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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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It’s all black in background

Again, background is too dark,

-8:45 shot is too dark

I'm convinced Amazon broke something in the Prime Video app around HDR. I recently started rewatching Season 1 of the Expanse on my phone and could barely make out anything unless I set my phone on maximum brightness. I got an LG OLED TV and noticed the same thing, when I watch certain things on Prime that enable the TV's HDR mode, these same programs (all Amazon originals) are almost unwatchably dark. I don't remember the Expanse looking like that on my old TV, and it was a plasma that couldn't get anywhere near as bright. However, HDR movies like Oblivion or Batman have looked fine. Online, it seems like lots of people have similar issues, that the programs are not just dark in production, but dark to the point of being unable to see almost anything at all.

It's not just Amazon, for instance you see this with the night scene on the beach in the latest episode (Ep. 7) of House of the Dragon on HBO Max. Technically this is a feature, not a bug.

Modern consumer TVs will generally boost non-HDR content, which is nominally supposed to have a peak brightness of 100 nits, to more like 250-350 nits, so this is what people are used to. HDR provides creators with more explicit control over brightness, and some choose to grade dark scenes well below 250-350, to create more contrast with bright scenes. In theory there's nothing wrong with this; it's how HDR is supposed to be used, really. And it's a cool effect if you're viewing in a blacked-out room. It just doesn't hold up well to brighter viewing environments.

You're more likely to see this with made-for-streaming content because with movies, the initial grading pass for theatrical release (non-HDR, because cinema projectors aren't bright enough for it) is likely to be done with the primary creative talent in the room, but the HDR pass will often be done later, by a colorist working without them there. Same thing for TV content old enough that it wasn't initially graded for HDR. A colorist working alone like this will usually aim for something that won't draw complaints, rather than pushing boundaries the way the primary creatives will.

I get this sort of thing from a few video+streaming sites these days. Tweaking video gamma settings with https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-image-control-new-g/mdoelcifdkcimkdbfkjjnedabmjlkokc fixes it on my web browser, but I'm not sure what you'd do about it if you're using an app on a (already properly adjusted) TV.

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