# Dolby Vision/HDR



## Willie Williams (Apr 10, 2021)

I noticed recently that when I have Dolby Vision, HDR, and Auto HDR all activated in settings. HDR content doesn't activate. When I turn of only Dolby Vision. HDR finaly works, but then there's no Dolby Vision (Dolby Vision content plays but only in regular hdr). Does this happen to everyone on this device?


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## FlyingHavoc (1 mo ago)

I can confirm the same behavior with my LG Oled C2.
HDR doesn't trigger but Dolby Vision is ON and vice versa.

But I was also worried about White tint on Black scenes when playing back Dolby Vision at least (haven't tested this with HDR though)
Do you observe the same?

I could run the same video playback natively on my LG Oled C2 and Black level is perfect - no white tint.
Then try again witht the same file and Black level is horrible


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## Willie Williams (Apr 10, 2021)

FlyingHavoc said:


> I can confirm the same behavior with my LG Oled C2.
> HDR doesn't trigger but Dolby Vision is ON and vice versa.
> 
> But I was also worried about White tint on Black scenes when playing back Dolby Vision at least (haven't tested this with HDR though)
> ...


No white tint here. Blacks are very black on my qled. I don’t have an oled though.

I‘ve been sea around and apparently the chromecast 4k with google tv has the same problem as the tivo stream 4k.


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## FlyingHavoc (1 mo ago)

White tint on Black scenes is gone after reboot. So it was likely another random bug...
So this bug only remains now with DV+HDR (Auto HDR on).


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## Willie Williams (Apr 10, 2021)

FlyingHavoc said:


> I can confirm the same behavior with my LG Oled C2.
> HDR doesn't trigger but Dolby Vision is ON and vice versa.
> 
> But I was also worried about White tint on Black scenes when playing back Dolby Vision at least (haven't tested this with HDR though)
> ...


I may have found a solution. I turned on HDR, Dolby Vision, and Auto HDR in settings. Then I got the tvquickactions pro app from the play store and linked a button to: Droid Settings>DolbyVisionSettingsActivity (I'm sure this could be launched using adbLink and without even using tvquickactions pro ). I press the button I linked the activity to, and a Dolby Vision Set menu appeared on the right. I switched from Dolby vision sink-led (which is the default), to the 2nd option, Dolby vision source-led.

Now all my media is playing correctly. SDR media is SDR, HDR media activates HDR, and Dolby Vision media activates Dolby Vision. I'm not 100% sure if this settings switch affects picture quality or not. There's no info about it on the internet. From my eyes I see no difference or degradation in picture or color quality. I think I read somewhere that source-led is preferred but I think all this setting does is choose if you want your tv (sink-led) to decide when to activate HDR/DV content, or your device (TiVo Stream 4K/source-led) to decide when to activate HDR/DV. DV profile setting may or may not be affected, idk.






I'm not sure if this is the same thing or not. In the video jt's not called sink-led vs source-led so I assume it's not the same thing.


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## StreamerUser (Jan 24, 2021)

Willie Williams said:


> I may have found a solution. I turned on HDR, Dolby Vision, and Auto HDR in settings. Then I got the tvquickactions pro app from the play store and linked a button to: Droid Settings>DolbyVisionSettingsActivity (I'm sure this could be launched using adbLink and without even using tvquickactions pro ). I press the button I linked the activity to, and a Dolby Vision Set menu appeared on the right. I switched from Dolby vision sink-led (which is the default), to the 2nd option, Dolby vision source-led.
> 
> Now all my media is playing correctly. SDR media is SDR, HDR media activates HDR, and Dolby Vision media activates Dolby Vision. I'm not 100% sure if this settings switch affects picture quality or not. There's no info about it on the internet. From my eyes I see no difference or degradation in picture or color quality. I think I read somewhere that source-led is preferred but I think all this setting does is choose if you want your tv (sink-led) to decide when to activate HDR/DV content, or your device (TiVo Stream 4K/source-led) to decide when to activate HDR/DV. DV profile setting may or may not be affected, idk.
> 
> ...


Its certainly a viable workaround, even if not a solution, at least until TiVo provides fixed firmware (or at least a firmware setting to choose between LL and Standard DV, like the GCCWGTV does, which provides a workaround, if not a solution)

The "no HDR10/HLG outyput bug" (non-DV HDR) with DV-enabled problem started when TiVo released the latest firmware (build 4515) late last year/early this year - it was reported to them at the time (and multiple times since), but they havent fixed it with a new firmware (to be fair to TiVo, this exact issue exists for other platforms such as the GCCWGTV and Android 12, so TiVo is probably waiting on/looking to Google for some guidance for their actual fix, though they could have offered a new firmware with the LL/Standard DV setting months ago).

The setting exists because all Dolby Vision implementations need to support Low Latency ("source led") or Standard ("sink led") DV depending on the DV type/level of the detected/connected device.

