Raised Black Floor with VS10 output - Please Help

Hello @Markswift2003 I’ve long admired your work and truly appreciate the insights you share. I recently purchased the Zidoo Z9X 8K media player and connected it to my Sony A80L OLED TV through a Bravia Theatre Quad AV receiver. While I don’t encounter issues with black bars in cropped content, I’m struggling with HDR playback(Both DV and HDR 10)—movies appear with greyish tones instead of the deep blacks expected from an OLED display.

I’ve tried all the suggested alternatives mentioned in this thread, including connecting the player directly to the TV instead of through the receiver, but the issue persists. At this point, I’m unsure how to proceed and would be very grateful if you could help me identify the cause. I’ve attached my EDID data for reference.

Thank you in advance for your guidance.

 

First thing to say is that I've seen a lot of issues around EDIDs having an elevated minimum luminance defined in the Dolby Block - but I've never seen that with Sony and your EDID correctly shows zero.

But then you're getting this in HDR10 and DV and the Dolby Block couldn't be responsible for HDR10.

However, the EDID does have "Desired" MaxCCL, MaxFALL and MinCLL defined in the HDR tab and though not usual for Sony, not all TVs (or even many!) use these fields - they define what range the display works best with but not necessarily its ability.

And MinCLL is defined as 0.01 nits, which isn't a lot, but it's not zero.

I honestly don't know if this is causing your issue, but attached are three EDIDs to try, one with undefined MaxCLL/FALL/MinCLL (most EDIDs are like this), one that keeps MaxCLL/FALL and just removes MinCLL and one that keeps MaxCLL/FALL and defines MinCLL as zero.

By preference I'd use the last one as that's closet to the original - so if they all seem to work, I'd use that one. Be interesting to know if this is the issue.

 

Thank you for the adjusted files but unfortunately the issue still remains

 

Ok - I suspected as much - as I say, 0.01 nits is very low.

I think I'd try and find other A80 users and see what their experience is. What I can tell you is the Z9X 8K outputs black at the correct level.

I assume you have HDMI Range set to Auto in the Zidoo and either Auto or Limited in the Sony?

 

Yes, have set the HDMI Range to auto in Zidoo and Auto in Sony. However i have tried to change to range in sony tv to limited/full but still had the same greyish pinkish tint. have attached a sample screenshot from the Movie. The balck levels are messed up and shows as this pinkish greyish tint in all the movies. Have tried adjusting the black level in the TV as well but it then causes the blacks to crush. This issue does not appear when i am watching movies in Disney or Netflix. its only when i play movies in HDMI signal

 

I thought you were talking about elevated black floor, not colour issues?

(I assume the posterisation on that image is due to the jpg quality and you're not seeing that on the screen???)

 

i am seeing the same during video playback as in the atatched jpg. where the right side of the image is not accurate as it should be in an OLED. I guess its not the issues with elevated black floor becuase the black bars other than the croped image is inky black.
This issue does not appear when i am watching movies in Disney or Netflix. its only when i play movies thorough zidoo via HDMI

 

So you're seeing this?

 

It's like someone sparyed this greyish/pinkish paint where the blacks are supposed to be blacks in the movie. The top and bottom are also part of the TV where the image is cropped while the black levels are perfectly maintained as its supposed to be in an OLED.

 

Ok, I get that, but I still want to know, are you seeing that posterisation in the sky above the building?

Can you post a mediaInfo report for the file?

 

The issue appears only on the right side of the image, where the blacks should be deep but instead look washed/tinted out. In contrast, the bottom highlighted section shows a proper representation of how the blacks are supposed to appear

 

No i am not seeing the posterisation in the sky above the building duting video playback

 

Attached is the Video info of the Movie file

 

Here is a more detailed info of the video

 

Ok, good - I didn't think so, but if you did then there'd be a much bigger problem!

 

Ok, so the file is 3840x2160 which means that the black bars are encoded in the video and not cropped as you said previously. I hoped this would be the case.

Because those bars are encoded as video black and they appear as black on screen that means both the Zidoo and the TV are likely reproducing the levels correctly. I think what you're seeing is encoded in the picture - it has nothing to do with the Zidoo or the TV.

The only other thing to check is that all levels such as Brightness (Black Level), Contrast (white level), Hue and Saturation are set to default values - In the Zidoo these range between 0-100 and should never need to be moved from default which is 50.

I don't know how the Sony graduates them - it may be 0-100 or maybe -50 to +50, but even though a true calibration would no doubt change them slightly (along with other more in depth settings), my experience is that all TVs and projectors these days are pretty bang on when set to default and should only be messed with if you know what you're doing. Worth checking.

If you want to PM a copy or a clip of that movie (use mega.nzor similar) or where to get it I'd be happy to take a look and see what happens here.

 

Is it Sinners? If so what's the timecode of that scene?

 

Guess it apprx between 47 and 48th min of the movie

 

Nope.

It's a very dark movie and I don't see anything concerning at all but I'd like to find that scene.

 

Sorry my bad its exactly @45:08. However i've temporarily found a fix by enabling the Adv contrast enhancer to low in tv and it automatically removed the grey/pinkish tint and display the blacks near perfectly now but there is still a slight black crush but the image look tenfolds better now. I guess the TV manufacturers auto calibrate the TV so that it suits well for brightly lit rooms.