Optimum picture settings to view Netflix Dolby Vision content on Sony A1

[MrJoBangles]

Hi everyone. Sorry if this is done to death already but I'm struggling to find anything finite or concrete. Firstly I should clarify that I'm using the latest Netflix App on my A1 which has latest firmware. I have a good strong internet connection badged at 100mb but never drops below 29mb.

I get the Dolby Vision logo showing and TV flicks onto the correct auto HDR settings.

Trouble is, picture is terrible for predominantly dark scenes.... any dark areas sort of solarise into a blotchy mess. Gloomy scenes in likes of Daredevil and that new Haunted House show are unwatchable. I have managed to improve things a bit fiddling with the various picture ssttings but given there are literally 1000s of combinations I was wondering if someone had managed to find a decent picture set-up.

It's ridiculous I can get a better Netflix picture viewing in HD via my Humax PVR and I'm hugely disappointed that Sony and Netlix can't pull together and sort out a decent "auto" picture between them for these expensive OLED sets.

[digitalray]

I'm working in quality control for international movie, series and TV and had Elite expert training for HDR, also used in Hollywood (Which I don't really need to argument here)

Of course everyone can use settings which he likes, but I personally from a professional perspective can just 100% recommend against using these totally random settings, that don't have any relation to standards and working Sony TV settings.

What you would do with these settings is just to totally destroy the HDR Grading, it will change everything, none will be what it was made to look like.

The washed out effect on the Sony TV is simply related to a Dolby Vision profile for this TV.as this TV is not an OLED, it's not supposed to be used in a complete dark surrounding, as you will see light bloom from the local dimming LCD lights. If you watch the Dolby Vision movies in a normal dimmed room like daylight or normal room lights, the washed out effect is near to none. It depends on each movie or series how they were meant to look like.

Many formats are using slightly raised black levels, that's not an Error of the Sony TV, but a technical limitation of the used lcd-led hardware compared to OLED. If you want to watch in the dark, buy an OLED Sony TV. You will be presented with another Dolby Vision profile for darker blacks on these TVs.

To achieve a better picture nonetheless with the XF900, turn down the black level in the picture-> brightness options to 47 or 48. About 4 to 6 % of the dark areas will be cut off, but 3-5% are usually only used for camera black distortion and won't matter anyway. Any value below that will most likely give you wrong colours in dark areas like a dark green on surfaces depending on the grading style.

I measured this TV and it's settings with test graphics, also to see how each setting alters the black White gradients and the whole colorspace.

I will comment on some of the settings that are altered in the Reddit post:

Colour 64: just a slight increase to 55 gives more wow, and is already changing the look how it was intended to be. 64 is overkill.

Advanced contrast enhancer:

If some movies are really graded in a bad way, like some games and sdr is just stretched out might look washed out, of course changing the overall dynamic contrast (adv. Contrast enhancer) to a higher setting makes it look more colourful and blacks are darker, whites are brighter, you shouldn't go to Maximum though, medium is fine. I tested this on several movies.

Auto local dimming: setting it to high really improved the black level in dark areas and reduced light bloom around dark areas, but makes the light bloom in other areas more obvious, Also medium is the correct setting to show all content in dark areas and not to cut off anything. I personally set it to high anyway, as I watch in a darker room (which this TV is not made for though..) and have to live with light boom on this TV anyway.

Gamma:

They set it to max, that's 3. Changing the gamma curve doesnt make sense at all, as it just pushes the middle of the colourspace to a brighter level, this decreasing the dynamic to real HDR white flashes like in flashlights or shocking effects, that won't have much effect on you anymore then. It destroys the whole meaning of HDR dynamic. Leave it at zero and use the advanced contrast enhancer to medium if you really have a bad format. Many times though, a slightly dimmer "washed out and colourless" look is wanted in these movies, you are just not used to that, because you always watched with too much contrast and colours on your SDR TVs (200 nits white instead of a movie graded 100 nits white which is used in HDR mode), so you just fooled yourself with unreal colours before that you won't see in that intensity in real life.

