HDR Picture dark

[Millersoft]

Hi. I'm new here. I'm ripping HD and UHD Blurays. With HD Blurays everything is fine, but when I rip a UHD Bluray which is in HDR (High Dynamic Range) Format the resulting picture is dark. This is apparently normal, due to the fact that HDR is suited to very high luminance/contrast 4K TVs. I've tried various HDR to SDR convertion tools but without success. I need to rip in SDR (Standard Dynamic Range). Can I switch HDR to SDR in MakeMKV? Thanks.

Here are the details:

Laufwerksinformation
OS-Gerätename: F:
Aktuelles Profil: BD-ROM
Produzent: PIONEER
Produkt: BD-RW BDR-UD04
Revision: 1.11
Serienummer: SHDL027253WL
Firmware-Datum: 2018-11-28
Markierungen der Bus-Verschlüsselung: 1B
Highest AACS version: 82

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: RS8A10
Firmware name: PIONEER BDR-US04
Firmware type: Original (unpatched)
Firmware version: 1.11
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

Disk-Informationen
Label: BUGONIA_UPK1
Zeitstempel: 2025-11-20 14:55:15
Schutz: AACS2.0/C v82
Datenkapazität: 78.61 Gb
Disk-Typ: BD-ROM UHD
Anzahl der Layer: 3
Markierungen der Bus-Verschlüsselung: 80

[dcoke22]

MakeMKV just copies what's on the disc into the MKV container. It doesn't alter the video.

I've used Handbrake to turn HDR from a 4K UHD into SDR content and it seems to do a reasonably good job. At a high level, most 4K UHD HDR content is in the Rec. 2020 colorspace. Regular SDR blu-ray content is usually in the Rec. 709 colorspace. One of the options on the Filters tab in Handbrake is to switch the colorspace of a file.

MediaInfo is a handy utility that can show lots of details about media files, including colorspace details about the video in a .mkv file.