4K UHD and HDR TV Guru's Come On In ...

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Maybe you can help me with final tuning on my new 4K tv. As previously posted, got a TCL 55S405 55" 4K UHD HDR tv couple weeks ago. After some adjustment of picture settings both basic and advanced, I've got 'er looking pretty good if I say so myself. Certainly short of a paid ISF calibration, but very acceptable for our everyday viewing.

Have one remaining question, however, and it is thus: Is all 4K content *automatically* HDR also? Only 4K I've been playing so far is Youtube videos. There's one called Norway from the Air with 4K drone video that is absolutely stunning in it's hi-res clarity.

So how do I know if the HDR feature of the tv is kicking in? My tv's setup menu has an option called "HDR Notification" which I have set to enabled. But I've never gotten any pop-up notifications or whatever, that HDR is active or however it's supposed to notify me. So I was just curious if I'm seeing HDR already in the 4K Youtube demos or if it's not happened yet, since haven't seen any notification by the tv about it.

Without getting into to my settings, the one thing that helped most to true up the color was setting Color Space to Auto from the default of Native. Native was causing just a tad too much color "pop" and Auto seems to have brought the color to a very real look and not quite the over saturation of Native This is all done per each input for the tv of course.
 
It could be that anything that isn't 4k is upscaled as a facsimile of 4k. I need to check mine to see about notifications. I know on my old 1080P DLP television it will display the resolution of the source if you select it. The dishnetwork HD is mostly 1080i/p and the local television through the antenna is 720i. There is a some 4k content available on Netflix and Amazon. Hopefully your internet connection is fast enough to keep the buffering times manageable.
 
I have a TCL 55P605, and a TCL 49S405. When I view HDR content, the HDR notification will show onscreen briefly, the same happens for 4k content.
 
I thought hdr is something that your tv display does but not something that is in the signal. So when hdr is turned on everything is displayed using hdr processing, but depending on the signal, it may not make any difference.
 
If your only test has been YouTube, that's probably your issue. Support for HDR on YouTube is spotty across TV manufacturers, to say the least.

You're better off searching Google for 4k HDR demo footage and load it on to a USB thumb drive. Then, play that through the TV's USB input. That will really show you what the set is capable of.

To answer your question, no. Not all 4k material is HDR. HDR is a secondary function. Most 4k content, even today, is SDR.
 
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I know on my Samsung 4K UHD set it will upscale anything that isn't 4K. Even the 480p old movies I have in my Plex Media Server look much better than they did on my old 1080 resolution TV that didn't do the upscaling.

That said I have an option on mine to choose to play it in 4K or other resolutions but even if I play a video in less that 4K it's still outstanding. Whatever program they use to do the upscaling is really good.

Enjoy your new set!

These are really good 4K clips to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9P_wkq08XA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlvreFtA2A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h16zyxiwDLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZGv2gXIp0Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGRjCa49C6U
 
Quote
There is a some 4k content available on Netflix and Amazon.


Keep in mind 4K is only available on the most expensive tier of Netflix.
 
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Apparently my TCL S405 is not good at HDR according to reviews. The nit values are pretty low. So I suppose I shouldn't worry about finding HDR content. I can still return it and pay about $150 difference on a TCL P607 with much better HDR performance. But the 607's exhibit a cross hatch artifact on 4K content that's been noted in several reviews. Clarity and resolution is more important to me than contrast dynamics so I'll likely keep the S405. Don't watch enough TV to justify spending more than $500. And the lowly S405 is still a massive upgrade from the old 2006 model Hitachi rear projection set I had up until two weeks ago.
 
As I said, I have a P605/607 (the only difference between the two is the supplied remote) I have never seen a "crosshatch artifact" on 4k content. The picture is better on my P series compared to my S series, especially on HDR content. But, it's rare when I watch HDR or 4K content. In fact it's rare when I watch TV at all, and then it's usually just OTA local news, which is 1080 at best.

If you're happy with your S series, then that's all that matters.

I also have a couple smaller Vizio TV's that I bought at the same time as the TCL's. I bought them for their 1080 resolution vs the 720 resolution that was available on the 32" and smaller TCL's. I HATE the OS of the Vizio's, nowhere near as nice as the ROKU system on the TCL's, IMO. But I'll keep the Vizio's because all they are used for is OTA local news.

Incidentally there is a new for '18 TCL 6 series, which is the replacement for the '17 P series, that I had considered 'upgrading' to. Lots of people are complaining about vertical banding on the '18 6 series TV. I plan to stick with my TV's I have for the foreseeable future.
 
Originally Posted by LoneRanger
Maybe you can help me with final tuning on my new 4K tv. As previously posted, got a TCL 55S405 55" 4K UHD HDR tv couple weeks ago. After some adjustment of picture settings both basic and advanced, I've got 'er looking pretty good if I say so myself. Certainly short of a paid ISF calibration, but very acceptable for our everyday viewing.

Have one remaining question, however, and it is thus: Is all 4K content *automatically* HDR also? Only 4K I've been playing so far is Youtube videos. There's one called Norway from the Air with 4K drone video that is absolutely stunning in it's hi-res clarity.

So how do I know if the HDR feature of the tv is kicking in? My tv's setup menu has an option called "HDR Notification" which I have set to enabled. But I've never gotten any pop-up notifications or whatever, that HDR is active or however it's supposed to notify me. So I was just curious if I'm seeing HDR already in the 4K Youtube demos or if it's not happened yet, since haven't seen any notification by the tv about it.

Without getting into to my settings, the one thing that helped most to true up the color was setting Color Space to Auto from the default of Native. Native was causing just a tad too much color "pop" and Auto seems to have brought the color to a very real look and not quite the over saturation of Native This is all done per each input for the tv of course.

No, it's not. Your TV is supposed to show an "HDR" icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen if it's displaying HDR content (as long as you have the notification enabled). Since we have the same TV, I'll give you an example: Vyou is one of the Roku channels with both 4k and HDR content. If you load "Prison Da Vinci No. 1: Painting with Skittles" on that channel, the TV will display an HDR icon in the first few seconds. If you load the same video on Vimeo (try it) you'll notice that no HDR icon appears. To make things even more confusing, I think the color actually looks better from the Vimeo site, even though it's not labeled as HDR. It's something that hasn't quite had the kinks worked out yet I think. For $400 though, the picture is pretty good and it's compatible with what's supposed to be on the way. I don't think you made a bad choice.
 
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