HDfury Vertex2 - Dynamic DV content from LLDV source on any HDR10 display

I'm sure they can fix it - certainly the VS10 engine isn't supposed to behave like that, but I suspect they may need input from Dolby.

 

Many thanks for the many valuable tips! I'm also getting a Vertex 2 this weekend and would like to use it together with my Sony VW270 projector. To adjust the EDID even more precisely, I took the precaution of reading out the EDID of the projector exactly with the Zidoo Z1000 Pro.
Especially in the DV tab many values for RED Primary X, RED Primary Y and so on have to be entered and I would like to enter the original values of the projector. But I do not know exactly how important this is... During the nit input I had read that for the VW270 maybe 300 nits gives much better results...

 

The primaries defined in the DV block relate to how the source sends out the signal, not how the projector performs on screen in the same way that a standard BluRay player outputs in Rec.709 for HD or BT.2020 for UHD and the projector chooses the correct colour space and how well that performs is dependent on how well you've calibrated it. Generally it won't reach those primaries, but you're setting a target.

My advice is to simply use BT.2020 primaries and set the PJ to BT.2020, but there's no harm in experimentation at all.

The projector will probably struggle at just over 100nits, but that doesn't matter. 1000nits is standard for LLDV and you should output that. You then tell the PJ using the custom HDR string as detailed above (or as custom gamma curve) that you're at 1000nits and the PJ will tone map to that so that the PQ curve rolls off and maps that 1000nit to full output - or that's the theory!

If you set to 300nits you'll clip the output too much, but again, by all means experiment.

 

Got my Vertex 2 earlier today and have managed to get it installed, updated and set up. I have some questions which I'm compiling but it was a doddle using your above screen shots and notes - thank you so much! I'll come back tomorrow once I've compiled my questions.

 

Look forward to read some impressions

 

Unboxed and installed the Vertex2 where my AVR Key was and used the same HDMI Cables which I'd had no issues with. Brought up the webserver using my Android Tablet and used @Markswift2003 's screen shots to setup. System - TV Samsung QE75Q950R : Receiver Yamaha RX-A1070 : Source Zidoo Z1000 Pro.

Questions (apologies for the newbieness of these): -

1. Automix /Autoswitch - what are these and what do they do? I don't fully understand how you power up and power down the Vertex2 or does it sense when no signal passes through it and goes into standby mode? Then how do you power it back up - does it need a signal? I downloaded the Controller from Playstore - it looks work in progress as it's not had any reviews but I was unable to connect as, presumably, the Vertex2 was not powered on - "error - 6" reported on my tablet. Update - please ignore last sentence - I see the correct .apk file elsewhere on the forum but very confused about powering on and off.
   
2. The Zidoo was already in HDR Auto mode, so I kept it on that to start with and played a HDR10+ title (Dr Doolittle) - it looked as I expected it would - wonderful and pressing the "INFO" button on TV Remote showed playback in HDR10+ . The sound format was DTS 5.1 and was playing back perfectly. I then switched to another title - (Jaws) and whilst playing back in HDR10+ it was very dim and didn't look right. Tried a few other HDR10+ titles, some played fine others again were dim and colours didn't look right. Can you explain this please?
3. I haven't tried a Dolby Vision source file yet as I haven't got one. I see that they are still perfecting MakeMKV right now and hopefully the ability to rip UHD Blu rays won't be long away. In the meantime I'll have a look around to see what I can find and play. I did switch to LLDV in the Zidoo - the GUI went a little lower in resolution - is this right? I tried playing though what I thought was a Dolby Vision title (Widows) - but I don't think it was - It played ok but all my TV showed was that it was HDR.
4. Is there a way to keep the Vertex's output Info on the screen longer. When I start playing a title the screen goes black for a couple of seconds and comes back on, after which the output information disappears. Is this normal? And what should the TV's Info show, assuming it was a Dolby Vision title?
5. I still don't understand much about Dolby Vision but let's assume I get a Dolby Vision title playing, is the Meta Data retained like it is with HDR10+ , i.e. Dynamic Meta Data or does the Vertex2 just spit out HDR10 with static Meta Data?

Hope, for now, you can advise on these questions as I know I will have some more

 

How did HDR10 content look like with the Vertex in your videochain outputting LLDV compared to not having it there? (Zidoo in auto mode) @rozel

 

Haven't really compared as yet - Widows is new so whilst trying on LLDV - I haven't tried playing it yet in HDR Auto mode. But I will be comparing all sorts and intend to post here. For now I need the above queries / issues sorting so I can actually get to grips with the Vertex2 first.

 

1. Automix allows you to mix the incoming EDID from your display with the settings shown. One reason to use this is to create a custom DV string in the DV tab and add it to your own EDID.
   I don't like using Automix because the EDID has a maximum of 256bytes and it's easy to overflow - I'd much rather create my own then I know exactly what's in it
   Autoswitch is exactly what it says - autoswitching for the inputs.
   You don't power the vertex on or off - just plug it in and forget it.
   
