On my new Samsung OLED TV, subtitles on HDR content are extremely bright. Not only subtitles, but the whole Kodi GUI is too bright, but specially subtitles are so bright that it is very annoying to watch.
Over-bright subtitles can be adjusted using the GUI peak luminance in HDR PQ mode setting.
However, I can’t find this option on my Vero V. In fact, there is no HDR section at all in system/display. And yes, I’m on expert mode. Is this expected?
I know the topic has been brought before, but I haven’t found a nice solution. Changing the opacity of subtitles is a workaround, but I would rather fix the whole GUI brightness issue.
Thanks. My bad - Samsungs don’t tell you their peak brightness as they don’t do DV. Anyway, it looks like we need to implement that GUI brightness setting.
What subs?
Are these text based subs like SRT/ASS or are they the retail PGS subs from the disc?
Early UHDs didn’t tone map their subs so some titles have very bright retail subs, but pretty much all retail subs are tone mapped now.
Tone mapping PGS subs can be done, but it would be a real effort on your part.
If your subs are text based then there are a few options you can explore which are very easy.
Give me an example of what you are watching and I might be able to help you out further.
But as you mentioned, GUI is too bright for you too.
The MKV file has a mix of PGS and SRT subtitles. I tried them all, and they are all very bright. As bright as the white parts of the GUI. It is a recent title, so I guess it’s a problem with the encoding/packaging.
But then I tried another file that does have tone mapped subs and they look fantastic!
As I mentioned before, the workaround that I’m using at the moment is reducing the opacity of the subtitles. But I would love to have the option of reducing luminance of the GUI too.
PGS subtitles look fine on my OLED.
That version you have also includes the iTunes text based SRT subs though.
I’ll get the SRT subs and compare it to my retail subs and report back.
I just went back to the place where I got the file, and there is a comment from someone else saying that the PSG subtitles are indeed not tone mapped. So I guess it was just bad luck to test my new OLED with that one file.
Dune Part One on the other hand looks absolutely gorgeous in HDR+. Subs and everything.
I’ll be testing that file shortly.
I checked my “GUI peak luminance”, which I have never changed, and it is set to 40%.
What is your “GUI peak luminance” set to?
Sorry, I just copy pasted what “pinn73” titled it.
That’s why I put it in quotations.
It actually says “Display maximum luminance” in my settings.
Either way, I have set this to 100 and tested the same file and watched a few minutes with SRT and PGS subs.
Everything looks fine on my Vero V and LG C8 OLED.
I switched it between and SRT and PGS on that file and the SRT looks slightly brighter but not by much.
Everything looks fine to me on my Vero V and LG C8 OLED.
Changing the “Display maximum luminance” setting made no difference for me at all.
I don’t think that setting impacts HDR output at all, but the devs could answer that better than I.
For what it’s worth if you think it’s an issue with your version, here’s the info:
Retail:
General
Unique ID : 91804283067951299020982837376137873856 (0x4510DC9D81A38097F4F348458C5CC9C0)
Complete name : R:\Movies\The Substance (2024) [DV.UHDRemux] {CCCC112B}.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 52.3 GiB
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 52.9 Mb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Movie name : The Substance
Encoded date : 2025-01-21 00:14:10 UTC
Writing application : MakeMKV v1.17.8 win(x64-release)
Writing library : libmakemkv v1.17.8 (1.3.10/1.5.2) win(x64-release)
Video
ID : 1
ID in the original source medium : 4113 (0x1011)
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High
HDR format : Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, Profile 7.6, dvhe.07.06, BL+EL+RPU, no metadata compression, Blu-ray compatible / SMPTE ST 2086, Version HDR10, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 47.5 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.239
Stream size : 46.9 GiB (90%)
Title : The Substance
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : PQ
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries : Display P3
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0050 cd/m2, max: 4000 cd/m2
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Audio #1
ID : 2
ID in the original source medium : 4352 (0x1100)
Format : DTS XLL
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 337 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 3.29 GiB (6%)
Title : DTS-HD MA 5.1
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Audio #2
ID : 3
ID in the original source medium : 4353 (0x1101)
Format : DTS XLL
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 042 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 2.02 GiB (4%)
Title : Stereo
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Text
ID : 4
ID in the original source medium : 4768 (0x12A0)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 19.5 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.345 FPS
Count of elements : 2926
Stream size : 19.7 MiB (0%)
Title : English SDH PGS
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Menu
00:00:00.000 : en:Chapter 01
00:13:27.389 : en:Chapter 02
00:29:01.823 : en:Chapter 03
00:41:53.636 : en:Chapter 04
00:55:26.364 : en:Chapter 05
01:10:12.208 : en:Chapter 06
01:23:44.644 : en:Chapter 07
01:37:23.337 : en:Chapter 08
01:51:17.504 : en:Chapter 09
02:03:17.431 : en:Chapter 10
02:14:09.207 : en:Chapter 11
Your file
General
Unique ID : 167892722446964821837542522718283130211 (0x7E4EF650270BD21F78D7245DE6EC6563)
Complete name : S:\The.Substance.2024.2160p.UHD.Blu-ray.Remux.DV.HDR.HEVC.DTS-HD.MA.5.1-CiNEPHiLES.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 50.3 GiB
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 51.0 Mb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Movie name : The Substance (2024)
Encoded date : 2025-01-16 15:40:55 UTC
Writing application : mkvmerge v87.0 ('Black as the Sky') 64-bit
Writing library : libebml v1.4.5 + libmatroska v1.7.1
IMDB : tt17526714
TMDB : movie/933260
Video
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High
HDR format : Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, Profile 7.6, dvhe.07.06, BL+EL+RPU, no metadata compression, Blu-ray compatible / SMPTE ST 2086, Version HDR10, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 47.5 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.239
Stream size : 46.9 GiB (93%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : PQ
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries : Display P3
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0050 cd/m2, max: 4000 cd/m2
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS XLL
