Hello I would like to know if this is possible or not for zidoo x9s. My pj has HDR. Thats oke. HDCP 2.2 with hdmi 2.0 For some 4k bluray movies I want to disable HDR but i wanna keep BT2020 WCG. There is a product named HDFury. They told me their product works with uhd bluray players for this function. But they told me to contact to zidoo stuff. The question is: Can the player convert HDR BT.2020 to SDR BT.2020 when the diplay supports SDR BT.2020 but not HDR? Or will the player always convert HDR BT.2020 to SDR REC709 if the display does not support HDR? (I know new firmware have hdr switch but i am not asking that. ) Kind Regards Cem
There is no standard for that. At all. I dont know what the HDFury support is smoking - but... how? The whole point of WGC is, that it comes as a "package deal" with HDR to become the BT2020 standard. BT2020 has a fixed gamma curve (EOTF) that all compatible devices adhere to. This Gamma curve is designed with HDR in mind. Same with bitdepth, rec2020 at 8bit runs into limitations. There is no 10bit SDR standard that got any traction. The first point is more important. The gamma curve alters color reproduction, and any TV/projector that displays any bt2020/HDR source with 120nits max. brightness, will display colors signficantly wrong. So - if there is no BT2020 SDR standard, and no content is produced this way - WHY ON EARTH do some consumers want to finagle their setups to display this way? If you are the usual idiot (sorry, but in this case I'm very adamant about it), that buys their TV gear for the marketing labels (4K! Wide Color Gammut!) - go home, and start reading what you are actually buying. If you then want to retrofit "fututreproofing" by realizing one part of the standard, but not the other... Give up. Now here is the good part for you. People who are "way into" 4K HDR (WCG) currently are dimwits. We have enough problems right now with the whole "dynamic metadata" fiasco - the fiasco is, that the BT2020 standard is a scam as far as standards go (everything on earth could proclaim its "compatible", regardless of performance) - and the only thing that was put in place to allow for any comparability was designed by Dolby as a proprietary "addon standard" - everyone had to pay for (Dolby Vision) - and then got promptly ignored, because no manufacturer wanted to pay for it. 4K HDR and the bt2020 standard currently is the single most SCAMY, SNAKEOILY, customer bait - in the entire tech industry - no one adheres to anything - now we have an industry fight about "add on standards" that are necessary to allow for any kind of comparability between devices, and BT2020 is set up to prolong this for the next 20 years by making the standard "flexible" and "ever evolving". And thats for Devices that support HDR. Now - on the projector front, you have to look at this a little differently. No projector is sufficiently HDR capable - even in the best case scenario. With cinema the industry is talking about a "new" projector HDR standard with 100-120 nits peak brightness. HDR in the consumer realm is at 700-1400 nits peak brightness currently. Thats (1200-2000 nit) is what the content gets mastered to at the moment. Projectors are so far removed from that, that they arent even playing the same game. As the game in its current state is idiotic (/broken) to begin with - thats not necessarily a bad thing. Now - projector manufacturers have to deal with this situation somehow - and the way they are doing it, is to proclaim HDR10 compatibility (thats the gamma curve), but at a level thats actually rather a joke, than real compatibility (again - almost everythign can proclaim, that its bt2020 and HDR compatible). The point here is, that its the projecttor manufacturers job to produce an HDR image "somehow" - which effectively is close to BT2020 SDR (if that was a thing) - so - compatible projectors will accept a 4k bt2020 HDR signal, and then THEY are responsible for an internal conversion "the best they can" (finagledbythemanufacturerTM), which means following the BT2020 HDR Gamma curve "for as long as they can do (not very long)", and then running out of dynamic range, and showing color errors the rest of the way. That said, there still is an HDR gamma curve (EOTF) in play, and there simply is no bt2020 SDR standard (no standard -> no mode you can ask for from a "playback device"). So asking anyone for that mode, much less your chinese Android box manufacturer of choice, doesnt make much sense. Or in "consumer compatible easy": If no camera records it, and no colorist speaks it, your TV/projector shouldnt display it that way. edit: One correction, afair the Hybrid Log-Gamma standard (BBC, the "HDR standard for broadcast TV" (in Europe)) is partly set up for what you "want", as in that the gamma curve for HDR is just an extension of the gamma curve for SDR. So devices in theory could "reproduce what they are capable of". In theory, maybe. In practice - is your projector HLG compatible? No. End of story. (Also the beenefits in that case are highly debatable...(for some odd "chosen colors" - I guess...) )
Oppo and other uhd bluray players support for 4k sdr bt2020. It seems you dont know about that, yes my projector HLG compatible and its not about that.
