www.makemkv.com

Okay, I reluctantly purchased the LG C7 due to HDR. Reluctant because I read 4K is kind of a scam given the screen has to be huge for our eyes to tell the difference between 2160p and 1080p. However, with HDR, from my reading, the prospects are there for a noticeable difference within normal sized 50-70" screens. It is my impression HDR provides more information between contrasts and therefore makes it easier to justify the tv change.

To start: Thank you to the contributors here and, of course, Mike is awesome, because with your help I have the NS50, lucky, and felt more confident purchasing a few 4K disks.

Unfortunately even with all the information and I read much of it, I somehow think I messed up this simple process because the two I have ripped, for backup, so far, Blade Runner Final Cut and Mad Max Fury Road present more imperfections than 1080p same machine, same connections, and TV. How can that be?

For those that have backed-up Fury Road, tell me if you see the imperfections from the first scene upper right in the clouds just as Max drives off--looks kind of washed out. There are no issues with 1080p Fury Road in that same upper corner. 4K Blade Runner Final Cut the first scene in which the air-mobile is coming at the viewer with all the explosions below presents less quality within that landscape than 1080p. It is not great with 1080p, kind of a blur washed out or whatever it is called, but it is less washed out than 2160p.

additionally, my C7, irritatingly, does not automatically recognize HDR when playing the videos with Plex media player (pmp), vlc, or mpv. Actually, I must note that the imperfections I mentioned happen across the three players tried pmp, mpv and vlc. I have a ps4, why no uhd player in the pro is beyond me, but with assassin's creed origins the C7 promptly recognizes HDR.

So in short, I have two successful 4k HDR videos backed-up with the subsequent size increase and they appear worse than 1080p. If this issue is answered on this site, my apologies for missing it. Please point me to the answering thread. Otherwise, what have I done or what could be wrong with my setup to have more resolution and have it look worse?

Has anyone else had trouble with Star Trek (2009) recognized with NS50? I see several keys for the movie, so it works for somebody. I have yet to get it recognized, no disc, by makemkv. I wonder if it the disc or should I try the asus.

Thank you.

From the UHD FAQ, re: your Star Trek disc: There are multiple versions of UHDs for each movie (countries, retailers, rentals) and there may be multiple volume keys for even the same version, so it's possible that the volume key you have isn't the correct one for your particular disc.

The 4K UHD format is honestly a bit of a mess right now in my opinion. You have to really do your research to find out which discs are going to look fantastic. You have different studios doing different things. Sony's UHDs are often praised (heck, they were well ahead of the game by releasing new versions of Blu-rays that were created from new 4K masters) while UHDs from other studios (*cough* Batman Begins *cough*) are back to questionable practices such as DNR!

Perhaps the biggest consideration I have when choosing UHDs to start my collection is the fact that more UHDs than not are actually not 4K masters. They are upscaled from 2K masters because the film was finished with a 2K DI (digital intermediate), usually due to digital effects work being only done at 2K. So the main benefit of these upscaled from 2K UHDs is not resolution but rather WCG, HDR and hopefully being comparatively less compressed than Blu-ray.

Blade Runner Final Cut, and the upcoming 2049 for that matter, are both native 4K. Mad Max Fury Road, however, is a 2K upscale.

I suspect this info doesn't really answer your question though. What you need is someone else who has these discs to help you compare. In theory, no UHD should look worse than a Blu-ray. I'll be picking up my order of Blade Runner next week. I won't be getting Mad Max Fury Road.

It's worth noting that PMP and mpv don't currently passthrough HDR information, as far as I'm aware.

I appreciate the support and candor. Thank you.

I know there are several keys to ST (2009), but I am unable to get it recognized. I cannot even get it to the point makemkv recognizes the disc to create a dump. I asked to see if anyone else with the LG NS50 had the same experience, with this video, as I ponder another drive like the asus some mentioned.

I know this is early days, so I am not complaining about anything mike or others have done. I question 4k. After reading this, "Blade Runner Final Cut, and the upcoming 2049 for that matter, are both native 4K,..." I am back to not sold on 4k providing enough of a difference for us to notice. The last thing I expected from 2160p is that it look worse for both movies I have backed-up. It should look at least as good as 1080p, right?! I must have something wrong, and the note about the players has been heeded. I tried three, so I continue to work that aspect. I have yet to get a 4k backup recognized with HDR, so some of the color range I must be missing. But, does that explain the washout of the video clarity I see in the places noted above? I say no and so I continue to investigate what I could have done wrong.

