Is there a way to watch DV Content as HDR10+ via Tone Mapping?

Hey all, I've had a Z9X for about a year now and have been loving it. I was previously using it with a LG B2 that has Doby Vision. I play remuxs and it was simple before, my B2 would get Dolby Vision and my receiver would get atmos. I recently upgraded to a Samsung S90C that has HDR10+ and not Dolby Vision. I'm trying to understand how to get the best HDR quality with my equipment and I was looking into the Zidoo settings and custom EDIDs.

My question is, is there any way at all to take a Dolby Vision Remux and watch it on my S90C with the dynamic metadata? As of right now anything I watch in Dolby Vision defaults to HDR10, but I wanted to see if theres a way to convert it to HDR10+ in the settings. From what I can tell this isn't possible, but if Im understanding correctly can I run a custom edid and allow the Zidoo to tone map the Dolby Vision remux's so that it plays static metadata HDR10 on my tv but it has the same quality as if it were Dolby Vision?

I hope that makes sense, pretty much just trying to maximize my HDR experience. Thanks all and appreciate any responses!

 

Edit: Im pretty much trying to understand this line from another thread "Effectively this allows true Player Led Dolby Vision to be viewed on a non Dolby Vision display since Player Led processing allows the dynamic tone mapping to happen in the player and the display receives a static gamma according to the St.2084 standard."

 

Because VS10 is a Dolby proprietary technology and HDR10+ is Samsung (and others), there's no way to convert Dolby Vision to HDR10+ on the fly.

However, if you set HDR to "Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (For DV content)", because your TV is HDR10, this will use the dynamic metadata present in the Dolby RPU as it converts to HDR10 in a similar way to how LLDV works (If you set HDR to "Auto" it just uses the HDR10 layer on its own without the Dolby Vision metadata).

You can also view Dolby Vision natively on the Samsung - if you use an LLDV EDID you can output LLDV and then tell the Samsung this is HDR10 - but you need an HDFury devices (ideally a Vertex 2) to do this - see attached.

 

Would you say getting an HDFury device would be superior quality-wise? Or would I get the same quality as using the Dolby Vision VS10 Engine? Also when you say it will use the dynamic metadata present in the Dolby RPU, does that mean it my S90C is in fact playing Dolby Vision, but my tv will say HDR10? Thanks!

 

An HDFury device would allow you to view Dolby Vision natively on the Samsung. It works very well, but as to whether it's better than VS10 HDR10 from a Dolby Vision source - very subjective.

No, not as such - Using VS10 to convert DV to HDR10 uses the dynamic metadata of the RPU - one way to think about this is that it's pre-tone mapped HDR10 which as I say is similar to how LLDV works.

 

Gotcha, I probably cant justify spending hundreds on a vertex so I'll try out the VS10 mode. For using VS10 to convert the metadata do I need to change my EDID or LLDV/TV Led Dolby Vision settings at all? Or do I just have to change HDR to VS10 for all formats

 

To be fair the VS10 mode does a pretty good job of it.

No need to mess with EDIDs or anything else - just set HDR to VS10 for all DV content and you're good to go.

Then you'll get SDR, HDR10 and HDR10+ natively and Dolby Vision will be converted to HDR10 using VS10 and the dynamic DV metadata.

The only caveat is that if the content is Dolby Vision Profile 7 with an HDR10+ base layer, the DV metadata is used instead of the HDR10+ metadata.

 

Okay thanks, so if I know my remux is in HDR10+ (wont be often lol) I should change that to HDR10 instead of VS10? That way it does the HDR10+ base layer and not the DV

 

You'd change to "Auto", but honestly I wouldn't bother - I doubt you'd ever notice any difference.

