What is HDR, anyway?

(www.lux.camera)

791 points _kush | 2 comments | 14 May 25 12:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.405s | source

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the__alchemist ◴[14 May 25 13:43 UTC] No.43984458[source]▶

So, HN, are HDR monitors worth it? I remember ~10 years ago delaying my monitor purchase for the HDR one that was right around the corner, but never (in my purchasing scope) became available. Time for another look?

The utility of HDR (as described in the article) is without question. It's amazing looking at an outdoors (or indoors with windows) scene with your Mk-1 eyeballs, then taking a photo and looking at it on a phone or PC screen. The pic fails to capture what your eyes see for lighting range.

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1. esperent ◴[14 May 25 13:51 UTC] No.43984550[source]▶

>>43984458 #

I think it depends on the screen and also what you use it for. My OLED is unusable for normal work in HDR because it's designed around only a small portion of the screen being at max brightness - reasonable for a game or movie, but the result is that a small window with white background will look really bright, but if I maximize it, it'll look washed out, grey not white.

Also the maximum brightness isn't even that bright at 800 nits, so no HDR content really looks that different. I think newer OLEDs are brighter though. I'm still happy with the screen in general, even in SDR the OLED really shines. But it made me aware not all HDR screens are equal.

Also, in my very short experiment using HDR for daily work I ran into several problems, the most serious of which was the discovery that you can no longer just screenshot something and expect it to look the same on someone else's computer.

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2. simoncion ◴[14 May 25 16:49 UTC] No.43986660[source]▶

>>43984550 (TP) #

> ...the most serious of which was the discovery that you can no longer just screenshot something and expect it to look the same on someone else's computer.

To be pedantic, this has always been the case... Who the hell knows what bonkers "color enhancement" your recipient has going on on their end?

But (more seriously) it's very, very stupid that most systems out there will ignore color profile data embedded in pictures (and many video players ignore the same in videos [0]). It's quite possible to tone-map HDR stuff so it looks reasonable on SDR displays, but color management is like accessibility in that nearly noone who's in charge of paying for software development appears to give any shits about it.

[0] A notable exception to this is MPV. I can't recommend this video player highly enough.

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