After googling the search term you provided, it seems like Oppo and Panasonic provide this "mode", which is just perfect for troglodyts that want "more contrasty colors" but didnt buy an output device that does know how to handle HDR10. (HDR10 is the pseudostandard really anything can say it supports, if it has 2kb of rom available to put in a gamma transformation.) Its still not a standard (please google the difference between a bluray player "feature" and a standard), and by turning it on, you'll still make sure, that all colors are displayed as wrong as they can be. Not that it matters in the current environment. (Because with HDR10, everyone does.) Also, you are right, this is not about HLG, at least not at the moment, because "tha videos files you downloads over the internets" are not using that standard. But I thought I'd throw it in regardless - to maybe make you look up the impact of wrong gamma curves on color rpresentation. You didnt. But here is no newsflash - those videofiles arent using SDR BT2020 either, and thats kind of the point. Just to be an annoyance, I would want to ask from Zidoo to please NEVER implement a "SDR BT 2020" mode into their products, so people like you cant misconfigure their devices to show an image (colors) that is not intended by anyone in the entire production chain to be shown that way. Those modes (SDR BT 2020) are close to "fake me a wide color gammut image" modes on TVs, maybe a little bit better, if the Bluray Players manufacturers knows what he is doing are doing. The issue still remains, that if you display a color at 100% of its intended saturation, but at 25% of its intended brightness, it still the wrong color. and if you have 5 colors at that 100% saturation level, same xy coordinates, and 26%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% intended brightness, they would still be shown as the same wrong color (25% of intended brightness) on your setup. This ruins the image (= massive clipping, and wrong colors). So what the Projector manufacturer, or the Blueray manufacturer does in this case, is to compress the dynamic range (resorting in wrong color mappings), but preserving "full saturation" (resulting in even more wrong color perception.). My logic was - that this would only be in the interest of the projector manufacturer, as they are the only ones interested to sell that form of snakeoil to their customers, but apparently Blu Ray manufacturers also pitched in because it doesnt matter what they are doing as long as they can sell people like you, buying Oppo Bluray Players and projectors a new "feature". This goes along perfectly with the "the entire HDR10 environment is a MESS" logic. But that said, the entire industry shifted and declared "individual TV/projectors capability" the new "great" (they bribed the head of the ISF to convince opinion leaders that "individual" is the new beautiful, and color accuracy doesnt matter) - so it is not your fault. It is theirs. Just to make you even more angry - at one point the X9S did output wide color gamut (what you wanted), when it detected a 4K output device. I reported it as a bug. And I think Zidoo has fixed it by now. Maybe they put it behind a "HDR" toggle - I dont know at the top of my head. Either way - as an "undefeatable" default it was a nuisance, because it meant that any non HDR content, even menus were automatically displayed incorrectly if you chose 4K as an output resolution. There is really no upside to this. You'll always get the wrong colors. (But again, heres the good news - you would even with HDR 10 and a HDR 10 capable output device - because the industry is a mess. Dolby Vision is a compromise to get out of it, but no one licenses it, and Samsung and Amazon and... work on a competing standard (HDR10+), and ...) edit: One more point, in favor of your argument. The cinema standard (DCI-P3) has actually a larger color gamut than SDR bt709. So in theory SDR bt2020 could be great. Sadly thats not how this works. First DCI-P3, even though used in TV review comparison charts these days has a differenct gamma curve that both bt709 and bt2020, resulting in color differences. Second every commercial HDR10 (or DV) release is color corrected for the bt2020 standard again, resulting in different colors, and third DCI-P3 is no standard whatsoever in the consumer realm (even though for some reason it is used in TV comparison charts these days (because "capability is beautiful" I guess...)), so you cant be sure that your projector is displaying anything close to DCI-P3. Again, this whole thing is a mess.
Use HDFury Linker. It keeps the WCG but removes HDR flag. I am guessing that you are using one of the JVC or Epson projectors. For converting HDR to SDR, it is more for 1080p capable display. OPPO does it, but not without bugs. Only other device that can do it is Panasonic UHD player, which nails it perfectly. If you're into HTPC, madVR can do it as well. It can also preserve WCG without sending the HDR flag, so you have both options. And it's free. But if you're using Zidoo, than you don't want to use madVR. Zidoo can disable HDR with the slider, but instead of blocking HDR flag only, it tries to convert (I think) and it's conversion is screwed up completely.
