Am I *actually* getting DoVi on my Samsung panel?

[gshpychka]

After seting up the DoVi settings with Player-led (HDR) and setting the InfoFram to my TV's values, I'm able to watch all DoVi content and pass all video test files, including FEL (e.g. woman at 80s for FEL, etc).

Now, do that mean that I'm ACTUALLY getting Dolby Vision?

I haven't been able to find a straight answer to this - some say it's placebo (?), some say it's somewhere inbetween HDR10 and DV, so I'm confused. Does the fact that all the test files display correctly mean that I'm actually getting DV on a Samsung?

Will a movie that has both DV P7 FEL and HDR10+ look best with the former, even though my TV supports HDR10+ natively? Since HDR10+ does not have an equivalent to FEL - so if the first options can provide actual FEL, it must mean it's the better pick.

[gilgameshinter]

yes you do get DV.

[gshpychka]

So there's no difference between Player-led and Display-led?

What about this?

Will a movie that has both DV P7 FEL and HDR10+ look best with the former, even though my TV supports HDR10+ natively? Since HDR10+ does not have an equivalent to FEL - so if the first options can provide actual FEL, it must mean it's the better pick.

[Sholander]

So there's no difference between Player-led and Display-led?

Of course there is fundamental difference between these two, selecting Player-led will result in your box processing Dolby Vision stuff, and selecting Display-led your display will do this processing. Display-led is considered much better and is preferred, when possible, because of superior hardware-driver possibilities.

[gshpychka]

I'm looking for a more concrete answer. In what way is it better? What is the actual difference?

[liquid-ion]

TV-led has 1 less tonemapping as display led needs to map from native DV ITP space back into YCbCr space.

On TV-led, native DV panels can interpret the ITP DV colorspace directly. Additionally because TV-led uses the panel's own DV engine, the tonemapping should be better vs signaling the panel characteristics via EDID.

[Sholander]

What sort of "concrete" answer? For example, LG Oled G3/4/5 have far superior DV picture authenticity when Display-led is used, than ANY DV Player-led box/device can provide.
Search videos on YouTube that provide picture confirmation for above statement, or watch carefully with understanding this video

[gshpychka]

Will a movie that has both DV P7 FEL and HDR10+ look best with the former, even though my TV supports HDR10+ natively? Since HDR10+ does not have an equivalent to FEL - so if the first options can provide actual FEL, it must mean it's the better pick.

[MasterHW]

I choose HDR10+, as the setup of Player-led DV requires some assumptions about the brightness capabilities of your display for tone-mapping, and I lack the equipment to properly test or validate what the true specs of the display are with the picture settings I have configured.

Conceptually I think the advantage of Display-led tonemapping is always this, that the TV itself knows the picture settings that have been applied and can tonemap most accurately. So I would choose display-led HDR10+ over player-led DV P7 even if on paper DV P7 is superior. But this is more an intuitive assessment than a rigorous scientific one. Either are capable of doing a good job, and there's an argument to be made either way. But display-led HDR10+ is probably the safer/do-less-harm choice.

[gshpychka]

Makes total sense, that's how I'm thinking about it too.

[Akila3]

I don't think there is such thing as TV-led and Player-led in HDR10+, to my understanding TV-led thing is only relevant for Dolby Vision.
HDR10+ to my understanding is always done by player. I might be wrong, but that is what I read throughout my research on the matter.
So in your case, my intuition would go with DV P7 FEL and not on the HDR10+, as both are processed by player (If I am correct with my information that HDR10+ is always a player processing).

[MasterHW]

So in your case, my intuition would go with DV P7 FEL and not on the HDR10+, as both are processed by player (If I am correct with my information that HDR10+ is always a player processing).

If that is true, which I'm not sure it is, the difference is with HDR10+ the Samsung TV can communicate its parameters to the player, but with DV it cannot (as it doesn't support DV). So you are having to manually provide the player with parameters (namely colour and brightness) yourself for DV playback, which without the hardware to test is just educated guesswork. So I would stand by HDR10+ probably being less error prone than DV, but I would still take DV over nothing.

[en6ads]

You can think of Dolby Vision as (1) tone mapping metadata, and (2) a little bit if extra image if the disk is FEL.