Again, great support. Thank you for the help, and Thank you to Mike and others for the work they do. As a Tangent, I watched Fury Road again last night sparked by all the time I spent with the 4k mess; the movie is intense. If you have not seen it, there are worse ways to spend 2hrs. All vehicles were real and functioned, there is a 20min extra about the vehicles. That alone is worth a look. Sorry for the movie plug....

There was a note made in the main UHD drive topic that you have to start the backup quickly; if the drive spins down after loading the disk, it might not spin up again for MakeMKV.

I only have 1 4K disk. For my testing, I started MakeMKV, and inserted the disk into the NS50 drive. As soon as MakeMKV said it was loaded (the icon stopped spinning), I clicked "backup", unchecked "decrypt", and then started it. It ran to the finish (less than an hour).

Once that was done, I went looking for the leaked key, and worked from the backup, rather than the disk.

Yes, your HDR backups will look like washed out crap when your TV doesn't recognize that HDR content is being presented to it. I would recommend getting an Nvidia Shield with the Kodi or SPMC apps to properly play back your 4k HDR content.

Recommended settings for the Shield and SPMC/Kodi are:
https://github.com/koying/SPMC/wiki/Rec ... nd-UHD-(4K)-TVs-with-4K-GUI


You can also find nice HDR test samples here:
http://4kmedia.org/

Woodstock, I backed-up two, as noted, and dumped several other disks provided to mike, so I am familiar with the timing. My NS50 will not recognize ST(2009). I posed my issue in case someone else has tried that video with a ns50 drive. Either it the drive or the disk.

Regarding hdr washing out if hdr not recognized by the tv. why would 2160p wash out because hdr not recognized? you just blasted my understanding of what hdr provides. If you look at fury road that first scene with max standing by the car, I see no difference between 1080p and 2160p. Then he drives off and then the issues noted, upper right. If what I experience is because hdr Not recognized by the c7, wouldn't it be the entire picture washed out, not just in the clouds? I have to see more reasons to start adding more hardware to the puzzle and changing my setup as well. I currently run pmp and pms on the same machine. whatever is causing my issue with 4k, I am Not sold 2160p is enough of a difference on smaller tvs <70." I will try kodi, I once used it, and see if there is a difference.

Thanks.

I've got an LG 65B7a. 2160p is good, but does not a represent the same quality jump you get from going 480i to 1080p. From a straight resolution standpoint at normal seating distance, I doubt very few people could tell the difference between a native 4k set and a good 1080p set playing the same movie (even if the 4k set was playing the UHD and the 1080 set was playing a standard bluray).

Look at netflix 4k. It looks good, but it's still only about half the bitrate of a standard bluray. HDR/Dolby Vision/HLG/WCG/etc are the ONLY reason to upgrade to 4k, imo, but it is SUCH a good reason! 4k HDR on my OLED makes the best Commercial Cinemas I've been to look silly. If retail stores would focus on the color/contrast aspect of 4k tv's more than the resolution/refresh rates(soap opera effect they like to shove down the consumers throat) they'd sell a Butt ton more 4k TV's and you'd see a lot more 4k HDR content.

I have an Oppo UDP-203 UHD player that I'm basically using as my media server and playback for UHD discs I can't rip yet. I have Emby Server setup on my unRAID server and browse my library via the Emby apps on my iphone/ipad/PC/etc. I then use Emby's built in Play To (DLNA) feature to select a movie and direct play it to my Oppo. This works extremely well! DVD upscaling is fantastic (when the TV's SDR settings and the Oppo's pass-through settings are set correctly). Blurays look every bit as good as they did on my old dedicated HTPC. The UHD's I've ripped play back FLAWLESSLY. You 100% can not distinguish them from the actual physical disc. (embedded subtitles work perfect as well, though you do have to Manually select forced tracks at this time. Hoping Oppo fixes that in a firmware update at some point) Using my setup, I have had ZERO issues getting my B7a to trip the HDR flag when I play an UHD mkv to the Oppo. (can't say the same about Dolby Vision since I don't own any Rippable DV titles yet, but I expect no problems there either).