Its like a parallel universe, where extremely dumb people ask for extremely simple answers, to extremely stupid ideas they had, so they can gage by feels how bad they would want to mess things up. So you turn off the "HDR flag" - what are you left with? A 4K wide gamut signal, encoded with a gamma curve no SDR display can display. This is an insult to anyone capable of any form of logic. Why should all of a sudden resolution be "a driving factor". What are said "bugs". What means "nailing it perfectly" - there is no widely accepted SDR wide color gamut standard - at all. And what does that mean? So Zidoo does a transformation, presumably? A "correct" transformation fromthe HDR EOTF into what (?) 2.2, 2.4 SDR powerline gamma would require a freaking 3D lut to get the colors "on track" which is beyond the capability of any "Blueray Player", or Android Box on the market - also, transformed to what color space - because THERE IS NO WCG STANDARD FOR SDR. (And if you say DCI-P3 Ill slap you. (Not a standard anywhere in the consumer space.)) *pant* This is insanity in motion. Who needs arguments, when you can proclaim things like "bugs", "bad image quality", and "feels" - which in itself describe NOTHING, nothing at all - and have a happy exchange that satisfies two peoples believes of having a successful "conversation" about "things"? Oh this makes me so mad, you cant even imagine. Those two, you have to understand are two perfect examples for the "Hifi projector/TV equipment buying population". They orient themselves around buying "better labels", never, EVER, understanding what they buy, or why - and then they live their lifes by proudly boasting about "features" that are hurting the intent of actual image reproduction, and DEMAND, that a chinese android box seller should do their bidding and implement ABSOLUTE NONSENSE, so their projector will hopefully display another label, that signals something (?), to them, so they can get reassured, that they bought the right product, and - they KNOW, that all of this must serve a purpose, because a call center support person told them so... This is the target demographic in this field. Easily hyped, easily fooled, dont know anything. So the Panasonics are better than the Oppos here, at doing what exactly? What does this "magical" feature do in your imaginations. If you display a wide gamut signal, from any HDR source on an SDR display, you start with a gamme curve thats ENTIRELY WRONG, and COLOR ERRORS all over the place. Now the "feature" comes in and does - what? (It cant transform the gamma curve, because that just introduces more color errors (different ones), and it cant transform colors (alongside gamma), because it certainly does no 3D Lut color transformation (this would need dedicated chips, that are NOT implemented in playback devices).)
I dont know why I am doing this, but here we go... The following is SKYs "argument" for why they will go with HLG and not with PQ Gamma (PQ = Every UltraHD Bluray or Streaming File on the market (those that are advertised as using HDR10 or DV)). Its in german, but I will translate it to you ver betum. src: https://www.sky.at/static/img/abonnieren/Broschuere_UltraHD_WEB.pdf Text box translated: Two favorites: PQ and HLG Perceptual Quantizer (PQ) delivers good HDR Quality, but has the disadvantage, that this system is not backwards compatible: Ultra HD TVs that are not HDR compatible, would not "understand" the signal and display content in a wrong fashion. A viewer would only see a "washed out" image. Based on the high number of not HDR capable Ultra HD devices already sold into the german market, for many content providers it is important to deliver their program to those TV-households in the best possible Quality. A parallel delivery of both SDR and HDR would not be economical based on the high data rates of Ultra HD. Thats why [... they decided on using HLG (which shares the same gamma curve between SDR and HDR up to 100 nits)]. What you can see in the graphic: Ultra HD blurays (and streaming video "packages") are supposed to deliver an SDR image to HDTVs and ULTRA HDTVs that are not HDR capable. Thats the same image though (without WCG). The "they would not understand the image" part refers to mainly them not understanding PQ Gamma ("washed out"), part of it is them not understanding the color range the content was mastered on. With Ultra HD Blurays this is supposed to be "compensated by" adjusting colors on the fly - using metadata from the mastering system. This "compensation" is still based on PQ gamma for everything "wide color gamut", and the "individual systems compatibility", you strip the HDR flag - you have the wrong gamma for all your colors, if displayed on an SDR display. So how are Ultra HD Blurays "downconverted" for SDR displays? (The "feature" route..)