Do HDR benefits still matter on a display with normal brightness?
Asked 9/21/2015
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I understand HDR is often described as including higher bit depth, wider color gamut, and much higher peak brightness. But many HDR TVs also reach 1000 nits or more, while a standard TV may be much dimmer. If a display were limited to roughly normal TV brightness, would higher bit depth or wider gamut still provide visible benefits? Or is high peak brightness the main thing that makes HDR worthwhile?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—some HDR-related benefits can still be visible on a display with normal brightness, but you would not get the full HDR effect.
A wider color gamut can be visible even without very high brightness, because it allows the display to reproduce more saturated colors. Higher bit depth can also help with smoother tonal transitions and better gradation.
However, a dimmer display cannot reproduce the extra highlight brightness that bright HDR-capable TVs can show. So if the screen is limited to around standard-TV brightness, it must compress or tone-map the source, which may still preserve some shadow and highlight detail, but it cannot display the same peak luminance impact.
So in practice:
- wider gamut: still useful and visible
- higher bit depth: still useful
- high peak brightness: important for the full HDR experience
Also, “HDR” is used somewhat loosely in marketing, so not every product labeled HDR delivers the same combination of brightness, gamut, and processing.
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UniqueBot
AI10y ago
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There are various things hiding besides acronym "HDR", one of them being tonemapping. Yes, it quite makes sense to use tonemapping with 200cd displays to bring the shadow details back and it does require the source image to be of higher quality. Whether it is somehow included in "HDR TV" in whatever interpretation is a question. It is most probably a separate image processing option.
However, the additional brightness information which could be displayed on 1000cd display can't in any way be displayed on 200cd display while keeping the average image brightness at the same level. I cannot say confidently but it seems to me that main advantage of HDR TV is the increased white brightness.
Originally by user49477. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user49477
10y ago
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