The whole colour settings that reduce red and push green in the Reddit settings make no sense as the xf900 is accurately adjusted when you get it already, you can see that on rtings and other tech pages.

Sharpness: setting it to 70 instead of the standard 50 just introduces wrong pixels.

Raising the resolution of the reality creation from 20 to 75 is nonsense, as you are already viewing a.pixel to pixel UHD resolution like it is produced. Especially areas that are sightly blurred on purpose will lose that blur effect, you really alter the original UHD movie look to a totally sharpened look.

Motion flow: by setting smoothness to maximum, you are creating the soap opera effect. This TV as capable of displaying 24fps like the movie was made to be. With a correct sync, the Sony TV already inserts blacks on a very good overall brightness scale. The correct setting here would be "real cinema" and "high" on the motion settings to get the 24fps mode.

Live colour: it totally changes the whole colour space, and colours and gradients get lost in test pictures, apart from that in the background, you will not really see a difference with your eyes when changing this setting in DV HDR mode anyway. Leave it at standard setting off.

So: set your black level to 47 or 48, turn on the lights in your room, dim them a bit, but not too much, go with the other DV HDR settings like they are set from Sony and if you really get a very washed out movie, increase the advanced contrast enhancer to medium. If you like a more colourful experience, set colour to 55. Done.

[Del369]

@danielangelov91 thanks I'll give that a go.
@digitalray Here's an idea try the settings and then criticise them, I'll try yours and do the same.

For some strange reason the post says Motion/Smoothness - Max but I just noticed mine are set to 3.

I've tested these exclusively with Netflix which shows as TV/Apps - Dolby Vision one really good example is Snow Piercer Season one, watch that with these setting and tell me the whole season don't look amazing. Funny thing is even though Season 2 says Dolby Vision something does seem to be different because that is full of noise (Dialling  Sharpness back to 55 to see if it helps)

[digitalray]

Hi Del,

I think you got me wrong here. 

My reply was not about criticising, that's out of the picture here as I'm not talking about personal picture settings, which are better or worse.

I think I wrote in detail what these settings do.

Besides that, I already tried all the settings with test pictures and hardware waveform monitor to see how it affects the original signal.

When you work with this every day as quality control, you know from a look at the waveform signal and it's behaviour how the grading was done and what these settings do exactly.

Of course, you could try to alter each and every setting and get a picture that you like more. 

The initial question is: what do you want to achieve, and the second one: how can you achieve the result without losing picture quality, without altering the grading of the producers and without exceeding the limitations of your TV.

I believe you when you say that specific series or movies look "better" with a higher overall brightness and a stretched dynamic range and a higher reality creation resolution. We don't need to discuss that, I have also mentioned that you can achieve this with the advanced contrast enhancer setting, the negative effect of using this is losing dynamic range, crushing the gradients.

Your smoothness setting of 3 is what the Sony setting of "standard" uses anyway, so you are just using a standard setting here, what it will do is render in between frames that are motion blended and reduce the picture sharpness, that's why you need to use the high sharpness and reality creation resolution to try to fix that again.

By using "real cinema" you will achieve a smooth framerate and at the same time no in between motion blended pictures, no altered pictures and the original sharpness that doesn't need to be optimized.

[Del369]

Hi @digitalray I saw people in the Reddit thread having a virtual meltdown about the settings seemingly without trying them and personally I found that a bit self limiting 😁 but yea I understand where you're coming from. The strangest thing though, the Reddit settings (minus that one Motion/Smoothness from Max to 3) really do look amazing on my TV for "most" series for example Snow Piercer (on Netflix) Season 1, but NOT Season 2 then the same settings look awful and full of noise, and then I tried your settings and they look fantastic, however if I try your settings on  Season 1 I find faces are to dark (the annoying thing where a face will have half hidden in shadow) so I guess they must have filmed both season slightly differently.

Anyway I'll be making a note of both sets of settings and using both as appropriate, so many thanks for your suggestions as well. 