(NOTE: The GCCWGTV actually makes this setting (LL/Standard DV) available to the user in their Android 12 firmware versions; the NS makes this setting available in the Developer options of their latest Android 11 build)

There are plenty that do argue/can show that LLDV is utterly inferior in terms of overall IQ, mostly because a TV is specifically configured to tone map/process for itself, whereas the playback device cant/doesnt for that specific display device.

Regardless this (LL instead of Standard DV) works as a (temporary?) workaround until TiVo provides a firmware fix.


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

I just hooked up my Stream 4k to a TV with HDR for the first time, and of course I encountered the same issues. The HDR settings definitely don't work right in the current firmware. It was rather confusing. Hope they will fix it.

For now my compromise is to enable HDR and Auto, but don't enable Dolby Vision. I lose Dolby Vision, but it still supports HDR10 and HDR10+, and it automatically switches between SDR and HDR as needed.


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## Willie Williams (Apr 10, 2021)

spocko said:


> I just hooked up my Stream 4k to a TV with HDR for the first time, and of course I encountered the same issues. The HDR settings definitely don't work right in the current firmware. It was rather confusing. Hope they will fix it.
> 
> For now my compromise is to enable HDR and Auto, but don't enable Dolby Vision. I lose Dolby Vision, but it still supports HDR10 and HDR10+, and it automatically switches between SDR and HDR as needed.


Yeah I tried this before the Dolby Vision setup trick I wrote. I ended up going back to doing this because at least this way I can framerate match a little better. 24hz, 29hz etc medi plays with a little less jutter/studder this way. With this Hdr works, Dv still plays, and simply I have more screen resolution/refresh rate options than with DV on. Which is great because tvquickactions pro has auto frame rate when using smarttubenext, and vimu media player.

EDIT: I went back to the way I did it in my previous post. I continued to test dolby vision off, and the colors in dolby vision is WAYYY too good to turn off (it’s better than hdr mode even in dv on/source led mode, honestly source led mode looks just as good as sink led). It’s a big difference even in clarity versus hdr mode it seems because it gets brighter in areas where it needs to be brighter at, colors POP (especially reds, yellows, and peach colors, fires look better to), and are way more vivid. Playing dv media with dv off and in hdr mode makes the colors look to dull, dim, and flat in comparison. It’s not bad, but it’s super noticeable and dv on is the clear winner. I’ll just deal with the occasional judder/stutter.

The media I tested this on is House of the Dragon season 1 episode 4. The first 9, maybe 10 minutes is all inside. As soon as the scene where they’re outside come on. You immediately see the difference between playing dv in hdr mode, and playing it with dv on in sink or source led mode. That whole scene, and few scenes after is definitely noticeably better with dv on.


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

Interesting. I am new to the world of HDR, and maybe I'm doing something wrong or just don't know what to look for, but I haven't noticed a big difference between HDR and DV, or frankly even between HDR and SDR. I do have a TV that supports all the HDR formats and is supposed to be capable of good HDR. Guess I need to look more carefully.


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## FlyingHavoc (1 mo ago)

Willie Williams said:


> I may have found a solution. I turned on HDR, Dolby Vision, and Auto HDR in settings. Then I got the tvquickactions pro app from the play store and linked a button to: Droid Settings>DolbyVisionSettingsActivity (I'm sure this could be launched using adbLink and without even using tvquickactions pro ). I press the button I linked the activity to, and a Dolby Vision Set menu appeared on the right. I switched from Dolby vision sink-led (which is the default), to the 2nd option, Dolby vision source-led.


Indeed, this is possible via adblink. Moreover, this method was already mentioned here:








Access Tivo Stream 4K Hidden A/V Menus


Here's a quick rundown of how to access the hidden menus in com.droidlogic.tv (the app that is the the "More" menu on the Stream 4k). You'll need to enable Android's Developer Mode to do this. They seem to do stuff, but your results may vary. Might fix issues others are having with random wake...




www.tivocommunity.com





You can use this command to call this menu:
*Dolby Vision menu (ON/OFF; Dolby vision sink-led; Dolby vision source-led)*
am start -n com.droidlogic.tv.settings/com.droidlogic.tv.settings.display.dolbyvision.DolbyVisionSettingActivity

Here you may choose now: *Dolby vision source-led*

Now Dolby Vision and HDR works correctly in AutoHDR mode.
But this setting is reset when you poweroff/restart it.

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And there is an option on how to launch this menu without adb/adblink
Install Activity Launcher from here https://apkpure.com/activity-launcher/de.szalkowski.activitylauncher/versions (if you choose to download -> Old Versions there is a regular APK installer)
Then launch it, select *Droid Settings* -> *.display.dolbyvision.DolbyVisionSettingActivity*
The desired menu appears and select *Dolby vision source-led*

(One time my Tivo hung when switching, but I observed it only once)


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## Willie Williams (Apr 10, 2021)

FlyingHavoc said:


> Indeed, this is possible via adblink. Moreover, this method was already mentioned here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


TVquickactions pro doesn’t reset the setting when you restart or power off. Source-led stays, at least for me it does.


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