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iPlayer HLG/UHD HDR on Samsung’s J and K Series TVs

(Topic created on: 21-12-2017 06:19 PM)
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ewanstancarr
Pathfinder
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So, of the nigh on 400 TVs supported in BBC iplayer for the Blue Planet II  HLG episodes none are from Samsung. Oh joy. 

...

Moderator edit: Original thread title was "Blue Planet 2 HLG - No Samsung". With the OP's permission, the title was changed on 12/03/2018 to accurately reflect the dominant theme of the thread as it has progressed. If the reader would like to know more about the HLG format, please check out the BBC's page and FAQ's on it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/high-dynamic-range Thank you, AntS.

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Phil12
Voyager
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@TheChosenOne wrote:

I have also reported this fiasco to BBC Watchdog and hope they report this in their programmes. Samsung you have explicitly betrayed your customers with false promises that clearly have not delvered. SHAME ON YOU!


Hi

 

If anything there is a good chance they will pick this up, if for no other reason they can use the article to advertise iPlayer and 4K.  The BBC is good at using any opportunity it can to plug itself 🙂

 

Regards

 

Phil

StuN
Apprentice
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I hope you’re right. I’ve only had my KS9000 for 3 months & I’m a tad peeved about the situation.
If this was a smart phone it would have guaranteed updates for min 2 years!
I’ve always bought Samsung TVs (upgrading every couple of years) but if they don’t get this sorted, it will be my last.
cyenz
Explorer
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I have a KS7000 (2016 model) and i just want to Samsung to fulfill their promises regarding 2016 getting HLG and HDR10+. Will certantly have an impact when i choose my TV upgrade next year.

ukpetey
Pioneer
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What annoys me more than just about anything else is: looking at the list of manufacturers whose tv’s ARE supported are a whole bunch who I never even considered because I assumed they’d be ****. I’m looking specifically at Hisense, Philips, Logik, Finlux, Techwood. 

 

But no, I told myself to buy from one of the top makes, to spend more was to buy wisely, my investment would be protected by quality customer service. 

 

I don’t even have any desire to watch Blue Planet 2. Nature programmes bore me really, although I’d have a look, and show the wife exactly why I spent so much on a telly! But at some point, the BBC will show programmes which do interest me, in HDR on iplayer. And I ***** well want my most expensive telly I’ve ever bought, to show them to me. 

mrtickle
Helping Hand
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@Phil12 wrote:

@mrtickle wrote:

@Kallb123 wrote:

What's this about HDR10+? Last I read the 2016 models should be receiving a firmware update for it. Has that changed?


Just to be clear, hear is (typo to get past censorship of that word) the exact wording, copied verbatim from the press release (the April announcement). “All of Samsung’s 2017 UHD TVs, including its premium QLED TV lineup, support HDR10+. In the second half of this year, Samsung’s 2016 UHD TVs WILL gain HDR10+ support through a firmware update.”

 

That's "WILL". No Ifs, buts, or maybes. A Press Release, cleared through the legal deparment. That is a copper-bottom promise.

 

The problems are several:

  1. Amazon has launched HDR10Plus, but only in America's Amazon Prime and not the UK's.
  2. Amazon refuses to change their rubbish Interface so show which content is HDR10Plus and which is HDR10, so there's no way to be sure what format is being streamed.
  3. We've been waiting all year since the announcement, and not one single HDR10Plus downloadable demo exists in the entire world. So we can't test it and be sure.
  4. Samsung's Info banner display doesn't work inside Apps, so we are entirely at the mercy of app developers to tell us what video format we are getting (see point 2).
  5. The December press release from Samsung - Samsung and Amazon Prime Video First to Launch HDR10+ Content - conspicuously omits mention of 2016 models....

 


Hi

 

I'm in the UK and was watching HDR10+ content from Amazon Prime on the launch day.  I can see the TV enter HDR mode (we can see from the increased brightness setting in the Picture menu that HDR mode is engaged), and it certainly looked like HDR content in 4K.  This is on a 2017 Q7F model.    All of Amazons HDR content is shown under the same category so easy to find.  I can't vouch for support on 2016 models though.

 

Regards

 

Phil

 

 


Hi Phil,

Yes it looks like HDR (and is HDR) - but unless and until Amazon change the interface to say "this is HDR10" or "this is HDR10Plus" you have no way of knowing which flavour of HDR10 you are watching.

Just the TV switching to HDR settings isn't enough.

That doesn't tell you whether you are watching HDR10Plus content, or HDR10 content.

 

The press releases said that it Amazon were not streaming to the UK yet. If they are, great, but how would you ever know... see the problem?

 

Btw. Amazon's stupid policy of listing HDR content as separate TITLES, is maddening and makes no sense.

They can easily have a category and put them in there.

But there is no excuse for "The Tick" HDR version being a completely separate TITLE from "The Tick". We don't have "The Tick [HD]" and "The Tick [SD]" and "The Tick [stereo sound]" and "The Tick [5.1 sound]" as 4 separate titles do we.

Half of the HDR titles do not appear in search results for "Ultra HD" or "HDR" - you actually have to know they are their and spend ages drilling to the ends of the Ultra HD category to find them.

If you add anything to your Watching list, from any other device in the world, it will default to the plain non-HDR version even if it's available in HDR. See the problem? it's dumb, dumb.

 

Only problems today unfortunately 😞

 

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mrtickle
Helping Hand
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@ukpetey wrote:

What annoys me more than just about anything else is: looking at the list of manufacturers whose tv’s ARE supported are a whole bunch who I never even considered because I assumed they’d be crap. I’m looking specifically at Hisense, Philips, Logik, Finlux, Techwood. 