   
2. The Vertex doesn't process the video in any way, but you can see what the metadata is doing from the OSD and you can set. You may have been sending inappropriate static metadata with the custom HDR tab?
3. Not sure what you mean by "lower in resolution" - I assume you don't mean it literally changed resolution (to 1080p for example!). When you switch to LLDV on the Zidoo, your TV won't have a clue what to do with it so you need to fool the TV into thinking it's receiving standard HDR - That's why you set the Custom HDR in the HDR/AVI tab. You can choose the parameters and you can choose when the custom HDR string is injected - ideally just when an LLDV signal is received on the input, but if you tick "Use custom HDR for TX0 and TX1 [ignore RX HDR]" that will of course override the source HDR settings for any input.
4. Yes - OSD settings. Default fade is 20s, 0s means on all the time - handy for testing. Assuming Dolby Vision on the input, and you have the custom HDR string set correctly, your TV will show HDR
5. The Vertex spits out what you tell it - if you set a custom HDR string, it spits out HDR metadata. If you don't and the input is DV, it will spit out DV data but your TV will ignore it. If you don't specify a custom HDR string, whatever comes in on the input goes out on the output.

 

Sorry, I'm confused - using LLDV and the Vertex2, will the resultant Dolby Vision result on my non-DV TV, behave as Dolby Vision should, i.e. with dynamic meta data? I'm worried that as the TV's INFO shows just HDR, that what I'm going to see is a version of HDR10 (not HDR10+) with static meta data.

Thanks for answering all my other queries - I'll have another play later

 

Yes - the signal that the Zidoo is spitting out is genuine Dolby Vision.

But.... it's Low Latency Dolby Vision which was originally for gaming until Sony, one of Dolby's biggest customers one day phoned them up and said "er, we appear to have dropped a bit of a bo**ock here chaps" (I'm paraphrasing).

Sony had completely buggered up their chipsets so they weren't able to decode full fat dual layer Dolby Vision and yet they'd shipped the sets as Dolby Vision compatible and were in a bit of a bind. So between them, Dolby & Sony came up with LLDV which truly scrambled the Dolby Vision landscape.

So LLDV is very similar to HDR10 in that it uses a static PQ (perceptual quantiser) gamma curve and a wide colour gamut. It actually uses a proprietary colour space (IPT) similar to DCI-P3.

The clever bit is that although it's a static gamma curve on the output, UHD BluRay players that use it actually do the DV processing internally rather than handing off to the display which is what usually happens - so called "Player Led" Dolby Vision.

The likes of Panasonic, Oppo and of course Sony players now do this. So these players take the UHD HDR10 base layer, the 1080p Dolby enhancement layer, the RPU (Reference Processing Unit - basically the metadata) and shovel it all out in a single layer LLDV stream that even thick Sony TVs can understand!

Enter the Zidoo and Dolby VS10. This is slightly different to Player Led processing in that there isn't a second HEVC decoder to handle an enhancement layer, hence why dual layer DV isn't supported natively. But basically the VS10 engine is supposed to take any input and output in the best format available for the display - either SDR, HDR, DV or LLDV. It can process the RPU but it can't process enhancement layers.

So to go back to your original question, using my EDID, the Zidoo spits LLDV out in Rec.2020 (not IPT) with a 1000nit PQ gamma curve and because the TV doesn't understand Dolby Vision, you tell it that its HDR10 in Rec.2020 at 1000nit and hey presto - same thing! So of course the TV will tell you it's HDR10 - that's all it knows, but you can check whats spitting out the Zidoo using the Vertex's info page or OSD.

Or something.

 

Thank you! I went to bed last night after reading that epistle and thought I was still confused. Ok so I understand now with LLDV my Samsung TV will tell me it's playing HDR10, when it says "HDR" on pressing the TVs Remote. But we know it's LLDV. Just so my brain can fully understand this though, I need to know that the picture on the screen will behave like as if it was Dolby Vision or HDR10+ . In other words - with dynamic metadata (HDR10+ or Dolby Vision), brightness boundaries can be set and changed on a frame-by-frame basis, so the full colour range can be deployed even in scenes that contain only dark or only light elements. The result, in theory, is subtler gradients and therefore more detail.

So a "yes or no question" - will the resultant LLDV that I get from the Vertex2 on my Samsung TV from the Zidoo work in the same way?

 

Ha! not a simple yes or no question In fact the answer is yes and no.

The LLDV output is static - ie, the luminance levels follow a static PQ gamma curve in the same way HDR10 does. That's why, if you shift the primaries, you can use an HDR10 device to play it.

However, in Player Led processing (such as Panasonic, Oppo & Sony BluRay players use), the player will combine all the traditional DV elements - Base + Enhancement Layer and RPU to provide a "preprocessed" LLDV output. This is pretty much the same as a traditional DV TV set will do - just in this case the players is doing it.

With VS10, for DV profiles it supports, it will take the base layer and the RPU which contains the dynamic metadata and combine those in a similar "preprocessed" output. The difference being it has no way to handle a Full Enhancement Layer, so Profile 4 BL+FEL+RPU will output SDR (since P4 base layer is SDR) and Profile 7 BL+FEL+RPU will output the HDR10 base layer.