 

Hello everyone, I am the new owner of a zidoo z20 pro (the first in the media player category, until recently I had an nvidia shield 2015). zidoo seem to be quality devices with great potential but really at the moment the Achilles heel is the firmware part that still needs a lot of work on it for optimization and problem solving. I connected the z20 pro to a Samsung q950a soundbar which in turn is connected to a Samsung qn95a TV. zidoo I connect it through the soundbar because the TV does not process the DTS format. (the TV doesn't support DV, so I don't expect it to produce DV but to read my hdr10 layer from mkv with dv). initially I had various playback problems because any mkv DV or hdr10 file would not go after I pressed play and would freeze after 5 seconds. After doing the settings illustrated on the forum by Mark, it seems that the problem was solved and the files ran. This with HDR settings on Auto. the problem remained that any file I run DV, zidoo plays it with dolby vision VS (somehow it fails to read the hdr10 layer). if I start an mkv with hdr10 without having DV, it correctly identifies hdr10 and runs. all these things happened with the original Frwm version up to date .58 as it were. however reading on the forum today I also put the .65 beta version with G apps. After installation, I did a reset to be sure that everything is ok. the surprise was that it didn't even play in my mkv file, be it DV or hdr10. After I played with the settings in HDR Auto -> vs10 output hdr, the files started playing normally again. mkv with DV are played in Vs10 DV and mkv hdr in hdr10. However, I was not satisfied because hdr always remained on the gui interface from zidoo. So I said to switch to Auto hdr again and to see the surprise everything returned to normal working and reading mkv as it should hdr with hdr except the DV ones which are still played with vs10 DV. my question is now, I ask you, having this setup with samsung tv what would be the most correct settings to run without problems and with perfect picture quality? thank you and sorry for my english.

 

For VS10 DV -> HDR10 Tone Mapping based on RPU, which max. Nits is applied? Is it adjustable to the capability of your TV/Projector?

 

That's not how it works - although it is possible to hard code MaxCLL/FALL into the EDID, I've never seen it done and the Zidoo usually doesn't know, nor does it need to know, the HDR capabilities of the display - it just passes MaxCLL/FALL reported by the source file to the display which then tone maps to its capabilities based on that. If those values don't exist, nominal values (usually around 1000/400) are used.

In the case of Dolby Vision, this data is contained in the Level 6 metadata in the RPU.

 

Thanks for quick response! If I got it right, this method is not suitable to compress dynamic range into a smaller/equalized range better consumable by a projector with limited HDR tone mapping capabilities? For example, if MaxCLL is around 4000Nits but the tone mapping of the projector can only handle up to 1000Nits properly there will be no advantage over the standard HDR10 source, right? Is it different with LLDV? I assume yes, as it respects the claimed max nits of the display in the spoofed EDID?

 

Yes, exactly - LLDV will tone map before it leaves the source and you can choose a level to tone map to.

Arguably, for a projector, you'd want to set LLDV to tone map to say 100nits, but because of how the PQ curve works, the compression is such that the luminance level is way too low at source. Tone mapping would be great, but the picture would be dim as hell.

So a good compromise is to use a Dolby Block with max nits set to 400. That way all the specular highlights are tone mapped by the Dolby processor (including all trim adjustments if the source file is DV) and the display hasn't got a lot of work to do.

This all depends on the projector of course - mine uses dynamic tone mapping so a better option for me is to set max nits higher to 1000 or even 4000 and let the PJ do the work.

The problem lies in telling the projector that the LLDV signal is HDR10 with MaxCLL at 400, MaxFALL say at 200 and MaxMDL at 400.

Most PJs will allow you to set HDR mode manually but I don't know of any that allow setting MaxCLL/FALL/MDL. So for that you need an HDFury Vertex 2 or better which will allow a spoof HDR message with those parameters to be sent when the input is LLDV.

But if you don't have an HDFury, by all means try it without - send LLDV at 400nits and 1000nits to compare and just set the PJ into its HDR mode.

 

@Markswift2003 Thanks again for your explanations! So seems the LLDV hack combines spoofing EDID wit max Nits to the player, while providing ideally the same Nits to the projector via spoofed HDR message, right? Will give it a try without HD Fury first, as you suggested. My XW5000 can be set to HDR manually and in HDR Reference mode which is calibrated to 1000 Nits HDR I think it will work out pretty well.
Does this LLDV hack really bring you a benefit on JVC projectors despite of their built-in DTM? I thought it was perfect

 

Yes, that's exactly right. Trying it out without an HDFury first is definitely a good idea - it'll help you decide whether the investment in an HDFury device is worth it.

Although to be honest, I think they're worth every penny for diagnostics as well.

I used to have a JVC X7000 which had a terrible HDR gamma curve, so I designed and imported my own and the results were staggering and I was happy for years with that.

