DarwinsPhotographer t1_j1wkp6z wrote on December 27, 2022 at 10:57 PM

Unpopular opinion: HDR isn’t that great.

I’ve been a pro photographer/producer for 31 years so I’ve shot in HDR and I’m familiar with how HDR looks/presents. It’s cool tech but I don’t personally think it’s a vast improvement in a competently shot movie.

You should know that I have a 160 inch projection setup so the translucent OLED experience is missing from my cinema room. To my eye, a lot of the preferred settings people employ on their TV’s look more and more like weird CG animation. (This can be toned down a lot, but I see maxed out saturation and HDR more often than not).

I also think standard 1080p blue ray films look completely stunning. I don’t personally think 4K is that big an improvement. I can detect a difference for sure, just not enough to make any real difference for my viewing enjoyment.

I pulled out the original Avatar 1080p and demonstrated the 3D glory on my projection setup to friends and family over the holidays and it was completely immersive for young and old.

Perhaps I’m discounting something amazing- but none of these small improvements have given me any incentive to swap over to 4K or HDR for my home setup.

nobodylikesgeorge t1_j1wx08c wrote on December 28, 2022 at 12:25 AM

It was clear to me in your first sentence you don't own a 4K HDR tv. As a photographer myself I'm very aware of the trick of using different exposures to get different brightness levels in the shot but let me tell you HDR on an OLED tv really has nothing to do with photography in the way that you are comparing it. Changing exposure levels in different areas of the image is not what makes 4K HDR great. It's not just exposure level it is color depth and color contrast enhancements that make the huge difference.

You're comparing apples to oranges by saying your projector is more than enough for your needs. That's a choice for you, but that doesn't make it correct advice to give people. Walk into an actual store with a 4K HDR demo disc on a QD-OLED TV like the Sony A95K or Samsung S95B and tell me you can do that on a projection screen with a standard bluray and no HDR. It's not possible. Is it "Good enough" not to have those things? Maybe. Some people don't care. Some people still think DVD looks great too.