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 337 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 3.29 GiB (7%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #1
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 10 min
Bit rate : 19 b/s
Frame rate : 0.101 FPS
Count of elements : 788
Stream size : 18.9 KiB (0%)
Language : English (US)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #2
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 35 b/s
Frame rate : 0.173 FPS
Count of elements : 1463
Stream size : 37.1 KiB (0%)
Title : SDH
Language : English (US)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #3
ID : 5
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 19.5 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.345 FPS
Count of elements : 2926
Stream size : 19.7 MiB (0%)
Title : SDH / PGS
Language : English (US)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #4
ID : 6
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 35 b/s
Frame rate : 0.103 FPS
Count of elements : 811
Stream size : 33.9 KiB (0%)
Language : Arabic
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #5
ID : 7
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 18 min
Bit rate : 18 b/s
Frame rate : 0.063 FPS
Count of elements : 520
Stream size : 18.4 KiB (0%)
Language : Danish
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #6
ID : 8
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 12 min
Bit rate : 17 b/s
Frame rate : 0.079 FPS
Count of elements : 626
Stream size : 17.4 KiB (0%)
Language : Dutch
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #7
ID : 9
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 22 b/s
Frame rate : 0.109 FPS
Count of elements : 859
Stream size : 22.0 KiB (0%)
Language : French
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #8
ID : 10
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 11.5 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.218 FPS
Count of elements : 1718
Stream size : 10.8 MiB (0%)
Title : PGS
Language : French
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #9
ID : 11
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 23 b/s
Frame rate : 0.108 FPS
Count of elements : 853
Stream size : 23.1 KiB (0%)
Language : German
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #10
ID : 12
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 12.8 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.217 FPS
Count of elements : 1708
Stream size : 12.1 MiB (0%)
Title : PGS
Language : German
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #11
ID : 13
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 20 b/s
Frame rate : 0.105 FPS
Count of elements : 827
Stream size : 19.7 KiB (0%)
Language : Italian
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #12
ID : 14
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 18 b/s
Frame rate : 0.103 FPS
Count of elements : 813
Stream size : 18.3 KiB (0%)
Title : Simplified
Language : Mandarin (Hans)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #13
ID : 15
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 19 b/s
Frame rate : 0.103 FPS
Count of elements : 814
Stream size : 18.3 KiB (0%)
Title : Traditional
Language : Mandarin (Hant)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #14
ID : 16
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 20 b/s
Frame rate : 0.091 FPS
Count of elements : 721
Stream size : 19.6 KiB (0%)
Language : Norwegian
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #15
ID : 17
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 18 min
Bit rate : 19 b/s
Frame rate : 0.104 FPS
Count of elements : 865
Stream size : 20.2 KiB (0%)
Title : Brazilian
Language : Portuguese (BR)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #16
ID : 18
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 18 min
Bit rate : 10.8 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.209 FPS
Count of elements : 1732
Stream size : 10.6 MiB (0%)
Title : Brazilian / PGS
Language : Portuguese (BR)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #17
ID : 19
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 12 min
Bit rate : 21 b/s
Frame rate : 0.092 FPS
Count of elements : 727
Stream size : 20.6 KiB (0%)
Title : Iberian
Language : Portuguese (PT)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #18
ID : 20
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 12 min
Bit rate : 22 b/s
Frame rate : 0.109 FPS
Count of elements : 862
Stream size : 22.2 KiB (0%)
Title : Latin American
Language : Spanish (Latin America)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #19
ID : 21
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 37 b/s
Frame rate : 0.169 FPS
Count of elements : 1432
Stream size : 39.3 KiB (0%)
Title : Latin American / SDH
Language : Spanish (Latin America)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #20
ID : 22
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 12 min
Bit rate : 12.0 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.217 FPS
Count of elements : 1726
Stream size : 11.4 MiB (0%)
Title : Latin American / PGS
Language : Spanish (Latin America)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #21
ID : 23
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 20.3 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.339 FPS
Count of elements : 2868
Stream size : 20.5 MiB (0%)
Title : Latin American / SDH / PGS
Language : Spanish (Latin America)
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Text #22
ID : 24
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 7 min
Bit rate : 18 b/s
Frame rate : 0.064 FPS
Count of elements : 489
Stream size : 17.6 KiB (0%)
Language : Swedish
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : iTunes WEB-DL
Text #23
ID : 25
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 19 b/s
Frame rate : 0.106 FPS
Count of elements : 835
Stream size : 19.1 KiB (0%)
Language : Turkish
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI WEB-DL
Text #24
ID : 26
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate : 10.5 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.212 FPS
Count of elements : 1672
Stream size : 9.91 MiB (0%)
Title : PGS
Language : Turkish
Default : No
Forced : No
Source : MUBI USA UHD Blu-ray (2025)
Menu
00:00:00.000 : en:Chapter 01
00:13:27.389 : en:Chapter 02
00:29:01.823 : en:Chapter 03
00:41:53.636 : en:Chapter 04
00:55:26.364 : en:Chapter 05
01:10:12.208 : en:Chapter 06
01:23:44.644 : en:Chapter 07
01:37:23.337 : en:Chapter 08
01:51:17.504 : en:Chapter 09
02:03:17.431 : en:Chapter 10
02:14:09.207 : en:Chapter 11
I know but it hasn’t been implemented on OSMC and Display Maximum Luminance is something different. That’s for informing Vero how to tonemap HDR video to SDR.
Anyway, we’re looking at implementing the GUI peak luminance in HDR mode settings (shouldn’t it also apply to HLG as well as PQ?) and should have an answer shortly.
