The VideoLAN Forums

HDR movies are too dark. Where can i set the nit?
Changing the Brightness in Adjustments and Effects will make the picture look better but that is done in software which defeats the point of hardware decoding (high cpu usage + dropped frames when active).
Using vlc-4.0.0-20190104-0831-dev-win64

VLC

VLC with Image adjust.

MadVR

Hi, can you post the logs, so that we can look at what modules are loaded and what options have been enabled? There might be no HDR rendering on the first screen. Did you enabled HDR on windows or do you expect tone mapping instead?

I expect tone mapping. No HDR in Windows. There's definitely HDR tone mapping. This is how it looks on older VLC versions before you introduced HDR->SDR.
Log: https://pastebin.com/ZAiax7t6

Hi,

I have exactly the same issue, a movie 4k HDR that is quite dark.
MPV Player plays it normally, however Xplayer (native Linux Mint player) also seems to have similar problems like VLC.
Linux Mint 19.1, VLC 3.0.4

Messages from VLC:
https://pastebin.com/FhRBmYyh

Any help would be appreciated.

I just tested and found it a bit dark too.
Full range colours in via nvidiga gpu on a none hdr t
Tv.

Hi,

I have exactly the same issue, a movie 4k HDR that is quite dark.
MPV Player plays it normally, however Xplayer (native Linux Mint player) also seems to have similar problems like VLC.
Linux Mint 19.1, VLC 3.0.4

Messages from VLC:
https://pastebin.com/FhRBmYyh

Any help would be appreciated.

Is your VLC built with libplacebo in it?

Hi,

d3d11 seems to have an HW accelerated adjust video filter which can change contrast/brightness/hue/saturation/gamma values. Would it match your needs? I don't use windows a lot but maybe it's only lacking the interface to set it.

Hi,

I have exactly the same issue, a movie 4k HDR that is quite dark.
MPV Player plays it normally, however Xplayer (native Linux Mint player) also seems to have similar problems like VLC.
Linux Mint 19.1, VLC 3.0.4

Messages from VLC:
https://pastebin.com/FhRBmYyh

Any help would be appreciated.

Is your VLC built with libplacebo in it?

Hi Jean-Baptiste Kempf,

Not sure if it's build with libplacebo, as I have installed my VLC via main Mint repository.
I can only confirm, that libplacebo4 is installed in my OS.
I've just install another VLC 3.0.6 via flatpak to test if the issue repeats itself. It does.

Next, I wanted to install VLC from PPA like: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily
This one does not support Ubuntu Bionic on which Mint 19.1 runs. Also no packages on neither videolan website nor launchpad.

Another option is to try VLC 4.x which is in testing phase: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/master-daily
Added PPA, installed VLC 4.0.0-dev, and no change, still quite dark image (only in HDR video, the rest plays normal).


However, VLC is my daily driver and it works very well with all my movies, it's the first time I have encounter such dimm playback.
So it seems that it's HDR related, as all other movies still play fine, except the one I encountered yesterday, and it is a HDR version encoded with H.265/HEVC.

Running VLC in command line should tell you if it was configured with libplacebo or not.

Thanks for the info Jean-Baptiste Kempf,
No can see no information about it in the terminal output:

Running just VLC: Runing a movie from terminal:

Update to 3.0.6 and use -vvv for logs.

As mentioned above, I cannot update to VLC 3.0.6 as there are no packages with this version available, and videolan repository doesn't work for Ubuntu Bionic on which Linux Mint 19.1 is build, so "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily" doesn't work (not sure why, it should)

However, I could install it from a flatpak. I couldn't run a movie right from a command line this way, but I did run "vlc -vvv" and then opened a movie from the File->Open File. Also, it's a 4k HDR movie that runs from a HDD (not SSD), so some errors are probably normal due to slowness of HDD.

Here are the results of "vlc -vvv": https://pastebin.com/Fcwf1JZX

Any news here? I can turn up the brightness 1% and lower the contrast 1% in filters makes it ok. But using filters introduces stuttering for me. :/

Same question, any news here? VLC 3.0.8 still has the same issue.

Hi, I'm using VLC 3.0.12 and the issue still exists. My hardware setup is NVIDIA GTX1050m -> Intel UHD620 -> a 4K HDR 10bit display. Unfortunately I am not able to enable 10bit HDR on both Linux and Windows and the issue exists on both operation systems. Any news?

VLC 3.0.16
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19042.1052]
Problem still exists. SDR videos work without issue.
All HDR Videos (especially from Ultra BluRays) are too dark.
Default settings.
GTX 1070 directly connected via DisplayPort to an SDR 4K screen.

The only setting that seems to make a difference is force-setting Video output to DirectX (DirectDraw). Then I get a completely flat, desaturated picture, which is not good either.

This has been a problem for many many VLC versions now without improvements. So much that I actively avoid getting videos in HDR.
The Windows built-in applications "Movies & TV" and "Photos" do not have the same problem.
Help? Please

I also found this thread after finding HDR content to be too dark on VLC. When I play the same file using the built in windows Film & TV player, I have the same issue there too, but for some reason, when I click full screen on the windows player, it goes to a nice brightness level for 1 second, and then dims again and returns to being too dark. When connected to my 4k TV, the windows Film & TV player was brighter than VLC

3.0.16 and problem still exists. It seems that 1080p x265 10bit HDR looks slightly better than 2160p x265 10bit HDR. not so sure. already forgot what the true color is.

the same problem is issued.

The default tone mapping for HDR (Hable) is too dark, I recommend to switch it to "Reinhard" as I experienced the best quality (slightly better than MPV defaults)
Preferences -> All -> Video -> Output modules -> OpenGL -> Tone mapping -> Tone-mapping algorithm = Reinhard (simple non-linear)

I am still on 3.0.16. But HDR movies look better now on standard color screens!
The only thing I think I changed was update Windows 10.
I am on version 21H1 now (10.0.19043.1348)
Can somebody else confirm/reproduce?

I registered only to help you people fix this problem which I have fixed 2 minutes ago.

The thing is VLC doesn't automatically run on your GPU. You have to do this: Settings > System > Display > Graphics Settings (at the bottom of the menu) > Graphics performance preference > Desktop app > Browse > Choose "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" > After VLC being added to the list choose it and click options > Choose your GPU (High performance) > Save > Restart VLC and it works.

Use VLC 4.0 for propper HDR https://nightlies.videolan.org/

Hello all,

I search a lot for this problem, tried many video viewers, change parameters without success

In fact it's a HDR problem

I changed my old SDR graphic card with a new HDR one (RX6400) : everything is fine !