Long Story Short, Get 4k for the HDR! If you want to rip and play back your UHD's on that TV via your network/streaming box/etc, get hardware that can handle direct playing UHD-HDR mkv's. you couldd probably do it cheaper than the Oppo-203, but the Oppo was really easy to setup and has been, more or less, bulletproof (compared to my HTPC, which was good, but always required a fair amount of constant tweaking to keep working right). Nvidia shield and Kodi would work good as well and have built in (downloadable/dedicated) Emby apps, though I couldn't say whether those apps can handle Direct playing UHD's or not. they might, but I don't know for sure. What I do know is that they won't play actual UHD discs and until UHD's are 100% rippable (like blurays and dvd's) you're still going to want the ability to play discs for a while yet. The Oppo has been a very nicely balanced choice for me so far. Something to consider.

Loads of advice. Thank you. The nvidia shield has been on my mind but I recall codec issues when first released with their forums abuzz begging for codec pacs even for purchase.

my next step, however, is to upgrade my gpu as I wonder if current has a problem; I know pascal arch is good for passing hdr or at least that is what I read. I would be much happier with this endeavor if I could at least get the c7 to recognize hdr from my htpc. hdr is recognized from a ps4 game, but not my htpc, ridiculous.

Thanks again for the information.

makememe wrote:Loads of advice. Thank you. The nvidia shield has been on my mind but I recall codec issues when first released with their forums abuzz begging for codec pacs even for purchase.

my next step, however, is to upgrade my gpu as I wonder if current has a problem; I know pascal arch is good for passing hdr or at least that is what I read. I would be much happier with this endeavor if I could at least get the c7 to recognize hdr from my htpc. hdr is recognized from a ps4 game, but not my htpc, ridiculous.

Thanks again for the information.

Basically you need a device that can natively playback the HEVC encode with rec.2020 color support and HDR. If not you get a washed out picture with muted color and other anomalies. The Nvidia shield works (I use it) with either Plex or Kodi. The Apple Tv 4k also works if you purchase the Infuse player app. Some have also used their PC to play back their rips but I don't know what software works. A TV can support HDR but it does not have a media player that can process the video as it takes quite a bit of horsepower. I have a Sony TV with AndroidTV and installed kodi. The files will play but they stutter constantly because the CPU is too slow and there is limited hardware acceleration. TVs were made to accept incoming signals which are pre-processed via HDMI or streaming. Decoding the video stream on the fly isn't their thing.

Low Winter Sun wrote:Yes, your HDR backups will look like washed out crap when your TV doesn't recognize that HDR content is being presented to it. I would recommend getting an Nvidia Shield with the Kodi or SPMC apps to properly play back your 4k HDR content.

Recommended settings for the Shield and SPMC/Kodi are:
https://github.com/koying/SPMC/wiki/Rec ... nd-UHD-(4K)-TVs-with-4K-GUI


You can also find nice HDR test samples here:
http://4kmedia.org/

so many good options now for 4K+HDR.

I use JRiver which installs madVr+Lav and passes through HDR metadata. the images are beautiful on my set (LG OLED 2016 model).

You can also look at Vero 4K which runs OSMC (open sourced media center based on Kodi - very active community and well supported). I have one of these boxes arriving this week.

Not sure about plex - i have plex but have not tried to play back any 4K+HDR MKVs.

MPC-BE w/madvr and lav works fine (free)

note that anything using madvr and lav are windows only solutions.

i am sure there are many many others.

native 4K is excellent but many movies use 2K in the pipeline; i think of it like the old CD days where some discs were "DAD", digital recording, analog mixing, digital mastering.

HDR and Atmos or DTS:X make 4K worth it in my opinion.

As to the quality of 4K even a movie created from a 2K intermediate will fare better than the BluRay version of the same movie. HEVC/H265 is a more efficient codec and add to that the fact that the studios are taking advantage of the space this time instead of cheating out as they did in the beginning with DVD and Blu (most 4K Blu is 55 to 65 GB and HEVC could do the same quality as Standard Blu at half the size, granted 4K is twice the size of Standard Blu). I can attest personally that the 4K version of Star Trek 2009 is superior to the BluRay, not night and day superior but I will take a better picture any way I can get it.

