Display(s) HDR support issue or did SONY screwed up PS5's HDR support?

[XoR_]

I have issue with two LG monitors with PS5 when using them in HDR mode: 27GP950 and 48GQ900
Near-black shades are completely missing and image has the so called "black crush" - and its from my prolonged testing cannot be in any way fixed tinkering with any of the settings in PS5.

Going to web browser (can be opened by sending to someone from friend list message google.com, opening it and by searching "lagom lcd") and then going to black level the first actually visible color (at least on IPS as it has better gradation overall) is ~12 (might be 11 but its hard to tell). In the worst case I would expect one or two levels not being displayed but not so many. This leads games to at places look completely unacceptable with what are supposed to be dark details completely vanish and become pure black (at least on OLED, on LCD its like light gray)

Now both monitors look good on Windows with Radeon 6900XT and I tried multiple modes (8, 10, 12 bit, RGB full/limited, 4:4:4, 4:2:2, etc) and it always look correct with HDR and with dekstop brightness at lowest Lagom LCD black level image shows much more colors (only clips few first ones on OLED but its expected and imho normal). This would in my book exclude monitors as the source of issue and that leaves PS5 itself as the culprit.

Lot's of people complaining about PS5 being dim at places, having black crush, etc. with solutions like increasing gamma or tinkering with TV's brightness settings, etc.
To me it looks like SONY really screwed up HDR support and just sends incorrect image to the display. It would be however good to confirm that is the case with more displays than two LG monitors I have. Unfortunately I do not have more HDR displays so cannot do any more testing...

Can someone with PS5 and HDR display check how this Lagom LCD black level looks for them?
If there is issue and it would be resolved it would greatly improve image quality on PS5. In order to do anything about it (like sending e-mails to SONY) it would be good to be more sure not only LG monitors specifically are affected.
It looks like something which many people would ignore and especially with existence of HDMI limited/full setting its harder to even indicate there is an issue because most people jump to conclusions pretty fast about it.

ps. I checked HDR calibration numerous of times and its not related to this issue. Third step doesn't really seem to do anything really, which might explain why this issue exists. Maybe if it worked as it should then games woundn't have crushed blacks for so many people and they wouldn't have to disable HDR altogether - this I saw as the often used solution for PS5 HDR...

 

[XoR_]

 

[sgupta]

I unfortunately don't technically understand the why's of this, but from my limited understanding, the calibration on consoles (both XBOX and PS5) require HGiG in order for the calibration screens to work correctly. And, based on what I've read, most TV's have this, but most monitors *don't*, so the HDR calibration on these systems can't be relied upon for monitors. This makes very little sense to me honestly and I haven't found a better discussion as to why monitors don't support this or consoles don't give a better calibration option for monitors. (Would love it if someone with an actual understanding of this issue would chime in.)

I actually first found out about this issue watching an HDTVTest review of my monitor. (I don't use my monitor with consoles in my case, but I never knew this could be an issue before).



Go to 8:55 and he talks about it (briefly); note this is specific to the 27GR95QE but the lack of HGiG support apparently applies to a LOT of monitors. Now in this case, he doesn't talk about black levels.

The other thing I'd check that I just thought of - see if you can set the PS5 to an alternate RGB range (toggling between Limited and Full and seeing) to see if that makes a difference, as this almost looks like it could be an incorrect RGB range issue. You can find this under Settings -> Screen and Video.

 

[XoR_]

The other thing I'd check that I just thought of - see if you can set the PS5 to an alternate RGB range (toggling between Limited and Full and seeing) to see if that makes a difference, as this almost looks like it could be an incorrect RGB range issue. You can find this under Settings -> Screen and Video.

This is known issue from era of first HDMI devices and I am aware of it and tested all combinations.
Even with settings where monitor expects full range and PS5 produces limited range I can only see 11th level on Lagom LCD black level page. And while this happens black level is obviously raised so pretty much black crush still happens but this time without good blacks.
This excludes monitor not being able to display darkest shades correctly if testing the same thing on PC was not proof enough.

That said it sure does look like HDMI level range issue and might be actually in some mysterious way be related. It is not however caused by wrong settings used on my side because I tested all combinations and even tested HDMI compatibility setting for PC and AV and 4K transfer limit at auto, -1 and -2. In the best case scenario(s) I still get black crush to show up.

Go to 8:55 and he talks about it (briefly); note this is specific to the 27GR95QE but the lack of HGiG support apparently applies to a LOT of monitors. Now in this case, he doesn't talk about black levels.

This relates ONLY to these calibration pages though and how to use them. You cannot rely on how bright sun appear to be in relation to background because background causes other shades to be scaled back by display so setting them correctly you always get slightly below 1000 nits as background is 1000 nits.
Here is the amount of clicks you need to use to properly calibrate PS5 https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/lk4buu/the_definitive_guide_to_setting_up_your_tv_for/ - of course you match it with capabilities of your monitor which you can measure or take from display reviews which do peak luminance tests for 100% window and 10% window.
SONY could provide information about each level luminance and include information that it might be what you need to properly calibrate display rather than these images. They of course try to make things appear simple and straightforward even if full of issues on most displays. Then they of course advertise - on our TV's it just works. Wonder actually about that because it might as well only work correctly before someone actually bother to check - which most users do not want because they probably do not want to see something they won't be able to unsee This is however terrible way to move forward as without users knowing they have some issue they won't do anything and SONY won't fix anything...

