Blooming on Macbook Pro with HDR files

[CoffeeDrinker]

Hey there, so I've certainly made a lot of progress with my journey to play HDR films on my computer. The firmware issue with my Pioneer drive has been fixed. I installed Infuse, which can properly handle HDR formats. I was informed that I need to play Dolby Vision files in Dolby Vision 8 for Macs, so I installed the software DV7 to DV8. Now, I have everything I need to playback HDR files in their intended formats.

However, I still have an issue with blooming on my laptop monitor, unless I adjust brightness. (when it's at full brightness, there's a considerable amount of blooming, when I lower it to about 50%, I am able to get rid of most of the blooming)

I wanted to just ask the question on the forum to see what options are available to me. From what I understand, my options may be limited, because this could be an issue with the limitations of my monitor as a mini-LED display? Is dimming my monitor when viewing HDR films my best option? (and watching in a dark room)

[flojo]

Or spend $$$$ for micro-LED (or get a OLED).

You can't really stop bleeding with backlights, it's just not financially viable yet and I'm sure even micro-LED has the problem to an extent.

Bring plasma back...??? Plasma TV's were horrible for the environment during the boom era ~15 years ago because so many were sold, but TV sales have plummeted year-over-year for years now. Even if they hadn't plummeted, the audience for a new plasma TV is not the same audience for the latest Wal-Mart $299 Vizio, so many less plasmas would be sold than during the boom era.

[dcoke22]

Assuming you have an Apple Silicon era MacBook Pro, the display is a mini-LED backlight setup with something like 10,000 zones. The performance in general is pretty good.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2365-apple-macbook-pro-xdr-display/

As flojo points out, however, the only way to truly eliminate blooming is to use a self-lit display, like OLED.

In Apple land, the iPad Pro has a very fancy tandem OLED screen Apple calls Ultra Retina XDR. Reviews suggest it has no blooming at all, as one would expect of a self-lit display like OLED.

https://www.techradar.com/tablets/ipad-pro/ipad-pro-13-inch-2024#section-ipad-pro-13-inch-2024-review-display

The current rumors suggest MacBook Pros might get an OLED screen in 2026 or 2027.

If you want a desktop monitor something like this (https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/asus/rog-swift-oled-pg27ucdm) for $1200 in the USA is a high-end 4K OLED monitor with zero blooming.

[auroraaspire]

Reducing brightness helps, but I think that's pretty much the only fix unless Apple magically adds more dimming zones in future models.