Awful HDR quality in Netflix

[Jecht_Sin]

I have an 49XD8099 with Android 6.0.1. Simply put, to watch "The OA" from Netflix in HDR is unbearable. It's like if they added a wall of fog. Disabling the HDR the image improves considerably, still being a bit washed out. Other shows, when watched in HDR, don't look better either, so much that I decided to have a video mode with HDR off for Netflix only.

Too bad that doing so HDR gets disabled in all video modes (why? Just why?). Is it the Netflix app broken, The OA, or else? Also any chance to have only a mode with HDR disabled? Thanks.

[rgledhill]

Just to confirm this is still a problem with The OA, even with the latest KD-49XE9005 Sony TV, with the latest firmware and Netflix App as of April 2018 which supports Dolby Vision.  Some other Netflix stuff works beautifully - for instance Altered Carbon is spectacular.

I guess I'll just abandon The OA and watch something else instead...

[Godm0de]

It is not only the OA, all HDR titles look awful. I have downloaded some 4K HDR test videos from here: http://4kmedia.org/ and watched them on my Sony X700-UBP UHD Player and they look fantastic. 

HDR and Netflix looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cudC4M-V0QU

Black is gray and the colors are washed out.

My setup:

TV: Sony X85C 65"

AVR: Denon X1200W

UHD-Player: Sony X700-UBP

Media-Player: Nvidia ShieldTV (v1)

[rgledhill]

Hmm, it's not true that all HDR content is poor.  As I said, Altered Carbon looks stunning, for instance.

[Godm0de]

Ok, I have to test Altered Carbon first.

[Godm0de]

Ok, Altered Carbon looks good. I was in a shop today, and I have tested Marco Polo on the newst OLED models from Sony, and the quality was the same. So it seems, it is a Netflix issue.

[rgledhill]

Yep, definitely.  Very annoying!!

[RedHagar]

Most HDR looks washed out to me. I got a new 4K HDR bluray player and the Star Wars Last Jedi movie...and it was pretty awful too! Very dark and gloomy.

It seems to me HDR is forcing the picture to a calibrated state like they display in the stores. That would provide better shadow details, etc...  The problem is that I don't like calibrated settings. When I see those displays in Best Buy, I always prefer the non calibrated TV! 

So from what I can tell, HER just takes away your choice and imposes a videophile's idea of what optimal picture quality is on me.

As far as better color goes, it all seems grey and washed out to me. I'm generally not liking it...

[Godm0de]

What is the make and model of your 4k UHD player? If you have a Sony UHD player, you can disable HDR in the display settings. The Sony UBP-X700 has also a Netflix app, so you can force Netflix not to use HDR.

[rgledhill]

To be honest, that sounds rather like a configuration issue.  Make sure your HDMI input supports HDR on the input you've connected it to; when it's running, if you go into the Picture settings menu, I think it says "HDR" in the corner and yes, it does switch to a different configuration which is by default brightness and contrast at maximum (I think).  However you can adjust these too.

HDR seems very variable; some of it is terrific, most of it good, some of it terrible.  Star Trek Discovery is pretty good (though infuriatingly in HD not 4k), Altered Carbon is excellent, yet The OA is terrible (all on Netflix).

[RedHagar]

I have spent hours and hours on configuration settings and testing different settings from different sites. It's definitely not that. Yes, it says HDR - brightness seems very low but I like running things brighter by default to start with so I probably notice it more.

Yes, I've tried all those shows...Altered Carbon is pretty good. Lost in Space is also not bad...but I still generally prefer to watch shows without HDR on...with my settings, it's way brighter.