I’m having a weird problem I’m hoping someone can weigh in on.
Background:
I have an Apple TV 4K 2021 hooked up through a Denon X3700H receiver to a Sony Z9D TV.
I think Sony implemented Dolby Vision poorly on TVs of that generation, using player-led DV. The TV doesn’t have a Dolby Vision Bright / Dolby Vision Dark profile, just one general DV mode.
The result is that DV content looks extremely dark and almost unwatchable, even in a dark room.
There is no way to disable DV on the TV. Leaving the Apple TV in 4K SDR mode with Match Content - Match Dynamic Range enabled, results in DV content forcing the TV into that dark DV mode. DV is not technically enabled on the Apple TV (I see the option in Settings to enable it), but it seems to pass DV content to the TV regardless, triggering its DV mode.
As such, I leave the Apple TV in 4K HDR mode all the time. The menus look washed out but that doesn’t bother me. Playing DV content in this mode results in the TV going into regular HDR mode. This is the only way I’ve figured out to disable playback of DV content and still get HDR.
The Problem:
When playing SDR content using Infuse with the Apple TV in 4K HDR mode, the image looks very washed out, almost like there’s a 20% opacity white filter over everything. Blacks look grey and blacks and dark areas of the image have blotchy artifacts.
Playing HDR content is fine.
Oddly, playing both SDR and HDR content in Plex or any other app looks fine. So it seems like every other app is able to somehow convert SDR content to display properly with the Apple TV forced to HDR mode.
Is there a way to resolve this or can a fix be implemented so that Infuse works correctly as do other apps?