UP2718Q, washed out HDR

Hi @llmercll, 

My colleague @DELL-Chris M has posted a handy FAQ article on HDR and how to troubleshoot certain scenarios when colours etc are washed out. It should help to answer your query. Here is the link to the article

Alan

Also, read through this =

Troubleshooting your Dell UP2718Q Monitor

Hi

I think he's trying to make the same point as I did, even if all of the settings are correct with both Windows and the Monitor the two out of the box calibrations both have issues.

Normal - Very dark and colours washed out, no bloom

Vivid - Bright with vibrant colours but has terrible bloom

Looking at some reviews especially TFT Central when measuring the luminescence it was noted that the Normal mode was under the 1000 cd/m2 limit while Vivid was above it, hence the bloom effect.

It would be nice to have an updated profile to try and get the monitor more balanced for HDR or allow it to be calibrated.

Chris

"or allow it to be calibrated."

It can and should be calibrated?

We offered the DUCCS (Dell Ultrasharp Color Calibration Solution) software and the DUCCS User's Guide to be used with the X-Rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter.

As far as I knew DUCCS could not alter the Smart HDR profiles (Normal & Vivid) 

I thought it was used to calibrate the monitors standard profiles, without Smart HDR enabled, storing them in CAL 1 & CAL 2 

Chris

I've just gotta say I find it funny there's a Chris and Chris M in this thread, since I too, am a Chris M.

Anyway,

There is no option to calibrate the smartHDR settings, DUUCS doesn't handle that only color profiles as far as I know.

I agree with Gatterix though, we're experiencing the same phenomena. I believe it just comes down to poorly "programmed" HDR modes. Hopefully it's an easy fix that Dell's programmers can roll out through firmware, but they need to be made aware of it.

I've tested my PC with my LG B7 and the B7's HDR is stunning in contrast to the UP2718Q's. I can't even complain about the bloom BUT it would be nice to have a brightness setting so the user had as much control over it as possible. 

The solution would be 

1. Lowering the brightness in vivid mode

OR

1. Raising the color gamut in normal mode to match vivid.
   
   Better yet just giving us an independent HDR menu with a brightness slider and allowing us to set our color gamut when HDR is enabled.

Currently there are two options however and neither are done well. I'd really appreciate a fix considering the price of this monitor and it being Ultra HD Premium Certified.

I want Dell to be aware of this issue. Will you notify the relevant department or give me the means to?

The Displays Team reads all of these threads. No, users cannot contact them directly. If they see an issue that can be worked, they notify me. Currently, the Dell HDR modes meet our manufacturer specifications. Other than the three users on the Forum, this complaint is not appearing on any Technical Support reports. Until it reaches a certain level of users, it is not a "systemic" fault.

I believe there are many others out there unfamiliar with this novel technology who may not realize the shortcomings with both normal and vivid HDR modes, but who also feel something isn't quite right with their only 2 options. Tft central noticed it as well, and I've posted a link below. I don't understand why Dell would manufacture and advertise a premium HDR UHD alliance certified display with FALD backlight, 1000 peak nits, and wide color gamut and then ship it with seemingly minor programming oversights that keep users from experiencing this powerful and expensive hardware in a practical way. I would argue that it is a systemic fault, and essentially makes HDR mode unusable because it's an overall picture quality downgrade from SDR (UHD alliance certified HDR is the main driving point of this monitor).

To fix the issue all Dell would need to do is add an HDR brightness setting in a firmware update (every HDR TV I've used has one of these, I honestly don't know if it's a different situation with monitors but I don't imagine it would be).

The justification would be to do it for the people out there using their UP2718Q's for HDR who aren't getting the experience they hoped for and paid for. We know of 3, I'm sure there's more, and I believe there are people using it who don't quite understand the issue but notice it as well (or just think that's how HDR is supposed to be). It's your flagship product, fix it, what else are you going to do?

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_up2718q.htm#hdr

"We found some somewhat mixed results with the HDR option though from the PS4 console. In the 'vivid' HDR mode there was excessive blooming, to the point where it looked really bad. You got massive bright blooms around bright areas, for instance in the loading screen where you have a small spinning coin on a black background, and a small white progress % shown. Those really highlighted the excessive blooming and bright halos. It looks almost like really bad IPS glow or backlight bleed, but it was a result of the local dimming backlight. It was not as obvious in normal gaming where you have far more varied content, but the vivid mode seemed to produce too much of this glow. We did find the 'normal' HDR mode much better though thankfully, and the blooming was only slight on the aforementioned loading screen. Again in actual gaming you couldn't really detect any major problems. This mode did seem to be darker overall though, so perhaps there is some limitation of the peak luminance range going on here. The user manual doesn't mention anything, but there is a marked difference in how bright the bright areas appear between vivid and normal. Although as we said, the vivid mode then results in a massive amount of blooming. We have heard some reports that there is some noticeable lag from the FALD as well, where it seems to take a noticeable amount of time to change a zone on the backlight as content changes. E.g. a bright object moving across a dark background will show a lag to the dimming zones and therefore a bloom trail behind it. We will try to produce some further tests and update this part of the review if we can and provide some further thoughts (updated tests in a moment below)."