With the new PJ I didn't expect to need to use the LLDV hack but so far I've found it to be the best experience - however in my case, because the tone mapping is so good in the projector, I set max nits to 1000 and let the projector do most of the heavy lifting with tone mapping.

 

Hi @Markswift2003 I gave it a try last night but honestly on first, quick sight I did not see a difference between playback from my old vero4k, Zidoo with VS10 DS->HDR10 and even not for Zidoo with Custom EDID LLDV (tried both 400 and 1000Nits custom EDID). I would have expected that darker areas which are close to black and by that hard to see would be lightened up, shouldn't they? But ok, hard to assess a difference when it takes about 10 sec to switch between vero and Zidoo. Should it be that significant to clearly spot a difference or is it rather subtle difference? In case of the former, anything I could have done wrong? Apart from that I have already identified some shortcomings which make me wonder which benefit a Zidoo Z9X 8k brings me over my old vero4k (please correct me if I am wrong or just didn't find equivalent function yet):

1. Music Player: No gapless playback for Flac 5.1 - only Stereo
2. Music Player: No way to filter by source - e.g. in many cases I just want to see Surround Albums which are located in a separate folder on my NAS. Ideally it should be possible to filter by # of channels similar to how you can filter by resolution/HDR in the Movie Poster Wall
3. Getting to the chapter selection is a little bit cumbersome and not as nice as on Kodi (with the thumbnails) - this is mainly important to me when watching concerts
4. When pausing, it shows the progress bar / time left, etc. just for 3 secs then it's gone

So if I do not get a noticeable improvement in HDR PQ from the Zidoo I guess I will return it.

 

If you're happy with the Vero, stick with that.

I tried a Vero4K+ a couple of years ago. Think it lasted a day, but everyone has different requirements.

 

Yes, indeed, my requirements are maybe a little bit "specific". I spend some more time with the Zidoo and also tried the App on my tablet. With this app I can workaround some of the gaps I mentioned above. For instance, it has a nice search function. As I prepend all music albums with (5.1) or (Atmos) it is easy to get a view showing solely these albums. Unfortunately the app wastes the opportunity to come up with a nice chapter navigation (to easily jump to specific titles in concert videos).

Anyway, the main motiviation to switch from Vero4k to Zidoo was - and is - the VS10 engine as I was hoping to improve Tone Mapping for HDR. I tried it again last night but cannot help myself - I just don't see an improvement of DV -> VS10 -> HDR10 or DV -> VS10 LLDV -> HDR10 on my XW5000 over the standard HDR10 playback. And of course, I tried with Dolby Vision videos (Zidoo shows Dolby Vision / VS10 in the upper left corner). Can you describe (or maybe show screenshots) how it should improve the image? I am still wondering if I am just doing something wrong. Maybe I cannot benefit from it without the FuryHD?

 

Don't forget that unless you mess with parameters in the Dolby Block, tone mapping is mainly done by the projector and not the Zidoo and results will depend on how good the projector is at tone mapping. The XW500 uses a static gamma curve to tone map so it depends on how well designed that gamma curve is.

If for example you have a Profile 7 1000nit DV file and output as HDR10 (no VS10) then you're simply outputting the base layer which is no different to sending an HDR10 file of the same parameters - at that point DV doesn't come into it so the PJ just sees a 1000nit HDR signal coming in and tone maps accordingly. Must admit I don't know if the XW500 will use MaxCLL/FALL or min/maxMDL or not. But in any case, the tone mapping is purely down to the PJ.

Add VS10 into the mix and the same thing happens with the addition that some metadata from the DV RPU is used in the HDR10 signal. But these are subtle at best and still needs reliance on the PJ to actually tone map to the PJ's ability.

So then we have LLDV and now we have control over how the signal is output from the Zidoo. You'd think that a 100nit Dolby block would be best because that's kind of the max any projector can reach, so you'd let the VS10 engine tone map to 100nits.

But there's a problem with that - because of the way PQ (Perceptual Quantiser) works, a 100nit tone map is just way too dim - you're compressing the signal too much.

So a compromise I found worked very well with my old PJ was to set the Dolby Block to 400 nits and send an HDR message to the PJ to say that MaxCLL is 400 and MaxFALL is 200. That hands of the tone mapping from the PJ to the VS10 engine at around 400nits.

But that needs an HDFury device to send that spoof HDR message.

Complicated isn't it?