes Amazon and Netflix will release some garbage HDR as well. It's more of an exception than the rule at least.

dallow_bg said:
No, it wouldn't be. There's a reason there was an outcry from professional calibrators when the Apple TV 4K came out and it forced HDR on everything.

It sounds like apple tv itself is also the problem

chronomac · Nov 7, 2020

Are we sure the PS5 doesn't have an option for this? I've asked some people on Twitter and here and not gotten a clear answer. Putting everything in HDR is absolutely the wrong move. Having an option for all HDR or selective, based on content, is the right move.

RoboPlato · Nov 7, 2020

I'm curious to see how well it handles the tonemapping before I get upset about it. I usually turn this sort of thing off but John from DF said it actually looked pretty good. There should absolutely be a toggle for it but until I see it in action I can't really have an opinion.

Yappa · Nov 7, 2020

Would be a really dumb move from Sony if it turns out that all the streaming apps launched from the PS5 are also running in HDR no matter the content.

Pagusas · Nov 7, 2020

Hopefully this will be made an option in a future firmware update.

Sheng Long · Nov 7, 2020

Huhhhh... Not sure if I like that it forces HDR on stuff that isn't.

canderous · Nov 7, 2020

georaldc said:
Wait, won't this affect how SDR content looks like? The same thing happens when you enable Windows 10's HDR option and play SDR games that run in borderless window. They added a brightness slider but that doesn't fix the color issues I saw the last time I had my PC connected to my TV.

Putting Windows 10 into HDR mode and playing SDR content is basically the same thing as this from what I can tell.

Deleted member 4869 · Nov 7, 2020

So if I want to play an SDR game I need to disable the HDR at system level?

zombiejames · Nov 7, 2020

Sounds like a useful feature to me? 🤷‍♂️

Inti · Nov 7, 2020

Yeah, i'll be turning this off. My Chromecast with Google TV does this, same as Netflix on Xbox and, honestly, I don't like. So glad Google let me turn it off, so I will definitely turn it off on the PS5. It's just not accurate, and causes SDR content to look "off".

Jedi2016 · Nov 7, 2020

Based on John's reaction to it (or lack thereof), it doesn't appear to have the problems normally associated with running SDR inside of an HDR container. It's not trying to do any sort of conversion or crappy auto-expansion of SDR into HDR. The only thing John mentioned, which I saw in Gamespot's video on Ghost of Tsushima which I assume is the same thing, was that the image is a little bit brighter, but little enough that I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if John hadn't said anything. But if it really bothers you, a notch or two down on the in-game brightness slider should do the trick.

Honestly, this will affect video playback more than anything else. I run Disney+ through there, and the PS4 app doesn't support HDR. Maybe we'll get lucky and the PS5 app will.

For those of you saying "oh, I'll just turn it off", bear in mind that will probably disable HDR entirely at the system level, including for all of your games. Choose wisely.

sirap · Nov 7, 2020

georaldc said:
Wait, won't this affect how SDR content looks like? The same thing happens when you enable Windows 10's HDR option and play SDR games that run in borderless window. They added a brightness slider but that doesn't fix the color issues I saw the last time I had my PC connected to my TV.

Yes, and this will most definitely fuck up near black levels on OLEDS.

JudgmentJay · Nov 7, 2020

Yeah this sucks. My TV is calibrated, but the HDR modes are not quite as accurate. They're as good as you can get a C16 OLED, but the SDR modes are essentially perfect so if there are no actual HDR benefits it'll just be an objective downgrade in picture quality for me.

nStruct · Nov 7, 2020

Yuck, I hated when the Apple TV did this. I hope they add an option to disable this.

RivalGT · Nov 7, 2020

I think if your tv is calibrated properly, then SDR in a HDR container should look the same. This reminds me of RDR2 HDR, the game was basically SDR in a HDR container, on and off looked pretty much the same on my TV. But yeah I turn it off if SDR content looks worse, I'm sure DF, and HDTV Test will test out this feature, so all of us can be better informed.

henhowc · Nov 7, 2020

Wasn't good for the Netflix app on ps4

dallow_bg · Nov 7, 2020

Jedi2016 said:
Based on John's reaction to it (or lack thereof), it doesn't appear to have the problems normally associated with running SDR inside of an HDR container. It's not trying to do any sort of conversion or crappy auto-expansion of SDR into HDR. The only thing John mentioned, which I saw in Gamespot's video on Ghost of Tsushima which I assume is the same thing, was that the image is a little bit brighter, but little enough that I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if John hadn't said anything. But if it really bothers you, a notch or two down on the in-game brightness slider should do the trick.

