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What is HDR, anyway?

(www.lux.camera)
791 points _kush | 2 comments | 14 May 25 12:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.416s | source
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aidenn0 ◴[14 May 25 15:01 UTC] No.43985366[source]▶
> A big problem is that it costs the TV, Film, and Photography industries billions of dollars (and a bajillion hours of work) to upgrade their infrastructure. For context, it took well over a decade for HDTV to reach critical mass.

This is also true for consumers. I don't own a single 4k or HDR display. I probably won't own an HDR display until my TV dies, and I probably won't own a 4k display until I replace my work screen, at which point I'll also replace one of my home screens so I can remote into it without scaling.

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1. babypuncher ◴[14 May 25 16:44 UTC] No.43986618[source]▶
Pretty much any display you can buy today will be HDR capable, though that doesn't mean much.

I think the industry is strangling itself putting "DisplayHDR 400" certification on edgelit/backlit LCD displays. In order for HDR to look "good" you either need high resolution full array local dimming backlighting (which still isn't perfect), or a panel type that doesn't use any kind of backlighting like OLED.

Viewing HDR content on these cheap LCDs often looks worse than SDR content. You still get the wider color gamut, but the contrast just isn't there. Local dimming often loses all detail in shadows whenever there is something bright on the screen.

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2. SchemaLoad ◴[15 May 25 00:01 UTC] No.43990468[source]▶
HDR marketing on monitors almost seems like a scam. Monitors will claim HDR compatibility when what they actually means is they will take the HDR data stream and display it exactly the same as SDR content because they don't actually have the contrast and brightness ability of a proper HDR monitor.