Gadgetory

hello good people I'm three tree and today I'm super excited to share this video because we are going to experience something together and that something would be an HDR display we finally got one here in the studio thanks to LG now I've been using their 27 UD eighty-eight monitor it's fantastic great contrast and everything like that but what exactly does HDR deliver in terms of games production and entertainment production of course means video production so what exactly is HDR or high dynamic range so in basic terms for photography and video this is your standard image while this is an HDR image capturing as much information from your shadows and your highlights without destroying any of those details so how does it apply to a monitor since HDR is very much dependent on the content or like source of your whatever you trying to display and not exactly the display itself so I'm curious to find out hope you are too this should be fine so free same type scenes for care all nice but HDR is what I'm most interested in beautiful new round stand very low profile base I like it such an easy setup that's it all right so this is the new twenty seven UK 850 and this is my 27 UD eighty-eight /w basically all the same specs so the same 4k panel the same free sing support the same type see a slightly different stand and without HDR so let's see this new panel and this whole HDR direction is actually worth it let's discuss right after this the new master keys MK 750 keyboard comes with a comfortable magnetic wrist rest beautiful RGB light bar on the perimeter and perky lighting control with a variety of Cherry MX switches and the bottom type-c connection coolermaster doing it right check it out the law so a few notable and appreciated changes include a new back that is no longer glossy plastic it is now this matte white material which is awesome whereas before the glossy plastic was just unpleasant and the actual stands as you can see the bases are different too in terms of the shape so this one's very thin it spans a little bit a wider area which is not an issue you can still populate a few things around it whereas before still very low-profile but you can see they done some changes so that I think it's a little bit more desk friendly the cable clip has also changed so this was the old one it's locked into this one position at the bottom and you had to remove it every time you had to populate any new cables whereas now this one has this little clip on the exterior so you can pass a new cables without removing it and it has a little bit of motion up and down and lastly the ports in their location have not changed so a nice diverse IO for you to plug in anything you want I also now appreciate the full black bezels on the sides in particular whereas before they were chrome matching the stand so now it's tiny bit cleaner alrighty people so I've been using this monitor for a few days now and I'm both extremely frustrated because HDR on windows and games is buggy AF but also I'm quite impressed when it works because it's actually pretty good so my earliest HDR experience comes in June of 2017 and Computex when Nvidia showcased Mass Effect Andromeda SDR versus HDR side-by-side and Wow HDR really has evolved because it sure does not look like this anymore now this whole HDR 10 spec has been set in August of 2015 so quite a while back but you can see that whole HDR 10 has taken over the industry because it does not require license fee it only requires a 10 bit panel and also a REC 2020 color space so it's not that difficult to achieve and it's not like Dolby vision where Dolby vision dynamically maps certain areas of the TV based on the picture profile and based on the algorithms and the made of data that actually comes with the content whereas HDR 10 if you can think of it as like a filter on top view content so it does not dynamically change anything it's kind of like a static thing that remaps a certain pixels to whatever it thinks it should display and that is clearly evident through my gaming experience because every game that supports HDR kind of looks the same in terms of vibrancy up to 200 percent brightness also slightly higher shadow boost so you can see little bit more in there so it all kind of looks the same and force certain games that looks fantastic for others not so much and now that I'm thinking about it it would be so cool to see dolby vision supported games where it will dynamically map exposure vibrancy and do those tonal contrast inside a certain frame and not just a slap a vibrancy and exposure filter on top like we do with HDR 10 so the first experience with HDR obviously comes through the desktop you know opening in display settings and turning on that HDR toggle and oh wait what is that pink blanket over my screen so that is the first bug that I discovered have no idea why it's there and it's been really ring throughout my testing even with new drivers reinstallation even with me trying to troubleshoot things in the Nvidia control panel and the windows color settings disabling my spider Pro calibration profiles etc and there is one walk-around that I found to disable this like pink blanket over HDR profiles on the desktop and in games and that is to cycle between the different HDR profiles on the monitor itself and that is the only way that I've been able to actually enjoy HDR because otherwise it would everything would just depend like you see now and I would have to go into the OSD and choose between HDR cinema standards and just cycle between those until we actually you know I don't know what something happens in the background where the colors go back to normal but we still get that HDR profile and this initial point of frustration is just a huge turnoff for HDR for all types of consumers and I've kind of lucky that I stumbled upon this sort of fix where by cycling between different HDR presets on the monitor I'm able to go back into this original color but otherwise if you're a consumer you would buy the monitor you turn on HDR on game everything is pink for some reason you would