Hey fellas, could you help me understand a bit more about HDR?

  • I understand that it’s an absolute brightness standard, not like the relative levels in SDR
  • But why does it end up washing out colors unless I amplify them in kwin? Is just the brightness absolute in nits, but not the color?
  • Why does my screen block the brightness control in HDR mode but not contrast? And why does the contrast increase the brightness of highlights, instead of just split midtones towards brighter and darker shades?
  • Why is truehdr400 supposed to be better in dark rooms than peak1000 mode?
  • Why is my average emission capped at 270nits, that seems ridiculously low even for normal SDR screens as comparison.

Cheers 😊

Edit: It’s a QD OLED

  • @KlaymoreEnglish
    5•2 months ago

    For the washed-out colors, are you using an Nvidia, Intel, or AMD GPU? If you’re using AMD you need to run kernel 6.8 or later I believe, if you’re using DisplayPort.

    I’m not sure why your display lets you adjust contrast in HDR mode, I would just leave it at the default imo.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•2 months ago

      I’m using all of them sometimes. ^^ Washed out colors are not an issue on AMD anymore as you said it, but on nvidia I can’t seem to fix it. I wonder if this is happening to absolutely everyone, as the arch wiki makes it sound like nvidia 545+ has been reported working…

      About the contrast: I wish I could, but I found that the factory default was 70% and it did seem to often cause noticeable dimming because the image was too bright for the max avg luminance. It felt weird and I think it’s because Alienware, like many manufacturers, just can’t resist blasting the consumer with overtuned contrasts to get a purchase out of it.