TiVo Edge and "Auto" HDR Question

You can turn Auto HDR off in the video settings menu. I don't like it myself, the color changes way too much. Even the Tivo menu colors are "too rich" or something. It's a big difference when you toggle it off.

 

Bolt TE4 has the same HDR setting and my TV ( Sony XBR49X900F) works fine with it on auto.
HDR is not on in menus or at least I can't tell any difference on or off.
About the only time I notice it is on is in Netflix but still it is fine.
When I get Edge I will see how it goes but I suspect the same.

 

I investigated this a bit with engineering and here is what I have learned:

With TiVo BOLT, BOLT+, BOLT VOX, BOLT OTA and with MINI VOX, we support both HDR10 and HLG. When you set HDR to “Auto”, we pass through whatever we get in, and you only get HDR when you are playing back full screen video with HDR (i.e. not when video is in a PIP, the guide is up, etc.).

With TiVo Edge, we can now do “tone mapping” to convert between one colorspace/format and another. We can also up-convert SDR into “fake” HDR. So, they changed the definition of what “Auto” does to have everything map into HDR10 or Dolby Vision, depending on what the TV can support. We convert it to 4K 60Hz PQ picture curve in a bt2020 color space and 12-bit color. We also up-convert our entire UI into HDR. So, you get more rich graphics in the UI, and the video is always HDR even when it’s playing in a window or in the background.

It sounds like a similar issue that Apple ran into with Apple TV. They added another option between Off and Auto called Match Dynamic Range to pass through the various HDR formats without tone mapping them. I am requesting that we add a similar option so that EDGE can handle HDR more like BOLT does.

 

This is going to be bad.. Most TV's blow out the brightness in HDR so you are going to get blown out colors and such

 

Well he said they are going to try to get it like Bolt so perhaps all will work out.

 

Where are these HDR options on the BOLT VOX and MINI VOX? I've used both on my LG OLED and have never seen these options.

 

Tivo Customer Support Community

 

Interesting. That is where I expected the option to be but I don't have it there on either of my MINI VOX devices. I do see it on my Bolt, however.

 

Option was added in the last TE4 update.
If you have TE3 you will not have the option.

 

I have version 21.9.2.v4-USC-11 on my BOLT and both MINI VOXs. Can anyone here confirm they see this HDR option on a MINI VOX?

 

I'm not getting DoVi (which is good) just HDR-10.

 

There is not an Auto option on the Mini Vox yet. It just functions as Auto

 

I would more then try

 

Tivo is doing something I don't understand with HDR. I also have a Bolt and it works completely different. First of all the metadata is contained in the content and apps that can use it to control your display settings only do so when it is present in the content. When I start the Edge my display pops up immediately withe the little HDR symbol. No content just the menu. I checked my LG display and sure enough it is locked into HDR mode. Even live tv is in HDR mode. When I launch Netflix app it switches the display settings to Dolby Vision mode. Again for content not containing Dolby vision metadata.

The Bolt only turned on the HDR mode when in an app that supported it and the content with metadata was played. I frequently have the HDMI video go unstable and require rebooting the Edge or my receiver. In addition this implementation of HDR eliminates the ability to adjust display settings for non-HDR content.

 

Well he just explained what they are doing

 

Is there any known content that the MINI VOX can display in HDR? I tried Netflix content that plays in Dolby Vision and/or HDR on other devices on my TV, along with some Vudu trailers for movies offered in HDR and HDR never engaged.