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This low/high limited/full levels I tripple-checked this morning and found even more bizzare thing. While monitor expect full range and console gives limited range and I gen no proper black and Lagom LCD still shows only starting from 11th level then when I switch to Gamer 2 (or any other except Gamer 1) that has ridiculous amount of "black stabilizer"* applied to it then it automagically shows remaining levels. This kinda proves console for what its worth sends some data but its hard to say why it stil doesn't show first ten levels in this test.
Might be display issue but its hard to tell because it might also be HDR meta-data related and display is actually following meta-data correctly.
In either case it seems LG monitors are incompatible with PS5

*) Blakc stabilizer revelas all lost shadow details but it itself is terribly implemented and screws up gamma in most ridiculous ways I ever seen - making it go brighter at place and then darker and then again brighter. Image of course looks terrible. Even more so than with black crush. Completely screwed up implementation of something which should be fairly easy to implement.

 

[sgupta]

That's really strange and unfortunate with the monitors. I'm at a loss as to what could be causing that then as you've already tried everything that would seem promising from the sounds of it, but it does sound beyond frustrating.

Thanks for the info on the PS5 calibration for displays that don't work well with built-in calibration and that reddit link - interesting stuff and could come in handy at some point! I agree Sony (and Microsoft too) should do better in letting people know limitations of these calibration setups.

 

[XoR_]

The moral of the story is: do not use PS5 if you value image quality and if you want PS5 then like LG suggested in their response to my issue: joke is on you... or me in this case for both having LG monitor and PS5

On PC I do not only do not really experience the same issue with cut out levels but its ridiculously easy to just press Alt+R while in game and change color temperature, brightness, etc. so I can tweak image to my liking in seconds.
And that is perhaps the best and most valid solution: play less on consoles and more on PC

 

[sgupta]

I JUST upgraded PC's so can fortunately play on PC again, but I still like consoles for my TV - I do think it's really weird monitors don't work well with consoles though. That's strange and extremely counterintuitive. Guess I'll make sure for whatever console gaming I do, it'll be on a TV.

 

[XoR_]

I JUST upgraded PC's so can fortunately play on PC again, but I still like consoles for my TV - I do think it's really weird monitors don't work well with consoles though. That's strange and extremely counterintuitive. Guess I'll make sure for whatever console gaming I do, it'll be on a TV.

During internet research I did I could not find any confirmation that HDR on PS5 works any better with TVs than it does on my monitors.
Rather gloom picture was painted of people with various TVs with the same game where I noticed issue in also have the same issue and often opt to use SDR to be able to see shadow details.

It might be similar issue for some and something else for others and it might be something TV's allow to tweak (which I would assume some do) but have yet to see any concrete proof that any TV display PS5 HDR correctly. More likely explanation for now is that people think they get proper image when they really do not. Especially after fixing one glaring issue like overblown highlights - which can also affect shadow details - they believe everything is now perfect but then subtler issue with actual visibility of darkest details might still persist.

In any way consoles are severly limited and do not have most obvious options which could help. I would even go as far as console makers should add ability to correct display parameters like what you find on PC as accessibility feature. I for sure cannot see sheet without such features available on PS5

BTW. I spend now days trying to reproduce issue on PC and somehow cannot. Image looks roughly OK no matter what I do to break it. Went as far as modifying EDID with CRU and building and modifying DX HDR sample to adjust metadata and yesterday ordered $350 8K Arcana 2 VRR 40gbps to be able to tinker with this topic more thoroughly. I intend to feed PS5 different EDIDs (eg. from SONY TVs XD) and control HDR metadata coming to monitor to see if there is any way to force these devices to be compatible. Worst case scenario I will have fabulous HDMI 2.1 VRR audio-extractor

 

[sgupta]

I have not had any glaring issues with PS5 HDR on my TV (but it's also a Sony TV). Calibration seemed to work perfectly and all the HDR games I played (and I've played quite a few) have seemed to look great. If there is any clipping/crushing, I haven't noticed it, and I'm usually pretty sensitive to that sort of thing. That said, I've only played on this one TV.

 

[XoR_]

I managed to fix my issue with missing shadow details on PS5 on my LG monitors by:
0) having monitor setup to expect FULL RGB range
1) buying ludicrously expensive HDFury VRRoom
2) capturing PS5s "AVI metadata" with RGB range set to FULL
3) spoofing AVI metadata to be always the captured values
4) switching PS5 RGB range to LIMITED

On third HDR calibration step in PS5 I can "barely see" sun logo on second "click" from the bottom rather than 11th. Background is stil pure black!
It is not perfect still but at least now I can enjoy Ghost of Thushima with picture quality that doesn't look completely broken and more or less what I actually expected it to look like should LG not screw up. Game is still so dark that at times/places it absolutely needs to be played in pitch dark room but doesn't look too dark.

This is workaround and not setup&forget solution as this AVI metadata doesn't work for SDR (because now we send LIMITED range when monitor expects FULL range) and for 120Hz video modes (because now we send RGB metadata when in reality we send YCbCr colors) so it will require switching things as needed but it is still much better solution than having no shadow details in HDR games and increasing gamma or using broken black stabilizer.

Biggest issue is price of Vrroom at 586 euro with shipping. At least now I have amazing HDMI 2.1 audio extractor with video splitter/downscaler so it can support also other consoles should they have similar issues with HDR and its now possible to output the same image to second monitor. No input lag is added.