 


Indeed. Philips' demise has been very sad to watch over a long period of time, they used to make good quality audio-visual electronics products but those days are long done.

 

Samsung needs to look at what their COMPETITION are doing, and you can easily lose years of goodwill and a quality brand identity by trashing your existing customers. 


@ukpetey wrote:

I don’t even have any desire to watch Blue Planet 2. Nature programmes bore me really, although I’d have a look, and show the wife exactly why I spent so much on a telly! But at some point, the BBC will show programmes which do interest me, in HDR on iplayer. And I ***** well want my most expensive telly I’ve ever bought, to show them to me. 


Me too. I bought "The Planet 2" on UHD Blu-Ray disc this year to bask in its HDR glory, and it is glorious, even though I am not that interested in these things normally. But something that looks breath-taking is still going to be breath-taking.

 

Amazed
Explorer
Options

Hi. I own a 2016 49KS7000 and I cannot believe that it has been declared obsolete by Samsung by their refusal to activate HDR HLG with BBC iPlayer. That's really a kick in the teeth for anyone loyal to a brand. Please sort it out, even if it can't be done in time for the Blue Planet trial ending, although that would be a nice holiday gesture to get it sorted before hand....

mrtickle
Helping Hand
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@paul1111 wrote:

@Tezz wrote:

I've just streamed a HLG file from my NAS to my KS9500 UK and it played great in HLG\HDR.

http://4kmedia.org/lg-cymatic-jazz-hdr-hlg-uhd-4k-demo/

 

I don't know if that helps anyone?


Will give it a go, wish Samsung would supply some samples HLG samples and if they work then great. Bit worried as the sample says HDR/HLG, so how do you know if it is actually playinh HLG?


Apologies for the late reply.

 

a) You can download a program called MediaInfo which tells you the technical details of the video. 'Ere are some edited highlights of the output from MediaInfo for that file:

 

Complete name : LG_Cymatic_Jazz_HLG_Astra_teststream.ts
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 738 MiB
Duration : 4 min 57 s
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : HLG / BT.2020
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant

 

The line in bold shows it's HLG and it's using the Wide Colour Gamut BT2020.

 

If you run MediaInfo through other clips which use a different flavour of HDR called "PQ", standardised in SMPTE ST 2084 which forms the basis of HDR10, you'll see this instead:

 

Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : SMPTE ST 2084
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant

Then the "metadata"
Mastering display color primaries : R: x=0.680000 y=0.320000, G: x=0.265000 y=0.690000, B: x=0.150000 y=0.060000, White point: x=0.312700 y=0.329000
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0200 cd/m2, max: 1200.0000 cd/m2

 

Both HDR10 and HLG are ways of delivering High Dynamic Range (HDR) video. HDR is the all-encompassing term: it's very important to realise that it doesn't just mean "HDR10".

 

b) easier way, the TV switching to HDR settings in Movie and Standard modes are normal, and you can pause the clip and it says it's HDR on the screen for you! Apologies for the quality but it's hard to take a picture because you have to be VERY quick!

 

Cymatic Jazz HDR info bar-with arrow.png

 

This is the reason why we know for certain that HLG support was added in firmware v1165 which had a build date of 9th Feb 2017: that HLG clip didn't work before, yet it did work with v1165.1 and all later firmwares.

 

By the way, the other HLG transport stream (ts) file - TravelXP - needs to be repaired before it can be used because the TV doesn't like the audio format. Download a copy of FFmpeg and run:

ffmpeg.exe -i TravelXP_4K_HDR_HLG.ts -vcodec copy -acodec copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc TravelXP_4K_HDR_HLG-2.mp4

only useful as an exercise - the footage is easily watched on youtube.

 

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impydave
First Poster
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Already decided the Jan sales are going to be used to look around, goodbye Samsung, I think they way you've written off 12-18 month old TV's is nothing short of scandalous!

 

Maybe we can go down the "Not fit for purpose" route? 

t609480
First Poster
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I have a 2016 - 65 KS8000 H E R E! I've been a loyal Samsung TV buyer in the past. I truly do like my KS8000, however I am beyond disappointed with the customer service provided for the expensive purchase I have made.

(not to mention I had to return my first purchase since it had a horrible hardware defect since the materials and build quality has been sub-par - also my current TV is slowly over time developing light bleed and flashlighting)

 

I have read about the past broken firmware updates that have been released and have been especially careful not to update the firmware of my panel for fear of further breaking my TV. My un-updated TV has some issues. The picture color separating during Game Mode. HDR mode not being intuitive, automatic, or customer friendly like saving preferences to a profile. Invasive ADs being displayed in the Smart app. Etc etc etc etc ad naseum

I'd like to update my firmware but I'm between a rock and a hard place since the software updates available fix one thing and break two other things, or take a way features from the TV Set. HDR ribbon alerts, HLG, BBC iPlayer, etc.

 

I purchased an expensive product and I'm not a lesser citizen because I don't purchase a new TV each and every calendar year. I should not have to buy a 2017 model to get the 2016 feature set that can be added to my current product. I would like continued software updates and product support going into the future for my less than a year old TV. The HDR 10+ update and game mode fixes and enhancements for example. It has been rumored to be coming by marketing, PR, and high up executives but has not been delivered to my TV via software update. Please make it happen.

 

My loyalty is a privalege and not a right. If my continued loyalty is sought after, by Sumsung, I suggest that it continue to be earned with continued quality updates and good customer service. Otherwise my loyalty is subject to change in the future.