Grayed out blacks in videos after latest Xbox One OS update

[KaleN]

VLC for Xb1 worked fine until yesterday when the Xbox updated its OS. To be clear: the VLC app did not update.

Now, any video that's played through VLC will, so to speak, "fade to gray" whenever most of the picture is supposed to be black. Yes, it is very strange...

It seemed to me at first to be a color space problem, but it only affects VLC. And, as said, the picture does actually "fade" to gray. Then, when more light areas are on screen, it reverts back to normal black levels. And then, in darker sequences, the picture grays out again...

This little idiosyncrasy practically spoils the whole app for me, which is a shame because it's otherwise excellent.

I've collated with the Xbox Media Player app, using the same videos, and it's definitely a VLC problem.

Am I alone in experiencing this?

[mfkl]

Hi,

Which Xbox One OS version are you running?
Have you tried uninstalling and installing the app again?

[GuiPoM]

Hello !

I noticed this exact same issue with VLC beta on my Xbox one S.
VLC is still working but image is terrible. I mean, on an OLED display, black bars are totally greyed out and image is not as beatutiful as it was.

I first thought it was coming from the media I used, but all seems impacted.

I will try the uninstall/install you mentionned, in case it helps !

[mfkl]

Hey GuiPoM,
Which OS version number do you have?
You have this issue with every video you're saying? That seems odd as no one else reported this issue.

I will test with a Xbox One S shortly.

[kali]

Hi,
i have exactly the same problem on my OLED TV with the the newest Xbox one OS which i installed last week.

[kali]

uninstall/install didn't help

[GuiPoM]

Hey GuiPoM,
Which OS version number do you have?
You have this issue with every video you're saying? That seems odd as no one else reported this issue.

I will test with a Xbox One S shortly.

I will have to check tonight and I will report here later. It is latest 1709 release, it must be 16299.

[GuiPoM]

I uninstalled and installed again:

Here is the version :

And one example:


It is pretty visible on my 3D side by side movies. For some standard movies, black is black, but it has to do with the image resolution ... Maybe this is o,ly one settings which has changed between the two versions of xbox firmwares and has nothing to do directly with VLC. I noticed during the initial restart of the xbox that for my TV it was as if another new device was plugged in.

But I have no idea what could have changed, if something changed !

[mfkl]

Will get myself an xbox one S soon. Sit tight...

[kali]

any news?

[mfkl]

I'm buying an Xbox One S this weekend to look into this.

[GuiPoM]

Don't spend too much money for investigating a bug ^^ Maybe a One X would be a better deal now :p

I am still not sure if it comes from VLC, or the last update from Xbox. I was told something has changed around color display in this update, but I can't find any confirmation !

[jleholeho]

yes, I can confirm the same issue on my LG OLED TV, Netflix, Media Player or any other app does not do it, it seems VLC is the only one affected

[mfkl]

Tested with a Samsung LED TV, running the latest app from the store on Xbox One S, OS version 16299 (rs3 171012-1520), x264 mkv file shows no issue.

Please share one of your files.

[kali]

This problem is on OLED TV

[GuiPoM]

I guess mfkl will not buy an OLED display in addition to the Xbox! ^^ but my issue is also noticeable on my LG c6v OLED.
Issue compared to LCD is that if blacks are not black, you can clearly see it!

[mfkl]

Argh... Will ask around for an OLED TV but that's gonna be tricky.

[GuiPoM]

hello mfkl !

As I still have issues when watching movies on VLC from my One S, I was having a look on google and found many interesting threads. For example: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/149-blu-r ... -a-72.html

11-04-2017, 06:08 AM nickthemajin : Xbox One S black now appears grey on OLED TV

Not sure it is what I can see is linked to this issue, but most probably, yes. I don't know if dev can more easily reports issues than customer, but in case you can validate this issue, maybe you will have an idea where to report it !

[b_squared]

I thought I'd add some info to this issue based on my experiences.

First, I don't think this is strictly related to OLED. My TV is a slightly older standard LED TV and I am having the same issue described in this thread (grey/washed out black levels after Xbox update). I have tried a variety of files and file types with a variety of codecs and the issue persists across the board.

After playing around a bit, I found that if you go into the Xbox system settings and go to "Display & sound > Video Output > Video Fidelity" and change "Color Space" from "Standard (Recommended)" to "PC RGB," (select "Switch anyway" on the warning) then videos played with the VLC app now display correct black levels. The problem with this is that everything outside of the VLC app will be too dark and feature prominent black crush, as most TVs do not offer the RGB full color range.

For example, under the "Standard" color space (in the Xbox display settings) a video played through VLC will have black levels that are too grey/washed out, but the same video file played through, say, Microsoft's basic media player app, will show the correct black levels. But, under the "PC RGB" color space, VLC will show the correct black levels, but, when the same file is played through Microsoft's media player, blacks will be too dark and the video will suffer from severe black crush.

At the very least, anyone that absolutely needs to play a video through VLC can just temporarily switch to PC RGB to display the correct black levels.

Hope this helps

[jleholeho]

I thought I'd add some info to this issue based on my experiences.

First, I don't think this is strictly related to OLED. My TV is a slightly older standard LED TV and I am having the same issue described in this thread (grey/washed out black levels after Xbox update). I have tried a variety of files and file types with a variety of codecs and the issue persists across the board.

After playing around a bit, I found that if you go into the Xbox system settings and go to "Display & sound > Video Output > Video Fidelity" and change "Color Space" from "Standard (Recommended)" to "PC RGB," (select "Switch anyway" on the warning) then videos played with the VLC app now display correct black levels. The problem with this is that everything outside of the VLC app will be too dark and feature prominent black crush, as most TVs do not offer the RGB full color range.

For example, under the "Standard" color space (in the Xbox display settings) a video played through VLC will have black levels that are too grey/washed out, but the same video file played through, say, Microsoft's basic media player app, will show the correct black levels. But, under the "PC RGB" color space, VLC will show the correct black levels, but, when the same file is played through Microsoft's media player, blacks will be too dark and the video will suffer from severe black crush.

At the very least, anyone that absolutely needs to play a video through VLC can just temporarily switch to PC RGB to display the correct black levels.

Hope this helps

Yes, I can confirm this PC RGB setting works on my LG OLED C6 and improves black level, but since it´s just a temporary workaround, there definitely needs to be a general fix for this issue.

[jleholeho]

Still no fix for this issue?? Playback is still grayed out in VLC on OLED TVs...

[mfkl]

Fix is there, need to push an update soon.

[GuiPoM]

This is a very good news
I have to admit that I did not used my xbox one s since I applied the latest update, too lazy to change a lot of settings each time I want to watch a movie.
This fix will be greatly appreciated !

[jleholeho]

Fix is there, need to push an update soon.

Excellent:)
and regarding bitstream audio (there´s another thread for it), have you tried to get hold of an access to the Exclusive Mode in SDK in order to implement it?
It´s been said that it should be possible for a 3rd party app.

[bobross]

I'm having this problem too on OLED

Xbox app version: 2.5.5.6