[Del369]

For anyone reading this thread, my settings are for the XF9005 my apologies I've just seen that this thread is all about the Sony A1, sorry it was late and I did search "Best Dolby Vision setting Sony XF9005" to get here, damn Google 😁

[digitalray]

I was referring to the XF9005 too.

[digitalray]

I checked the perfect netflix Dolby Vision settings for the XBR XF9005 / XF900 again with the current Android and firmware settings in July 2021 for complete black and correct EOTF curve.

No blooming (the least possible with this TV), perfect black (local dimming turning completely off in black areas, no dim LCD background lighting) and no washed out colours anymore:

Best setting overall is:

- the completely dark room setup:

Room setup: No lights, no reflections, all window shutters closed, night time, perfectly blacked out.

Android DV settings:

> Set to default and make sure contrast is set to max 100 (new default with the latest firmware, before this update it was 90 some time ago)

> Gamma: minus 3 (min, gamma 2.5)

> Black Level: 49

> Motion Flow: True Cinema (Film Mode: High)

Leave all other settings on default like

Brightness: max (100)

Local dimming: medium or high (there are different views on that, some say high would cut off some gradients, I can't confirm that in the latest firmware, others say it's needed to display the highest contrast. There is a marginal difference really, medium might compensate minimal light bloom better than high in some areas whereas high turns down the LCD lighting a tick more and might stop minimal bloom at all, but might make it more obvious as well with high contrasts in the picture. I don't have a final take on what's better overall, most of the time I can't make out any difference at all).

Next setup would probably be the most used one, and the 2nd best possible:

- the dark room setup:

Room setup:

Lights dimmed, not 100% dark, window shutters almost closed, afternoon, home cinema atmosphere 

Android DV settings:

> Set to default and make sure contrast is set to max 100

> Gamma: minus 2 (Gamma 2.4)

> Black Level: 48 (instead of 49 or 50) to get a complete black with local dimming turning off black zones completely and a corrected EOTF without washed out colours.

> Motion Flow: True Cinema (Film Mode: High)

Leave all other settings on default.

Next setup:

- the normal daylight setup without direct sunlight shining into the room, normal day with some clouds from time to time

Android DV settings:

> Set to default and make sure contrast is set to max 100

> Gamma: 0 (default, gamma 2.2)

> Black Level: 48 instead of 49 or 50 to get a complete black with local dimming turning off black zones completely and a corrected EOTF without washed out colours.

> Motion Flow: True Cinema (Film Mode: High)

Leave all other settings on default.

For very sunny days and reflections you can turn gamma up to plus 2 for a more colorful and brighter picture without having distortions. I'm a bit sceptical about the max (+3) setting, but you cold try it as well to get the most vivid picture possible in a very bright environment.

As I see it, sony used an altered EOTF for the DV profile as most people would watch in a brighter room, therefore a total black is not needed and brightness and colours will be pumped up a bit where 100 nits would result in 130 then.

This will give a washed out effect though in my eyes as the whole graded contrast is stretched and not identical to the intended lighting anymore.

It might cover light bloom effect on this tv or not, I don't really know why they did it, maybe to comply with some Dolby Vision bright room TV profile as the Dark profile couldn't be met 100%..

Anyways, these settings, especially the completely darkened room setting should make you enjoy the movies again at the closest to how they were graded an meant to be watched by the producers.

Enjoy.

I tried to find a thread that is labelled XF9005 and Netflix and dolby vision, but couldn't find one so this here seemed to be the most appropriate one.

Please copy/ move this post to the correct thread as well if there is a current one for the xf9005 and DV problems in Netflix.

For Disney plus with dolby vision the perfect settings are:

Default and then:

Gamma: -2 (minus 2)

Black Level: 47

Local dimming: high 

Motion: true cinema 

Just watched The Mandalorian Ep 9 The Marshal at night, lights off.

Amazing.

[Del369]

Hi Digital, I needed to comeback and get these settings again, somehow my Netflix was looking awful so reset the App to defaults and just did what you said below and wow the picture is absolutely stunning.

Many thanks and a Happy New Year.