"Black crush" in HDR content, any solution?

[DeeLuXe]

Hi my friends. From the first day I have noticed that this phone suffers from black crush in HDR content. Playing from (internal) SONY player, VLC or Kodi, does not matter.

I've done a comparison with the Spiderman trailer that has the phone in internal memory with the same trailer on YouTube (at 1080p without HDR).

Image config: Aut. brightness off / Brightness at 50% / Image mode 'standard'.

This is the result:

Spiderman trailer 4K HDR:

Spiderman trailer 1080p (without HDR):

Spiderman trailer 4K HDR:

Spiderman trailer 1080p (without HDR):

Down or up the brightness does not affect. It is not a problem of brightness and contrasts. It is Gama problem. A bad implementation of the HDR content. The phone does not allow to modify the Gama range, the video players neither.

This is a software problem. I have contacted other people with the same phone and the same thing happens to them.

Will SONY solve it with any firmware update?

(Sorry for my english, i'm spanish)

[DeeLuXe]

You can share the link to the YouTube HDR trailer? Thanks.

I thought the same thing, trailer defect, but when I realized the "black crush" was watching HDR content that I have on my network (movies), not with the Spiderman trailer. Then I upload screenshots of other movies that I have in 1080 and 4K.

PD: the trailer should be played on other device than the Xperia and see if it happens the same. I've iPad Pro (support HDR) but the screen is LCD, not OLED. Also the VLC for iOS lets change the Gamma tone (on Android it doesn't allow) in case the image is very dark.

[NunoSEN2]

@DeeLuXe;

You can see the 4K HDR trailer here: https://youtu.be/1K_6MqeXKbM.

I copied also the demo trailer to my XZ Premium and besides it played with no sound (maybe missing some codec) the Black Crush is also there (there is no green issue though-maybe different screen calibration).

I think that it all depends on the movie or recording.The demo trailer in my XZ Premium

[DeeLuXe]

Thanks mi friend.

A colleague from another forum has done a clip test on the iPhone X, this is the result (same problem):

I tried the YouTube 4K HDR trailer on my Xperia and this is the result (there is no black crush). Note: YouTube App automatically increases brightness:

Do you say, it can be a problem with the phone clip.

******

Here some tests with internet browsers. It is shown that the HDR lack not change the gamma range, only the color saturation:

Firefox (not support HDR):

Chrome (support HDR):

I will try the HDR movies later.

Thanks NunoSEN2 for your participation in this matter.

[NunoSEN2]

No problem @DeeLuXe, I am always glad to help and also am curious to find problems solution.

Another thing, I think now YouTube no longer increase automatically the screen brightness in HDR content, at least in my case the screen brightness stays at the level I choose for some time now. At the beginning when I had my XZ Premium I remember it did that, but there was much instability and it stopped happening for some time now.

Update: In fact it seems that in inluminated environments the Youtube automatically increases the screen brightness when playing HDR content (today when I was playing HDR videos it done it).

[NunoSEN2]

Forgot to tell you another thing @DeeLuXe, after all there was no green screen in the demo clip, I think it was the light conditions when I took the photo, today I took the same photo and the screen no longer appears green (the black cruch is still there though).Xperia 1 HDR

[RottenFoxBreath]

That's what Blade Runner 2049 in 4k HDR looks like on my phone, creator mode on for all and just auto brightness on in an averagely lit room.

Calibrated white balance, and the player is MX Player Pro.

And that is what I see...So, don't think I have any issues with the screen or the issues you seem to think you have.

[azzido]

Creator mode does nothing but makes colors washed out. That's it. 

And thisbis how this mode should be called. We should have normal and "washed out".

[RottenFoxBreath]

What absolute rubbish.

More realistic colours are better than over blown garish cartoony colours.

More real world than Samsung-ish.

[Lord_viridis]

I gotta be honest, I'm not seeing any black crushing on Xperia 1, I'm seeing deeper contrast as expected from HDR, but no crush.

Also, darkened areas is not black crush, black crushing is where near levels of darkness are "crushed" into one solid black colour. Believe me, is the X1 had black crush, you'd know about it 

Photo of S9 black crush

[Lucius_Xperia5]

Hello ! I recently brought the Xperia 5 about a month ago , and I have the same experience as you do. I noticed that when I was watching videos or movies , the black pixel will be distorted somehow.

It is funny that it tooks me a month to notice this problem.

Then , I did a few experiments , I tried viewing the same content when I put a Table Lamp between me and my phone , and the problem goes away.

It seems that when you view videos in a low light area , my phone will automatically choose to distort the black pixel , maybe that is something to save our eye sight.

I hope this will explain the problem you might have.