? https://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/4k-ultrahd-on-a-1080p-display/ That guy also didnt understand half of what he is talking about - but he mentions at least a few things that touch on the subject. Banding (8bit vs 10bit issue, also color conversion issue), black crush (gamma and color conversion issue), loss of shadow detail (gamma and color conversion issue), no two players do this quite the same way (there is no standard issue). Cool, right? And all this, just for you to be able to pronounce, that "my projector is Ultra HD Bluray "compatible"". Now, as soon as we dont just look into "black crush and shadow detail", but also color accuracy - this whole thing falls apart, since the "metadata" the Bluray Players are working with, for HDR10 mostly is ONE peak brightness value, and thats in itself isnt accurate half of the time. (Studios opting to set it to 0 to "get the brightest possible image on all TVs".) Now - this leaves us with "how would a color conversion work that "keeps WCG on an SDR display""? They would transform the gamma curve to bt.1886 (probably), they would clip all brightness information above 100 nits (probably), but they would leave in all saturation information up to P3 (probably) - resulting in an image thats - wrong, because gamma transformation wasnt applied to all colors in the first place (probably) - wrong, because clipping all brightness information above 100 nits introduces color errors. - wrong, because keeping saturation values without keeping brightness levels introduces color errors (the main issue of HDR10 as a concept) - wrong, because DCI-P3 wasnt a standard in mastering. - wrong, because DCI-P3 wasnt a standard the SDR TV or projector was created around. - wrong, because there actually is no SDR bt.2020 standard to target (but apparently Panasonic is the best at doing something thats not possible...) - wrong, because color transformation cant be done based on solely the peak brightness value in mastering as "metadata" information. Now - at which point will the two people above resort to buying HD Blurays over UHD Blurays, because those are quite the issues...? Never, because - they bought their devices for the labels, and now they want 4K. Even though major parts of the 4K UHD Bluray (and streaming files) standard are unsupported by their devices - they will not care - as long as they get "better (as in more saturated) colors". Last part: How "good" is the "color transformation" in the BEST case, on a HDR10 capable device, understanding the standard, delivering the PQ Gamma curve up to its "capabilities"? https://www.displaydaily.com/article/display-daily/hlg-vs-pq-systems-for-hdr-television (If you should read the entire article and wonder about the "easy transfermation" from PQ to HLG and vice versa - thats not in real time on consumer grade devices, and probably should include a 3D Lut measurement of the mastering device (because color space under the bt.2020 standard is variable as well.)) So - what are those Bluray player manufacturers "implementing" as a "feature"? I frankly dont know. Nothing thats a standard. Nothing that can solve the issues we are dealing with. Apperantly something that differes widely from one manufacturer to another. And something that "doesnt look right on Oppos, but looks perfect on Panasonics" - disregarding the fact, that they cant possibly solve 90% of the color conversion issues on Bluray Player hardware, and theres no standard to actually target. If the projector manufacturer would do this in your case - it could actually at least limit color space to DCI-P3 definitively and set a DEFINITIVE gamma curve thats not PQ (none of which a "player" (UHD Bluray Player, Android Streaming Box, ...)) can do - that would allow for a mitigation of some of those issues. Although only in theory - because the hardware usually isnt capable to do 3D LUT calculations in realtime, and the metadata information that comes with those formats isnt sufficient (but thats an "every HDR10 capable device suffers from it as well" issue). If you want to read up on what "different gamma curves" means: https://www.lightillusion.com/uhdtv.html "But why are you talking about HLG, ... thats not the point..:" "Sure, ..."
n.p. There is no need for you to be upset. I have actually owned all of the players (panasonic, oppo 203 as well as HTPC with madVR using nvidia GPU and X9), and I am reporting what my eyes have seen. I have seen the same movies in HDR in cinema hall. I can't argue with your with technical aspects, but, to my eyes, the picture looks perfectly the same when you play UHD disc on these players (pana and oppo) with HDR enabled on my JVC projector and in Cinema hall. When I use Linker to force HDR to SDR conversion (i.e. SDR bt2020) in Pana, the picture looks the same. Oppo has a mode which is labeled as "strip metadata", which works good for most part, but not the same as playing UHD disc in HDR mode. on the other hand, when I use madVR in HTPC and set option of "Allow HDR passthrough to projector" and uncheck "pass HDR metadata", I also get the same picture quality as Cinema or as playing UHD disc with players. Of course, any of these tricks (Linker with pana, strip metadata in Oppo or madVR) will not automatically put projector in HDR mode, as it is not receiving HDR metadata. I have to manually do that (or in my case with a script to automate). But that's what I want, as my projector automatically selects a factory HDR Gamma when it recevies HDR metadata. That factory Gamma is wrong. I have my own custom HDR gamma that I want to use, which I can not do without multiple keypress on the remote if I allow HDR metadata to pass to projector. Hence, my need for HDR slider in X9S to just turn off HDR metadata (like what madVR does), and not do any color or tone mapping for HDR to SDR bt2020. I am not interested in SDR bt2020 as it will be too difficult to do it correctly in absence of a reference standard (as you pointed out). All I want is to turn HDR metadata off without any conversion. Now, this only will work with HDR 10 as the metadata are static. For Dolby Vision, this will be counterproductive. But neither S9X nor my projector can deal with DV, so I don't care.
