Hey all!
I'm new to this forum and new to all of this basically. I've been doing my best to find information on my own but I wanted to ask a couple of things here.
I'm using my LG C8 when I watch movies from my PC, usually 4K HDR movies. I'm using MPC-HC + madVR. I've read a lot about different options and algorithms and I feel like my setup is mostly good, but there are a couple of things I'm uncertain about. I'm using the correct HDMI cable as well.
It all began when I started noticing some really bad color banding in my 4K HDR movies. I started testing different things and trying to find information from the web. It would seem that the color banding is not that severe when I haven't chosen the PC mode from my TV. If the HDMI input is just 'HDMI' the banding is very small but I still see it certain scenes. The downside is that the picture seems to be less sharp when the HDMI input is not in PC mode. I have enabled HDMI ultra deep color.
In madVR I have selected my TV's native bitdepth as 10 bit (or higher) since the C8 has a 10 bit panel. I have checked with the debug console that the D3D11 fullscreen says 10 bit. My video card settings are at default, which means 8 bit RGB. I have an RTX 2080.
I have chosen the 'passthrough HDR to display' and 'send HDR metadata to the display' in madVR.
Here are the questions:
1. I know my TV's PC mode forces chroma sub sampling 4:4:4. Is this why movies in PC mode seem to be sharper? My 4K HDR movies are 4:2:0 so the 4:4:4 shouldn't come into play, right? Should I use PC mode or just the basic 'HDMI' or something else?
2. RGB output levels in madVR. This is something I just recently figured out to try. When I select TV levels (16-235) and from my TV select black level as low the picture seems to look much better than PC levels (0-255) with black level as high. With PC levels and black level low the picture is way too dark. The gamma setting on my TV is 2.2 and I have selected pure power curve 2.20 in madVR calibration settings. So the question would be, should I keep the TV levels in madVR or is there something weird in my setup? Which one should look better?
3. My TV is not properly calibrated because I don't own the necessary equipment and I haven't bought the services of a professional calibrator. I have tried a lot of different settings in my TV settings based on recommendations from RTINGS from example. Then I have done some tweaking based on what looks better to my eye. Anyway, I read somewhere that most modern TV's are calibrated to BT.2020 and that's why I should choose that in madVR's calibration settings? Or should I choose something else or disable calibration controls entirely?
4. HDR settings in madVR. Is it better to passthrough HDR to the display or should I be using pixel shader tone mapping or external 3DLUT tone mapping?
Like I said I'm still new to all of this. Hopefully someone can answer my questions, I would appreciate it a lot!