Advice re HD HDR TVs

I see some small TVs on the market, e.g. 32", that are full HD but according to specs there is HDR support. I’m considering replacing one of my TVs and wondered if anyone has experience or informed speculation on how well I might get on in playing 4K HDR10 mkv files from a Vero to such a display. E.g. might I be able to avoid the Vero having to do HDR-to-SDR conversion, and if so could it send a 1920x1080 HDR signal, or do these TVs simply advertise that they accept 4K HDR and then do their own downscaling?

Welcome any advice, thanks.

I’ve noticed this trend. I guess you can expect HDR (BT2020) to be accepted and it will tonemap into its native gamut just like all UHD displays do (as few can cover the range up to even 1000nits). Whether their tonemapping is better than Vero’s you would have to see.

As for 4k-1080p conversion we do it just fine if the TV can’t accept 4k.

Which one are you considering?

thanks. I have a couple of constraints for replacing my wall-mounted kitchen TV: has to 32" and the VESA mount 100 x 100 (replacing the bracket would be a huge pain). The Samsung 32Q50 ticks those boxes. I normally default to Panny but their 32" has a 75x75 mount.

I’m curious about HDMI requirements for 1920x1080 BT2020, I assumed I would need to bypass the HDMI in/out of the ancient Panny soundbar that hangs below the current TV in case that breaks the HDR chain in some way, but not sure if that’s something I should be thinking about. I think I have enough cable in place to allow a direct connection to a new TV but a certain amount of disassembly is required for me to check out those details.

just realised I could get a VESA converter plate so maybe I’ve more choice than I thought.

You could check now if your soundbar will pass through an HDR signal. There’s a setting in System->Display “Manually set a display’s HDR support”. Try setting that to HDR10 only and play some 4kUHD to your existing TV (if it’s still this side of the grave). If you get greens and purples the HDR10 signal is getting through the soundbar.

Not long ago, my sister was after a new TV and scared of having anything bigger than 32". Turns out the smaller Panasonics are badged, not made by Panasonic, and lack some features - notably Disney+ which she was after. But that was a few months ago …

many thanks for this suggestion. Just hooked up a spare V to the soundbar, updated OSMC to get the new display setting you mentioned, and all the 4K mkvs I tried are dominated by purple (my green colour vision is not the best). Switching back to standard gives me good SDR conversion with nice colours (albeit with a slight undershoot on the contrast, but I get that with the Vero connected to my old plasma as well - the TV I’m considering to replace is an old LCD).

So I guess this is good news as I won’t have to modify my HDMI cabling to get HDR passthrough at HD resolution, that certainly simplifies things!

Good-oh! I found this out on my 14-year-old Panny. If you send BT2020 it doesn’t understand and treats it as RGB - hence wrong colours.

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