Tone Mapping and HDR options on Vero V

Help and Support
1

Got my Vero V in yesterday, installed fine and works great.
My TV has HDR, but cannot cope with it as most non high end TVs cannot (my projector in my media room does fortunately), now I am a bit stumped by how to correctly configure the Tone Mapping option.

I set the Nits to 50 and everything is watchable, but not the nicest picture yet. Tried to force to SDR, and with HDR capable TV to off, but those two options seem to do nothing, my TV keeps reporting that it is seeing a HDR capable image (which I did not expect).

Now I have three questions about it:

  1. How to configure Tone Mapping correctly
  2. Do I need to leave HDR on auto with Tone Mapping
  3. Why does my TV still see an HDR signal coming in when forced to SDR and HDR capable to off

Can you please help me out with this?

2

This is a bug. Those options have now been enabled and will work in the next upgrade (tentatively scheduled for this weekend). Or follow the instructions below to upgrade from staging.

The Contrast and Brightness controls will still be disabled as they always have been when playing HDR as HDR. After this update, they will work when playing HDR as SDR or BT2020SDR. You can adjust the tonemapping with those. I’m surprised the nits setting does anything when playing HDR-HDR, it should only affect HDR-SDR conversion.

Presumably you have tried calibrating your TV for HDR?

Please let us know how you get on.

To test this update:

  1. Login via the command line
  2. Run the following command to add the staging repository:
    echo 'deb http://apt.osmc.tv bullseye-devel main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list
  3. Run the following commands to update: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade && reboot
  4. Your system should have have received the update.

Please see if the issue is resolved.

I also recommend you remove /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list after updating.

This will deactivate the staging repository. You can do so with the following command:
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list.

Please note that we will automatically disable this update channel after 14 days on your device in case you forget to do so to ensure that your system reverts to the stable update channel.

3

Thanks for the answer, I will wait until the next update comes out, do not play much HDR material on my TV, so no rush.

This might just have been placebo then, weird how the mind can trick you sometimes!

4

In what way can’t it cope with it?

5

The display is just horribly bland, that is the bane of HDR, most TVs cannot output enough nits which make the picture look very ugly when talking about colors. They all can show you all the details, it just isn’t pretty to look at.

6

Sounds like what you get if you just send HDR to a SDR screen with no conversions. aka ‘washed out’.

7

It is almost that bad yes, it is a cheap 4K TV, was only €300 when I bought it. If you want real HDR, you either need a quality TV €600+ or good tone mapping (integrated preferably, as with my PJ or external tone mapping).

I have seen HDR played on SDR screens, that is worse, colors are not only bland, but also really the wrong color, often greenish/red-ish.

8

It depends on the display. Some when faced with a BT2020 signal which they don’t understand switch to RGB, hence wrong colours. Others will just interpret the signal as BT709 in which the primaries are not so far off BT2020 but the transfer function (EOTF) will be all wrong. If I play HDR with Kodi on my PC without tonemapping I get the same washed-out look.

BTW, it’s not just about luminance. My Panasonic LED can only manage 350 nits but makes a decent job of HDR. Perfectly watchable but nowhere near as good as my Philips OLED. You do indeed get what you pay for.

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