I read recently that the 2K masters are not 1080p but are actually full 2K, if so this would explain why these do look better as well. Can anybody confirm?

While having twice the resolution is a great upgrade, I would say that 65' is the minimum that really allows you to see the difference. The other problem (or Not) is that todays TV's do an incredible job upscaling 1080p to 4K and I ended up watching the BluRay of John Wick 2 and not realizing until I had finished it.

However the real reason to own 4K or Stream 4K even is HDR. We have been saddled with reduced color output for as long as LCD has existed and I have hated the color Banding that existed because of this in digital media. While a lot of movies have not been mastered in a way that makes the HDR pop ie Arrival it is only because thats the way the Director intended. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is reference material in this regard and I cant wait till Disney releases 4K versions of the Marvel movies for the HDR alone. Thor Ragnarok will be another 4K to own because that movie is going to show HDR off in a big way if done right.

I have not been able to back up my copy of Fury Road but I am going to try again, I will post my results here.

I am in the process of Backing up my Star Trek 2009 so I would try again with the latest makemkv 1.10.10.

As for Plex make sure that your settings are not to stream at 1080P as the Transcoding will strip the HDR metadata. Maker sure that Original quality is what you are getting. There is some kind of Auto shenanigans going on in this case because the Martian refuses to not switch to full 4K on my Chromecast Ultra, I will be reconnecting my Shield TV today to do further testing.

I cant speak about Blade Runner Final cut yet as they refuse to release a single Disc version with just the final cut on 4k and I refuse to purchase the entire set again when only the Final cut is 4K.

Update!!!
There is definitely a problem with UHD material on the Apple TV 4K and Plex even when all settings are correct. Note I am running the TvOs 11.3 Beta. It appears that even when the Apple TV is sending an HDR signal to my Samsung 65KS8000 it is night and day Not a proper HDR playback and may even be worse than a typical SDR of the same film. The Martian is the most notable on the scenes on Mars, I tested by using my Nvidia Shield TV vs the Apple TV 4K. Hopefully Apple or Plex will get this fixed in a later update. Infuse Pro suffers from an issue on this update as well with a strange grey box on HDR material. I would be interested to hear if others are seeing the same problems.

I updated Makemkv with the ]keys_hashed.txt http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic ... 12&t=16959 file in case anybody missed it as I had for the latest release. Its finally allowing me to rip Fury Road so ill be looking at it closely afterwards.

All of my rips play perfectly on the Shield TV and in fact the Shield TV is the only device that plays back 4K rips without any stuttering at all, the ATV4K does well too but with the HDR state of Plex and Infuse it will be a while before those can touch the Shield.

makememe wrote:Okay, I reluctantly purchased the LG C7 due to HDR. Reluctant because I read 4K is kind of a scam given the screen has to be huge for our eyes to tell the difference between 2160p and 1080p. However, with HDR, from my reading, the prospects are there for a noticeable difference within normal sized 50-70" screens. It is my impression HDR provides more information between contrasts and therefore makes it easier to justify the tv change.

To start: Thank you to the contributors here and, of course, Mike is awesome, because with your help I have the NS50, lucky, and felt more confident purchasing a few 4K disks.

Unfortunately even with all the information and I read much of it, I somehow think I messed up this simple process because the two I have ripped, for backup, so far, Blade Runner Final Cut and Mad Max Fury Road present more imperfections than 1080p same machine, same connections, and TV. How can that be?

For those that have backed-up Fury Road, tell me if you see the imperfections from the first scene upper right in the clouds just as Max drives off--looks kind of washed out. There are no issues with 1080p Fury Road in that same upper corner. 4K Blade Runner Final Cut the first scene in which the air-mobile is coming at the viewer with all the explosions below presents less quality within that landscape than 1080p. It is not great with 1080p, kind of a blur washed out or whatever it is called, but it is less washed out than 2160p.

additionally, my C7, irritatingly, does not automatically recognize HDR when playing the videos with Plex media player (pmp), vlc, or mpv. Actually, I must note that the imperfections I mentioned happen across the three players tried pmp, mpv and vlc. I have a ps4, why no uhd player in the pro is beyond me, but with assassin's creed origins the C7 promptly recognizes HDR.