Remember - this was devised as a way for underpowered Sony TVs to display DV, so all processing is handed off to the player, and all a Sony can understand is static metadata.

So, if the RPU on the input stream contains dynamic metadata and the stream is natively compatible with VS10 (Profile 4 BL + MEL + RPU, Profile 5 BL + RPU, Profile 8 BL + RPU) then the static LLDV output is preprocessed with that data.

What I don't know is what happens when you input Profile 7 BL + MEL + RPU in MKV - because P7 is not natively supported, I'm not sure if that process uses the RPU or whether it's just a simple HDR10 > LLDV conversion of the base layer using the HDR10 metadata. I suspect the latter. However there is a distinct possibility that the engine is being fooled and it's the former since otherwise you'd just expect the HDR10 base layer to be output in the same way it does with Profile 4.

 

Really too much 3la and jargon for me to understand sorry. What is RPU ?

You say "However, in Player Led processing (such as Panasonic, Oppo & Sony BluRay players use), the player will combine all the traditional DV elements - Base + Enhancement Layer and RPU to provide a "preprocessed" LLDV output. This is pretty much the same as a traditional DV TV set will do - just in this case the players is doing it." - What about the Zidoo? Not interested in Panasonics, Oppo's and Sony's - just my Zidoo Z1000 Pro. What do you mean by "preprocessed LLDV output"?

I understand that the Zidoo does the processing (my TV can't) so are you saying I'll get "HDR10+ or Dolby Vision" PQ depending on the source disc?

 

RPU is Reference Processing Unit - Dolby's name for the metadata container.

Basically yes - the output will always depend on the source!

 

Good afternoon! Had a good play around and started off in VS10. Played Jaws (HDR10+) again for around 10 mins and it really looked good. Checked my Samsung and it was reporting "HDR". So first question - was it playing HDR10+ or HDR10?

Tried a few other known HDR10+ titles and they all looked very good.

Next switched Zidoo to HDR Auto. BUT this time I switched off the Zidoo using the switch at the back of the set waited a minute, switched back on. This time all the same HDR10+ titles played with no dimming as reported earlier and again all looked very good. Samsung reported HDR10+ as expected. But my second question - is it necessary to do this every time the Zidoo's output is changed like this?

Difficult to compare the difference in quality because I only played 5 mins at a time and more importantly I don't know how (if it's possible) to play a title say in VS10 and switch to HDR Auto on the fly. There are a few posts on this here: -

I too would like to see this implemented. However difficult to see any differences so far comparing VS10 LLDV with a HDR10+ source title to HDR Auto using same source title.

Next I will have a look at doing the same but with a Dolby Vision (MEL) title, although I think this will be tomorrow now.

Playing about with the Vertex2 wasn't easy for me; I started with it switched to the wrong input - so it didn't remember my last setting. I checked all the screens and didn't see any other issues so third question - have I not saved the setting properly from the last time I used the Vertex2? I worked out that changing the OSD colour from 21 to 1 changed the output on the Samsung from the default blue to white and because I'm experimenting, changed the fade from 5 secs to 20 secs. I'll post some images of what this shows tomorrow as I need to understand what it is showing.

But huge thanks to @Markswift2003, his knowledge, understanding and patience is outstanding. I seem to be getting better each day understanding Dolby Vision

 

Depends how you have the Vertex set - if you have the LLDV enabled EDID running and are forcing HDR on the output when LLDV is detected, then yes, the TV will report HDR10 not HDR10+

Tried a few other known HDR10+ titles and they all looked very good.

With HDR in Auto, even with the LLDV EDID, as long as the Custom HDR output is only invoked on LLDV input (ie Use custom HDR for TX0 and TX1 when input is LLDV only is ticked), HDR10+ will pass through. You will also see "HDR+" reported by the Vertex as long as you have "RX HDR Info" ticked as below:



If you mean is it necessary to turn off, then No its not.

When you change HDR mode you find that the resolution (HDMI Mode) reverts to Auto which is very annoying. If you change EDIDs on the fly you need to exit and restart Quick Settings for the HDR list to refresh to whatever the new EDID supports.

 

Slow progress today but I managed to see what happens when playing Flash Gordon via VS10. Seemed to play ok with HD MA 7.1 but the OSD doesn't show anything regarding LLDV or DV - is this normal? Please see image attached.

TV shows "HDR".

PQ didn't seem any different to playing in HDR AUTO.

Would welcome opinions

Thanks

 

I assume you've chosen LLDV in HDR settings?

You have the Vertex OSD showing the output on TX0 so that is HDR to the TV. If you want to see the input on the OSD you need to choose RX Video Info and RX HDR Info.

 

I have set to VS10 Engine but I have no other option - where is the option for LLDV? I've set the OSD to show the RX0 input but as you can see from the attached screen shot, it's revealing the same as yesterday.

So there must be a setting wrong in my Vertex2 as I'm definately not getting DV/LLDV to TV.