Hi all. I'm a little confused and don't know what to do. Received Z9X Pro as a gift a week ago to handle my DV/HDR > SDR conversion needs, but can't achieve expected results. My setup is pretty old: * Panasonic 65AX900 (4K SDR only) * Oppo UDP-203 (as main source) * Onkyo receiver (w/out HDMI ins) * Wharfedale 5.1 set TV can handle SDR only, so my main media sources are FHD Blu-rays and BD Remuxes. Any problems with that at all, PQ is awesome. 4K Blu-rays is where the problems starts. Oppo can handle some DV/HDR > SDR conversion, but PQ in my case are below average. HDR in most cases are hit or miss, some releases looks ok, and some looks just awful. I can play with target luminance setting (100 nit is my default) in Oppo to achieve acceptable results, but this need to be done almost for every single 4K HDR Blu-ray which is very annoying. With DV situation is even worse. In most cases picture is very dim and the colors are washed out. If with HDR I can make some target luminance adjustment, with DV I have no user configurable settings. I read a lot of Z9X users reviews about how good DV/HDR > SDR conversion is. And when I received it I immediately changed conversion settings to use VS10 for all content (for best results of course). First tests on DV media (Alita: Battle Angel and Furiosa remuxes) was very beautiful and in general DV > SDR conversion shows amazing results. But with HDR situation is not so good. In all my test cases picture was dim and in dark scenes almost unwatchable. If compare HDR > SDR results from Zidoo and Oppo I can say that output from both is near identical. Bottom line: * SDR (FHD Blu-rays/Remuxes) on Zidoo looks good (as expected) * DV to SDR looks good (at least in my test cases) * HDR to SDR - no improvements (in compare with Oppo) at all My Zidoo settings are the same as in "Recommended Settings and other useful stuff for RTD 1619BPD Players" thread by Markswift2003. I just want to understand am I doing it wrong and there are some settings to adjust (talking specifically about HDR) or my setup isn't capable and I need to stick with FHD Blu-rays and leave 4K alone. I would appreciate any help and thoughts.
Odd one this - DV Profile 7 and HDR10 should really convert pretty much the same - yes, with DV the RPU is used, but that won't make much difference and they're both HDR10 video. I've never seen HDR10 > SDR look dim using the VS10 engine, but can I clarify one thing - you say you use "VS10 for all content" - do you mean "Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (Output SDR)" because "VS10 for all content" is an option on the Z9X but not the Z9X Pro.
Yes, "Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (Output SDR)" checked. I only have 3 options in that menu: * Auto * Rec. 709 (Output SDR) - Realtek conversion * Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (Output SDR) - what I selected at very first start I know that after selecting VS10 Engine reboot is needed, so I rebooted of course before any tests.
Ok - just wanted to check. But yeah, the Z9X was good at HDR10 > SDR, the Z9X Pro better and the new 8K is better still, but the changes are only incremental rather than dramatic. And there are no target settings to adjust as you get with the Oppo - SDR has a white target of 200nits these days (used to be 100nits) but I don't know how the VS10 engine uses that - it's a black box - but it works very well. I have two copies of Alita Battle angel - one is DV (dvhe.07.06 BL+MEL+RPU) and one is HDR10. Just fired up a Z9X Pro, set to Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (Output SDR) and I couldn't see any difference between the two - both looked great. Ok, this is on a 1000nit HDR Samsung, but in SDR that shouldn't make any difference. So not sure what's going on here.
I think Alita not the best source to test because in my case I have the best results with it. As worst case examples - Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Web-DL, HDR10+) and Star Wars Saga: Episode 9 (BDRemux, HDR10). First have a lot of dark scenes and almost unwatchable, second have decent brightness level (slightly darker then on Oppo with 100 nit target) and can be watched, but only decent, not great. There's not many settings in Zidoo that can change things dramatically. So I think maybe my TV is the source of all problems. But I don't sure how handle this and could it be handled. When I try to raise brightness level on TV itself (which is capable of 500 nits max) this helps a little, but clearly visible that picture midtones tends to be darker than it should. Shadow details almost crushed. It can be managed with TV picture setting a bit, but not much.
I chose Alita because I wanted to see if I could see any difference between a DV and HDR10 source as you said - that was the bit that was puzzling me. Just tried Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (UHD BluRay Rip, HDR10 - great film!) The bit where he meets Ian Fleming - about 11 minutes in, is particularly dark. But no difference I could see between playing in HDR10 and VS10 SDR on my Samsung.