Honestly, this will affect video playback more than anything else. I run Disney+ through there, and the PS4 app doesn't support HDR. Maybe we'll get lucky and the PS5 app will.

For those of you saying "oh, I'll just turn it off", bear in mind that will probably disable HDR entirely at the system level, including for all of your games. Choose wisely.

Oof. Well I'll definitely have to play around with it.

VanWinkle · Nov 7, 2020

Probably not a good idea. Hope they patch that soon (along with external HDD cold storage, quick resume, VRR, and ALLM.

Deleted member 9330 · Nov 7, 2020

Absolutely do not like this. I'll happily wait the one second for the screen to switch over than have my OLED at max brightness when showing SDR stuff because the console just stays in HDR mode all the time

Psychotron · Nov 7, 2020

Jedi2016 said:
Based on John's reaction to it (or lack thereof), it doesn't appear to have the problems normally associated with running SDR inside of an HDR container. It's not trying to do any sort of conversion or crappy auto-expansion of SDR into HDR. The only thing John mentioned, which I saw in Gamespot's video on Ghost of Tsushima which I assume is the same thing, was that the image is a little bit brighter, but little enough that I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if John hadn't said anything. But if it really bothers you, a notch or two down on the in-game brightness slider should do the trick.

Honestly, this will affect video playback more than anything else. I run Disney+ through there, and the PS4 app doesn't support HDR. Maybe we'll get lucky and the PS5 app will.

For those of you saying "oh, I'll just turn it off", bear in mind that will probably disable HDR entirely at the system level, including for all of your games. Choose wisely.

It might look "A little brighter" on an OLED, but going from my SDR brightness of 15 to my HDR of 100, is a blindingly obvious change on my 900E.

JudgmentJay · Nov 7, 2020

RivalGT said:
I think if your tv is calibrated properly, then SDR in a HDR container should look the same. This reminds me of RDR2 HDR, the game was basically SDR in a HDR container, on and off looked pretty much the same on my TV. But yeah I turn it off if SDR content looks worse, I'm sure DF, and HDTV Test will test out this feature, so all of us can be better informed.

Most people don't calibrate their TV, and out-of-the-box HDR modes tend to be even more innaccurate than SDR modes. So for most this is just going to result in a worse-looking image. Also HDR calibration typically involves maxing out your display's nits, so if you're playing an SDR game in a dark room it's going to be far brighter than it should be.

Pagusas · Nov 7, 2020

VanWinkle said:
Probably not a good idea. Hope they patch that soon (along with external HDD cold storage, quick resume, VRR, and ALLM.

Wait VRR isnt supported at launch?

VanWinkle · Nov 7, 2020

Pagusas said:
Wait VRR isnt supported at launch?

According to DF, no. Though they speculate that it's possibly something that is automatic in games that support it and just not shown in a setting anywhere.

chronomac · Nov 7, 2020

The problem is that the PS4 handled this perfectly fine. It was not broken. Yeah there's a slight flash between SDR and HDR modes but it's an incredibly small price to pay to get each type of content presented accurately. That is, SDR games in SDR, HDR games in HDR.

if you want to add an additional setting, to force HDR all the time, that's fine, but don't take away the original operation that worked. Just add a setting.

burgerdog · Nov 7, 2020

That's lame, I'll be sure to only turn hdr on when playing an hdr game.

Psychotron · Nov 7, 2020

chronomac said:
The problem is that the PS4 handled this perfectly fine. It was not broken. Yeah there's a slight flash between SDR and HDR modes but it's an incredibly small price to pay to get each type of content presented accurately. That is, SDR games in SDR, HDR games in HDR.

if you want to add an additional setting, to force HDR all the time, that's fine, but don't take away the original operation that worked. Just add a setting.

This is exactly what I'm saying.

Sheng Long · Nov 7, 2020

chronomac said:
The problem is that the PS4 handled this perfectly fine. It was not broken. Yeah there's a slight flash between SDR and HDR modes but it's an incredibly small price to pay to get each type of content presented accurately. That is, SDR games in SDR, HDR games in HDR.

if you want to add an additional setting, to force HDR all the time, that's fine, but don't take away the original operation that worked. Just add a setting.

Pretty much this.

RivalGT · Nov 7, 2020

JudgmentJay said:
Most people don't calibrate their TV, and out-of-the-box HDR modes tend to be even more innaccurate than SDR modes. So for most this is just going to result in a worse-looking image.

Yeah trying to calibrate for HDR is a pain. Hopefully Sony adds more options for HDR, like on all the time, Auto, and off.

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