definitely return that monitor the next day that is for sure and of course this whole experience is soured by windows drivers whatever else is running in the background however if you are connecting a console to your desktop monitor then the experience of HDR is perfectly fine fantastic for games and there's no issues like you would experience on windows let's see how we can go back to the pink stuff if I enable it back in yeah back to the pink stuff look at that it fixed itself which brings me to my second main point of this video PC gaming on an HDR desktop monitor so first of all only a handful of games support HDR profiles which kind of sucks if you're investing into a really expensive monitor want to play some HDR games your options will be limited but check this out on my first day I launched them to be f1 I enabled that HDR option and everything was completely blown out so the sky was white the the ground was black or dark and so we have this like 2 tonal spectrum you know I thought the whole idea of HDR was to give you more information and your highlights and shadows but here it was not the case it was like a - total thing really compressed color space really unpleasant you cannot see anything and then for destiny - it was exactly the same thing really blown out highlights and really crushed shadow areas so you don't see any information in those sections and that kind of defeats the purpose of HDR and me seeing that for the first time I actually assumed that's what HDR was you know really blown out highlights really crushed blocks you're kind of like a really aggressive s-curve if you know what that means so I didn't realize that's not what HDR was because apparently I was experiencing bugs in those games and only after a few restarts when HDR properly kicked in it kind of also opened my eyes as to how beautiful HDR can look in certain games and that for some reason I've been experiencing it all wrong because of some bugs or something in the game or windows on my Nvidia drivers or the control panel I don't know some more bugs that I've experienced include watching HDR Netflix content then turning off the monitor and then the system shutdown so it was probably switching between the color profiles and then maybe the Nvidia control panel crashed or some driver crashed but yeah crashing while watching Netflix while turning off the monitor that not happen also far too often when they exit an HDR game into the desktop the desktop now turns into an HDR profile so it automatically turns that on even though I did not turn it on in the first place the bugs just keep on happening so I just exited the game where I had HDR disabled in game so everything was fine but when I went through the desktop right now as you can see everything is super pink and I saw a little HDR icon as soon as I entered desktop and right now we can see that HDR advanced color settings has been turned on for some reason even though I disabled it inside the game but sometimes when I exit HDR game it goes back to standard desktop so it's a little bit messy right now in terms of what app supports it and when it switches on when it thinks it should switch back to a regular desktop so it's a little bit confusing ok so this is what happens when I enable HDR settings and bf1 quit the game launch back into it and now we have this lovely ten bit image in here I can still move my mouse and like interact with whatever things but it seems like the resolution and the aspect ratio is all messed up and obviously there's beautiful this looks like Jupiter rings you know looks quite abstract and unique but obviously not the best in terms of the gaming experience and that's for actual HDR gameplay so we get a vibrancy boost we get a shadow boost so you can see little bit more in there and we get a slightly brighter highlight areas but they're not overly exposed and actually well exposed areas that you normally would not be able to see more detail of like the sky are now a little bit more visible and are also brighter so destiny 2 with HDR when it works it's actually fantastic because for example in these shots you can see a little bit more of the gun the vibrancy of the red channels really is boosted to a point where you can see more of the world it's a bit more like in-your-face and punchy so that's much much better than the standard version that looks a little bit more muted for example in the shadowy dark areas the lighting just pops more it looks more vibrant overall a better experience and also the same thing outside so the world is not so dull and like kind of like d saturated now we have a very vibrant punchy picture that's also brighter without losing the dynamic range of the entire scene so that's awesome however for battlefield one where the game design weapon design lighting is all a bit more realistic this additional punch of color and this like additional vibrancy and shadow boost may actually not be as pleasant as on the cartoony game designs so for example in this scene you can see the color has shifted towards the warmth and like the pinkish side and I made sure the pink was not an issue as before but you can see the non HDR picture looks slightly more realistic and potentially better for your preference I will say I like the vibrancy in the red channel more with HDR because like all the sparks and fire especially when the can as a firing right in this scene it looks a lot more vibrant and like pop right in your face kind of in HDR mode which is something that you might potentially prefer over the muted colors that we get in standard picture profile now as for actual dynamic range in violet one for example these shadows just slightly boost it so you can see them a little bit more clearly but also the highlights gets light recovery so in this scene of the clouds you can actually make up the clouds and whatever is above the forest whereas an SDR it kind of looks like it's just a you know plain kind of almost whitish piece of cloud but you can't actually make out the cloud in that picture profile however the same cannot be said for destiny to