VS10 incorrect black levels when in SDR or HDR

Ok - that's the Zidoo mode, so that tells us what the box is outputting - so in both cases it's outputting Dolby Vision.

Does the TV switch into Dolby Vision when playing HDR and Dolby Vision movies?

 

In hdmi input it says dolby vision
Yes
And in picture settings hdr

 

I'm not familiar with Sony TVs (I have one, but it's not Dolby Vision) - so does that mean it is displaying Dolby Vision?

 

Yes

 

Ok cool - I know what the Zidoo is doing because I can mimic it here using your EDID, I'm just making sure I know how the TV is responding. So far so good.

Can you change Settings/Display/HDR to "Auto", play an HDR movie and tell me what mode the TV is in - SDR, HDR or Dolby Vision.

 

The Zidoo will output HDR10 and will display HDR10 in the top left corner by the way - I'm trying to figure out how the amp deals with it...

 

If it is dv it goes to dolby vision
If it is hdr10 it goes to plain 4k (the logo hdr appears from zidoo but the tv does not show hdr)
The menu goes from 2k 24 locked to 4k 60 and turns all blue

 

Right - ok - that's as expected - I just wanted to make sure.

So the first thing to note is that because the amp doesn't know about HDR, it's allowing the HDR portion of the EDID through (it doesn't know what else to do with it).

This means that the EDID from the amp is telling the TV that it can do HDR even though the amp won't pass the HDR messages to the TV.

However, DV will pass through because DV is designed to use HDMI 1.4 which is what your Amp is.

Bottom line - you have the HDR setting correct at "VS10 for HDR, DV" so HDR10 is converted to DV and DV passes through and to answer your original question, your picture quality and levels will be perfect since it's only when VS10 is used to output SDR and HDR10 that there are levels issues (and then only in specific circumstances).

Also, as I said above, no, it's not strange that VS10 passes Dolby Vision to the TV because it's designed for HDMI 1.4

Sorry for being so convoluted, but it gets complicated when you have a bottleneck mid HDMI chain so just had to be sure it was doing what it was supposed to do.

The other HDR mode that is worth messing with is "Dolby Vision Low Latency (LLDV,YUV422,12bit)" - last in the list.

This will convert everything to DV including the GUI and you might find it more balanced.

One thing to note is that with your amp being HDMI 1.4 it's restricted to 300MHz HDMI signals which means if you play 4K60 material in Dolby Vision it will revert to 4K30 because it can't do 4K60 Dolby Vision since that requires a 600MHz HDMI2 link.

 

Thank you very much for the trouble and interest!

Is hdr10 through vs10 one of those situations with levels issues?

 

It's the last option in the HDR list:

 

Yes it is but as far as I know it doesn't affect Sony TVs.

However, because your TV is DV, VS10 will always produce Dolby Vision with your TV - it always outputs the "best" signal the TV can produce in order of SDR-HDR-DV.

Unless you use a custom EDID without DV of course...

 

Just to be clear it's only when VS10 outputs HDR10, not when it processes an HDR10 file.

 

Unfortunately my amp is not up the task......
In vs10 a thick green line appears on the left and right of the screen....
Its not zidoo's fault because if i bypass the amp , no green line exists...
Any ideas, though i think there is no sloution to that......

 

Is that only when selecting Dolby Vision Low Latency?

 

Make sure all processing, scaling etc is turned off in the amp

 

Yes with low latency as well.
Low latency turns purple the menu, not the movie but the green line still there
Yes everything (scalling etc) in hte amp is off.

 

The purple menu is a real puzzler because the HDR mode doesn't change in LLDV - it's the same in the GUI (I assume you mean GUI when you say menu and you don't mean BD Menu)

But then the green line with the amp in line is a puzzler too - it's doing something to the signal it should't do.

A purple screen is usually a symptom of using TV led DV on a Player led only TV (like yours) but your EDID doesn't allow TV Led DV.

So this shouldn't make a difference, but it might - check Settings/Display/Dolby Vision compatible mode and make sure it's set to "Priority LLDV (Player Led)"

Otherwise, stick to "Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (for HDR, DV content)"

(you could also try "...for SDR, HDR, DV content" and see if you like the look of SDR converted to DV - personal choice.

Another way to approach this is to use an HDMI audio breakout box which allows you to feed the video signal straight to the TV in which case you could view everything natively directly on the TV and still feed the amp audio.

 

Yes the lldv is set to player led
I tried a splitter so i can get a signal straight to tv but also to the amp so i can see the amp menu and make changes in the audio settings during the movie.
But there is an edid issue and the amp keeps clicking and freezing......
So as a lsst resort i just bought a splitter with separate edid for each output hoping that will solve the problem....fingers crossed!
The audio breakout is not convinient as i will not be able to see the amp menu....

 

Yeah, EDID is always a problem with splitters.

Here are a couple of EDIDs to try in Custom EDID:

This one is your EDID with HDR removed - this is what the amp should have done in the first place. I can't see why this would change anything, but worth a look:

https://mega.nz/file/oW5ETAhI#tIG7nwAeU_8p6tZ-ZyxufUUpYLL25IHWSikbND4QKjk


This one is a bit more interesting - this has no HDR and no DV. In this case you need to still use "Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (for HDR, DV) because if you use "Auto" it will use the Realtek engine for HDR>SDR and that's pants.

What this will do is convert HDR and DV to SDR using VS10.

I think your TV, because it has Quantisation Level Selection enabled in the EDID, should not suffer from the raised blacks and the VS10 HD>SDR conversion is excellent. If I'm wrong about the black level it will be very apparent with a washed out image (easy to see in black bars):

https://mega.nz/file/pOYA1D6S#ycf740mB3Vvz4L7aS_NuGjMgxcWn1YJxZJnzUyHnWBw

 

First of all i cant thank you enough for your replies.

Will the 2nd edid have an impact on the picture quality vs using hdr and dv with auto selection in normal conditions (not with the problems i have)

if i could use auto , i thought that vs10 made the hdrs (hdr10 and dv) appear om the screen., but i guess without hdr>sdr conversion, is that right?