Problem HDR Color On All Devices - Roku Ultra , NVidia Shield, Xbox One

[gte773h]

I'm just writing this so that others don't go through the effort I went through in order to diagnose a problem with HDR 4k. The issue was when I was using a device capable of streaming HDR color the brightness of the TV was really dark and colors were completely washed out.

The setup I tried with the Vudu app was:
TV: Sony XBR-65x850c (upgraded to latest firmware)
Devices tried with the Vudu app: Roku Ultra, NVidia Shield, Xbox One (all upgraded to latest firmware)

In every case the colors were washed out and the brightness was extremely dim when running 4k HDR UHD. I tried doing multiple calibrations to the TV, including Brightness, Contrast, Black Levels, Black Adjust, Adv Contrast Enhancer, Color, Hue, Color Temp, Color Space, Live Color, etc. No matter the changes I could not fix the brightness or get the colors to be as vibrant and realistic.

I have seen other posts with people complaining that UHD titles with HDR are dark and lack color. One interesting test revealed that when the Roku Ultra was turned on to 60Hz HDR 4k that then broke Netflix. The Netflix logo turned Orange and the colors in the shows were also messed up.

I also swapped the HDMI cables for premium cables just to make sure that wasnt the problem.

My guess is that it's either something between the Sony XBR-65x850c and the app or the app and HDR just haven't got this figured out yet. For now, I'm just going back to running the Vudu app on my TV directly and watching videos in HDX. If this is a common problem I hope the Vudu engineers are paying attention because this could cause a lot of people to purchase HDX content instead of UHD.

[Dan D]

I'm surprised there are no responses to this. Maybe it's isolated, but I am experiencing the same issue with a Hisense U8G tv. HDX looks incredible without adjusting anything. But, UHD quality (from VUDU) is terribly dull...dark and muted in colors. Adjusting settings barely affects the image in UHD while these same settings greatly affect the HDX image. One oddity is that when playing movies from VUDU, HDX and UHD both use the same settings panel. When I play a 4k disk (HDR10 - no DV player), the quality is amazing. From VUDU, even though the tv displays "Dolby Vision" when the movie starts, the image settings panel uses the regular settings (Vivid, Standard, Theatrical, etc). No Dolby Vision panel for settings.

I wonder if the tv isn't processing the UHD signal from the source properly (or VUDU isn't sending it properly).

I am able to adjust settings to get slightly better picture quality in UHD, but I have to literally set every known color/saturation/brightness setting to 100% to get "decent" quality. HDX still looks better (just not as sharp) with settings untouched. The thing is, when I switch between HDX and UHD, if I had settings tuned for UHD, the HDX signal is oversaturated and overbrightened.

I really want to enjoy my UHD movies from VUDU, but HDX just looks better. I have a lot of UHD movies in VUDU that I don't have on disc (or on another streaming source)

If anyone knows what is up, I'd love to know how to fix this!

P.S. Movies Anywhere also has UHD/4K issues with Hisense. But, in this case, MA doesn't even play the UHD and simply states it's not compatible on this device.

[Dan D]

So, I verified, Amazon HDR amazing and properly shows HDR10+ or Dolby Vision when playing such movies. Disney Plus does it properly as well. iTunes/Apple does as well. I don't have Netflix at the moment. But, apparently, VUDU (and MA) is the only streaming service that does not send it's HDR movies through to the tv properly. I'm going to buy me a Roku to see if that helps...and if not, maybe have to start getting all my movies on other platforms.

[MOV1eFan]

Some movies will look watchout or dim, HDR looks better though. Also maybe the movie is to blame too. When i watched Ghostbusters Afterlife it looked like you describe, but now i noticed that it looks better.