wear an SDR the cloud definition is a bit more visible when an HDR because of that highlight boost it almost like we're losing those clouds and you know those really bright areas they're still there and they're still present they're not being completely destroyed but they're not as visible as we have on a standard picture profile however it is a lot less vibrant and the shadows are not as detailed as on HDR however by far my favorite game for HDR with the Assassin's Creed origins wow that game looks fantastic in the HDR of course when it works sometimes when I enable it it goes back to this pink overlay and I have to switch the profiles in order to get a new back to working colors but when it does the vibrancy for that game world and for that game design is absolutely incredible known just for the night scenes but for like especially during the day when you have that Sun is bright but it's not being blown out so you can still preserve a lot of the detail in the highlights but because of the additional vibrancy and that additional pop it looks absolutely incredible it's not about the color accuracy it's about the the poppin color that you normally would not get with standard non HD or displays unless you go into like convenient control panel maybe play around with vibrancy or something like that but this I mean it is absolutely gorgeous however right now it's pretty light in this space so I would say that this would be even kind of overkill in a dark scenario where it might be overly sensitive for your eyes in like a dark room like if you play at night but otherwise wow that is beautiful it is beautiful another game where HDR makes sense would be Shadow Warrior 2 because it's also kind of cartoony and this game design benefits from the additional brightness and vibrancy so you can make out a little bit more details in the shadows it's not necessarily for your benefit in terms of like figuring out where to go you know that's not really the point but it's about just making the image slightly brighter whereas on SDR you can potentially do that with a gamma adjust but then you would lose the contrast and the saturation so that's where HDR really makes sense that additional vibrancy pop so the colors are really in your face and that there's no highlight boost and the shadow boost so that your game world is a bit more visible to you and to come back to be f1 while we may gain that additional dynamic range boost for the highlight recovery the additional vibrancy that we get with grass and like all the you know the weapons stuff it just may not look realistic to you so if you're after a certain play style for the genre of the color that you're expecting from a game then you know take that into account with regards to the HDR profiles too now for games like Mass Effect Andromeda despite nobody playing that anymore it's a good demo to demonstrate how HDR complements the game world with additional vibrancy boost so you can see a little bit more colors the sky is more blue the sand is more you know yellow and like in your face and there's no shadow lifts and the highlights boost without destroying the dynamic range is just a welcome addition to that game world alright so for conclusion I want to say that my HDR experience has been eye-opening at how not ready it is for the mass market as a consumer you'd want to receive your HDR monitor open up your favorite HDR ready game and enjoy right no it will either crash when you're changing to HDR settings it'll give you color glitches it will go back to Windows where HDR is somehow enabled again and it's just not a seamless experience that you'd expect for an HDR 10 profile that's been sort of the standard since 2015 if you really want to experience HDR for entertainment or your console just get a 4k HDR TV it will be a much smoother experience and you know if you want an HDR monitor for your desktop why in terms of entertainment on a desktop I think Amazon Prime now streams HDR content through the browser with Netflix on Windows 10 you have to use the native Netflix app from the Windows Store which works flawlessly by the way with HDR so that's not an issue but if you have an HDR capable TV that will seamlessly stream all that stuff without any bottlenecks that you would experience on windows and if you really have the 4k h4 27 inch foam factor like this monitor you can buy the earlier versions which doesn't have type C that goes for like four hundred thirty bucks or the 27 UD 88 which is what I use it's like around 600 bucks and it's if you want the HDR stuff that's an additional premium to around $700 to experience HDR in the few games and Netflix and my final thoughts on this whole HDR gaming if you're potentially thinking of going towards that route or avoiding it is that I feel like HDR 10 is a filter that goes on top of your game it boosted the shadows and highlights and it increases the vibrancy and so for certain games it works because it complements the game world we're others it doesn't not in a technical sense but in the creative sense so for BF 1 the additional information that's been lifted in the shadows how does that contribute to a better gaming experience you know the colors pop more so that's a nice thing but there is no control on how HDR looks for games and I will leave you with one more thought who should we blame for this whole mess up of HDR I was expecting the whole experience to be seamless and pleasant and you know without any hiccups but it is definitely not so on Windows in particular so who should we scapegoat let me know in the comments below so guys I hope this experience and sharing has been helpful let me know if you have an HDR monitor you know not TV because tv's + consoles and all that content is totally fine on that platform because it's kind of like an enclosed in its own thing whereas monitors for desktop for PC Windows that's a totally different ballpark add to support and you know available content and all that stuff so guys I'm Dimitri thank you so much for watching and coming along this HDR ride and we'll see you in the next video