So, yesterday I have some time to dig more and, long story short, I found the problem! In "Recommended Settings and other useful stuff for RTD 1619BPD Players" you suggested next color settings values (which I copied blindly): Display/Color Settings/4K 50~60Hz: Priority YUV420 10BIT Display/Color Settings/4K 23~30Hz: Priority YUV444 10BIT Display/Color Settings/Non-4K: Priority YUV444 10BIT But in my case right values are: Display/Color Settings/4K 50~60Hz: Priority YUV420 10BIT Display/Color Settings/4K 23~30Hz: Priority YUV422 10BIT Display/Color Settings/Non-4K: Priority YUV422 8BIT (but I'm not completely sure about that) Alita was not the best first title to test because on YUV444 10BIT (my first try) and YUV422 10BIT (yesterday) PQ is good in both cases (YUV422 10BIT better). But Furiosa, which I watched from start to finish yesterday, on YUV444 10BIT has washed out colors and fantastic PQ on YUV422 10BIT. My first try with it on YUV444 10BIT confused me a bit because not all scenes has washed out colors and I thought wrongly that maybe this is the movie itself. Also I've tested another DV releases and found absolutely no issues. They all looks awesome! HDR > SDR conversion now also works as expected. Of course, from movie to movie there are some differences, but in general - big step forward from Oppo. I've tested couple of latest James Bond movies, Star Wars and... totally forgot about Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. My bad. FHD Blu-rays - without changes. I can't see any difference before and after. So not sure about this completely. Also not tested 4K 50-60Hz mode as the only movie I know (in this format) is Gemini Man and I don't have it in my collection now. Left the corresponding setting untouched. As for TV settings I found out, that my 2 calibrated presets (for bright and dark rooms) don't give me the best results in the case of DV/HDR > SDR. Bright room preset has brightness of 45 (100 is max). I copied all the values to new user preset with new brightness level of 70 and slightly reduce contrast (from 90 to 80) and must say that this will be my default preset to watch 4K movies. Looks beautiful, brightness and contrast are definitely there. That's the story Markswift2003, thank you for your time. I think I will do more tests and write about it later. Soon I will have several releases in different formats (like Star Wars in DV and HDR) to compare DV>SDR and HDR>SDR conversion and I will be glad to share the results.
Really glad it's sorted, but a couple of comments which may help: There should (and I say "should" advisedly!) be no difference between 422 and 444 - the encoding on disc is 420 but that's not a valid subsampling rate for 23~30Hz so can't be used. So it's upsampled to 422 or 444 to comply with HDMI specs, but because we start at 4:2:0 and there is no video processing, 422 and 444 should just provide a representation of 420 in their respective wrappers. 422 10 bit and 8-bit are not valid HDMI modes - I've banged on about this to Zidoo for years - they shouldn't be there as an option because HDMI cannot do that. The only valid bit depth in 422 over HDMI is 12-bit. So in your case, setting 422 10-bit or 8-bit should output 422 12-bit (you can see this by pressing the info button). So I'm not sure what was going on when you had it set to 444 10-bit because I don't think your setup can support that - 444 10-bit at 4K is an HDMI 2 mode and obviously, with no HDR, your TV is not HDMI 2. In the forum for the old 1619DR boxes (original Z9X etc) I included settings for HDMI 1.4 but I didn't bother for later SOCs because I didn't think there would be any 1.4 sets still about http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?thr...er-useful-stuff-for-rtd-1619dr-players.82695/ So recommended settings for HDMI 1.4 are: Display/Color Settings/4K 50~60Hz: Priority YUV420 8BIT Display/Color Settings/4K 23~30Hz: Priority YUV422 12BIT Display/Color Settings/Non-4K: Priority YUV444 8BIT
Yeah, my old beloved Panasonic is almost a family member (like even older Pioneer plasma which still pleases my brother with its excellent picture), so let's forgive him his age-related shortcomings Yesterday I applied recommended (HDMI v1.4) settings and can confirm that all works as expected. But in fact there is one strange moment. First time when I applied wrong settings (4K 23~30Hz: Priority YUV444 10BIT) which leads me to issues I posted earlier Alita showed great PQ. I checked my TV manual - it has 4 x HDMI 2.0 ports. So in theory these settings should have been correct for my device (or maybe I completely wrong, idk). I'm not very inclined to continue my research, because I have already received the result I expected and I have no desire to become an expert in this matter, but the unfinished business doesn't allow me to calm down As for now I left all as is. I tend to think that my TV is just old (despite the perfect PQ) and I just have to accept it. But I can't shake the feeling that I still haven't gotten to the heart of the problem.
Yeah, I had a Pioneer plasma like that once - needed a forklift to get it on the wall though... That's very odd - it must have been right on the cusp of HDR then. HDMI 2 means it will do the full 18Gbps and so 444 10-bit should be fine - but you're not losing anything by using the HDMI 1.4 settings, so if they work, I'd leave well alone.
Yeah, that was just the time, 2015 I think. Ok, I won't touch the settings anymore, I'd rather spend this time watching a good movie Thank you very much for your help.