The tone mapping part:

• If you have a bright TV, as bright at the mastering display used to grade a movie (mostly 1000nits, sometimes 4000nits), then no tone mapping is necessary and therefore no Dolby Vision metadata is used. So to ask if you get DV depends on when tone mapping kicks in on your TV / display.
• Refer to this spreadsheet of bright movie grades to see which might need tone mapping: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15i0a84uiBtWiHZ5CXZZ7wygLFXwYOd84/edit?gid=1557834794#gid=1557834794.
• This sheet gives examples of when clipping starts, and then when tone mapping starts for various TVs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15i0a84uiBtWiHZ5CXZZ7wygLFXwYOd84/edit?gid=1289366200#gid=1289366200
• If you have a LG G5, for example, tone mapping starts at 2500 nits. So all the 1000nit mastered movies will not be tone mapped, ever. This means Dolby Vision metadata is not used
• If you need to use player-led, then get the actual brightness levels of your TV and input them in to the player-led settings. Or, better still if your TV supports DV, just choose TV-led. That way the TV decides what to do and when (but this doesn't apply to Samsung TVs).

The FEL part:

• Yes, in player-led you should see the base layer and the full enhancement layer (FEL), combined into a 12bit image and then sent to your TV.
• FEL sometimes corrects authoring mistakes, can raise brightness, refine grain, do nothing at all.
• The effect is subtle, but you should not ignore the FEL layer if playing back in Dolby Vision, because the metadata is for the combined image, not just the base layer. So for movies where the FEL raises overall brightness (Mission Impossible: Fallout, for example), it's important to not ignore the FEL layer.

[gshpychka]

Appreciate the response, very informative.

If you have a LG G5, for example, tone mapping starts at 2500 nits.

That's only if the bright parts don't take up more than 10% of the frame. e.g. the G5's 25% window max brightness is 1000 nits

Yes, in player-led you should see the base layer and the full enhancement layer (FEL), combined into a 12bit image and then sent to your TV.

Doesn't it tone-map the FEL into a 10-bit image? Since most panels don't support 12-bit color. Or is it the panel that does the tone-mapping from 12-bit to 10-bit?

[Akila3]

Doesn't it tone-map the FEL into a 10-bit image? Since most panels don't support 12-bit color. Or is it the panel that does the tone-mapping from 12-bit to 10-bit?

FEL+BL decoding is always done by the player, regardless of TV-LED / Player-LED.
With FEL P7 input, the BL and FEL are merged together by the player: reconstruction of the 12-bit master into a new stream that is encapsulated into an RGB 8-bit container with the RPU.
Then, the TV can decode the stream and perform the tone mapping according to the RPU and its capabilities.

For BL + RPU (non-FEL), there is no 12-bit master reconstruction by the player, of course, but the stream is still placed into the RGB container with the RPU, and then the TV does the rest.

[graham8]

HDR10+ to my understanding is always done by player. I might be wrong, but that is what I read throughout my research on the matter.

Definitely wrong. HDR10+ dynamic metadata is just passed through for the TV to do the tonemapping. There's nothing in the EDID similar to the DV VSDB to tell a player the TV's capabilities so a player can't know what to do.

[Akila3]

After reading further it seems what you are saying is correct, it is done on at the display level.

In the special case of HDR10+ Gaming, there is a concept of Source-Side Tone Mapping (SSTM), where the game console or PC can perform tone mapping before sending the signal to the display to reduce latency and more precisely match game output and ensure consistency intendant by the game creator.

[R3S3t9999]

There is luminance information in my Samsung monitor EDID though...
Maximum luminance: 96 (400.000 cd/m^2)
Minimum luminance: 1 (0.000 cd/m^2)
Maximum luminance (without local dimming): 74 (248.372 cd/m^2)
Minimum luminance (without local dimming): 2 (0.000 cd/m^2)

Similar story with my Hisense TV:
Vendor-Specific Video Data Block (HDR10+), OUI 90-84-8B:
Application Version: 1
Full Frame Peak Luminance Index: 3
Peak Luminance Index: 6
Vendor-Specific Data Block (AMD), OUI 00-00-1A:
Version: 0
Feature Caps: 0x00
Minimum Refresh Rate: 48 Hz
Maximum Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
Flags 1.x: 0x00
Flags 2.x: 0x04
Maximum luminance: 122 (702.501 cd/m^2)
Minimum luminance: 43 (0.200 cd/m^2)
Maximum luminance (without local dimming): 122 (702.501 cd/m^2)
Minimum luminance (without local dimming): 43 (0.200 cd/m^2)

[graham8]

Thanks. That's news to me. I don't suppose you know if the spec for those VSDBs is published anywhere?