Maybe because it’s preventing users playing 4K hdr files from actually see anything? It’s a major bug, not “a preference”. If the video plays properly in other apps but it’s too dark in infuse it’s more than a “suggestion”, it means something is not working as it should.
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From what it sounds like, it is not a bug within infuse, it is just that your screen isn’t bright enough in certain situations (outdoors/train/etc) when playing HDR content. So you would like to flatten the contrast and raise the overall brightness? Yes you currently cannot easily watch your content but I wouldn’t say that is a bug if infuse is attempting to provide an accurate HDR representation.
I found many others facing the same issue in Netflix, Disney, etc. two solutions I found were to turn off True Tone and turn on lower power mode.
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@munpip214 – This has nothing to do with screen brightness, nor is it flattening contrast. To the contrary, increasing image brightness increases contrast to compensate for the low-contrast HDR version. (As long as brightness is multiplied rather than shifted.)
The point here is that the same content (e.g. TV episode or film), on a non-HDR display (like most laptops, projectors, etc.), should display the same brightness whether it is coming from an 8-bit SDR or 10-bit HDR source.
But currently Infuse will display the HDR source as darker than the SDR source when you have both versions of the same TV episode or movie. You can measure the RGB values from a screenshot and there will be a significant numerical difference. It’s objective and it has nothing to do with the brightness you’ve set your screen to or how bright it is outdoors.
They would normally be different colorspaces so that would account for some differences. And even if you take out the luminance data the original is created assuming the HDR values. So I guess I am missing something. I would assume the HDR content would appear darker on an SDR display. I see that with other players too, not just infuse.
But I understand what you are asking for on a SDR display and I believe infuse is doing some HDR to SDR conversion. What’s the ask on HDR displays?
@munpip24
Yes they are different colorspaces so Infuse has to do the HDR to SDR conversion, as it already does, it just turns out to be darker. Different video players do it differently as there is no “canonical” way to do it. E.g. on VLC it’s so horribly dark it’s literally unwatchable, because VLC has no real HDR support. However, on IINA it’s equal brightness to SDR, which is why IINA is widely considered to be the best (and really only) video player usable on Macs for 10-bit HDR content on an SDR screen.
The intention behind HDR content is not that scenes in general should be darker on an SDR display. The intention is that if you have an HDR display capable of extra brightness (e.g. 800 lumens, 1000 lumens), that super-bright elements of a scene get pushed to that extra level. This generally only applies to things like glints of sunlight, lightsabers, disco ball sparkles, explosions, and so forth. (And that on an SDR display, these things can simply be clipped to white.)
At the end of the day, because there is no canonical mapping of HDR to SDR, video players have a choice. Either they can implement a mapping that generally preserves brightness (as IINA does) so HDR content doesn’t play “dark”, or they can implement a less opinionated “darker” mapping that merely preserves accurate hue and saturation, and give a brightness slider to the user to adjust it as desired for their own display.
As I pointed out, I’m personally fine with either. An “Infuse Bright” HDR setting that attempts equivalent brightness (like IINA), and/or picture shaping options where we can up the brightness manually ourselves.
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