So in short, I have two successful 4k HDR videos backed-up with the subsequent size increase and they appear worse than 1080p. If this issue is answered on this site, my apologies for missing it. Please point me to the answering thread. Otherwise, what have I done or what could be wrong with my setup to have more resolution and have it look worse?

Has anyone else had trouble with Star Trek (2009) recognized with NS50? I see several keys for the movie, so it works for somebody. I have yet to get it recognized, no disc, by makemkv. I wonder if it the disc or should I try the asus.

Thank you.

makememe wrote:Loads of advice. Thank you. The nvidia shield has been on my mind but I recall codec issues when first released with their forums abuzz begging for codec pacs even for purchase.

my next step, however, is to upgrade my gpu as I wonder if current has a problem; I know pascal arch is good for passing hdr or at least that is what I read. I would be much happier with this endeavor if I could at least get the c7 to recognize hdr from my htpc. hdr is recognized from a ps4 game, but not my htpc, ridiculous.

Thanks again for the information.

Unless you are using your PC as your main viewing platform don't bother upgrading your GPU it has zero effect if you are using Plex, Kodi or Infuse via a secondary device. The CPU is only thing used when not playing on the server machine. If you are instead looking to watch these files on a TV with a device like an Apple TV 4K then your best bet until Apple and Plex or Infuse get their act together is to go with the Nvidia Shield TV. Its the only device that pretty much plays every file format via Plex or Kodi. Every other device has one issue or another.

Tim

makememe wrote:Okay, I reluctantly purchased the LG C7 due to HDR. Reluctant because I read 4K is kind of a scam given the screen has to be huge for our eyes to tell the difference between 2160p and 1080p. However, with HDR, from my reading, the prospects are there for a noticeable difference within normal sized 50-70" screens. It is my impression HDR provides more information between contrasts and therefore makes it easier to justify the tv change.

To start: Thank you to the contributors here and, of course, Mike is awesome, because with your help I have the NS50, lucky, and felt more confident purchasing a few 4K disks.

Unfortunately even with all the information and I read much of it, I somehow think I messed up this simple process because the two I have ripped, for backup, so far, Blade Runner Final Cut and Mad Max Fury Road present more imperfections than 1080p same machine, same connections, and TV. How can that be?

For those that have backed-up Fury Road, tell me if you see the imperfections from the first scene upper right in the clouds just as Max drives off--looks kind of washed out. There are no issues with 1080p Fury Road in that same upper corner. 4K Blade Runner Final Cut the first scene in which the air-mobile is coming at the viewer with all the explosions below presents less quality within that landscape than 1080p. It is not great with 1080p, kind of a blur washed out or whatever it is called, but it is less washed out than 2160p.

additionally, my C7, irritatingly, does not automatically recognize HDR when playing the videos with Plex media player (pmp), vlc, or mpv. Actually, I must note that the imperfections I mentioned happen across the three players tried pmp, mpv and vlc. I have a ps4, why no uhd player in the pro is beyond me, but with assassin's creed origins the C7 promptly recognizes HDR.

So in short, I have two successful 4k HDR videos backed-up with the subsequent size increase and they appear worse than 1080p. If this issue is answered on this site, my apologies for missing it. Please point me to the answering thread. Otherwise, what have I done or what could be wrong with my setup to have more resolution and have it look worse?

Has anyone else had trouble with Star Trek (2009) recognized with NS50? I see several keys for the movie, so it works for somebody. I have yet to get it recognized, no disc, by makemkv. I wonder if it the disc or should I try the asus.

Thank you.

I have the OLED E6 and my UHD remuxes play HDR fine using Emby (If you're gonna use Plex, use Xplay, do not use the official Plex app with WebOS, it's crap)
Basically you need to direct play it, and Xplay or even Emby will play your HDR mkv just fine. You can also DLNA them.

You don't need to buy any other device. If my E6 can I'm certain your C7 OLED should be able to handle it on its own. You will see the HDR logo appear on the top right if it worked.

Oddly enough with Emby though, I have to allow remuxing for it to work.

And yes, I have Fury Road and Blade Runner UHD ripped with MakeMKV and both have perfect picture quality on my LG.