Discussion Fix PQ Issues on Airtel Xstream box due to HDR

[Siva]

Hey All,

You might have seen my post on the other thread about the availability of this box at my place and getting it installed for my friend.

This is available in Vijayawada. We have upgraded my friend's Internet TV today.

He was having an Internet TV box and upgraded to this box for a few reasons.

1. Remote on this box is much better
2. To get rid of ugly smart card on the Internet TV box
3. Box is much better looking and compact

As soon as the installation was done, we were shocked to see the DTH channel picture quality on this box. It was absolutely poor with high blacks on faces and blurry images, almost SD like on HD channels. My friend was extremely disappointed with the PQ and was talking about the options to return the box. As we both have the same TV (Sony 49W772E), we took the box to my home and tested it there. To our surprise, the PQ was on par with my Flextronics box at my home. After some research, we found that it's because of the HDR capability that this box has.

Basically, the scene select automatically changes to HDR (Game or Movie) when we connect this box to the Sony TV and the PQ gets extremely bad. It becomes overly white if we manually change the scene select from Auto to General. At my house, even though I also have the same TV, the box is connected to one of the HDMI inputs of my Home theater and then the HT out goes to the TV. And my Home theater is non-HDR i.e. it can't pass through the HDR signal so it's cutting that off and giving the normal PQ that is equivalent to Flextronics HEVC box.

However, at my friend's home, his Home theater is the latest one i.e. Pioneer VSX 534 and it is able to detect and pass the HDR signal received from this box and is sending it as is to the TV and the TV automatically overcorrects the picture and in turn producing poor quality PQ. We tried connecting the box directly to the TV, thinking that the HT was doing something in between, however, the issue remained. After searching for a long time, we found a setting deep within the TV settings to disable the HDR. We had to go to Options -> Picture -> Setup - AV Setup -> HDMI Signal Format and change the setting from "Enhanced" to "Standard".

After we changed it, we kept the scene select in General mode. Then the PQ turned out to be excellent and my friend is completely satisfied.

If you are having a Sony TV and facing any issues like this, you can try the above solution. If you are having a different TV that supports HDR, you might have to follow different steps to disable the HDR. But ultimately try disabling HDR if you are facing any issues with the PQ.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

 

[rahul1117kumar]

@Siva bro how's the sd channels quality compared to hevc box. Thanks

 

[Siva]

@Siva bro how's the sd channels quality compared to hevc box. Thanks

My friend has only one SD channel i.e. Hungama and I didn't notice the quality keenly.

 

[Nilu334]

I have sony 4k hdr tv.....hdr mode available only for hdr content....not for every content....I m also set hdmi setting in standard mode....
Good detail review for pq...bro..

 

[parag]

I have LG HDR tv. Once I turn off HDR from tv settings, it asks to reboot for settings to take effect. After I reboot, TV automatically detects HDR enabled input, and enables HDR. I have not found a way to disable HDR from xstream box settings. In HDR, all the TV presets look ugly. Picture presets are HDR specific, one is too bright(HDR Vivid), another has low color temperature(HDR Bright), another has high unadjustable color temperature(HDR Standard), another has low temperature, high brightness(HDR Game) . I have tried to set things manually, but colour adjustment are not as it was on internet tv box. No solution in sight.

 

[Siva]

I have LG HDR tv. Once I turn off HDR from tv settings, it asks to reboot for settings to take effect. After I reboot, TV automatically detects HDR enabled input, and enables HDR. I have not found a way to disable HDR from xstream box settings. In HDR, all the TV presets look ugly. Picture presets are HDR specific, one is too bright(HDR Vivid), another has low color temperature(HDR Bright), another has high unadjustable color temperature(HDR Standard), another has low temperature, high brightness(HDR Game) . I have tried to set things manually, but colour adjustment are not as it was on internet tv box. No solution in sight.

Disconnect the box and then disable HDR from TV settings. Reboot TV and connect the box and see what happens. You can also probably use an old HDMI cable that doesn't support HDR to overcome the issue.

 

[parag]

Thanks for you input @Siva.
I tried this. Once I connect xstream box, tv automatically detects it as HDR input and switches on HDR.
My TV is acting too smart and making me feel like dumb.
I do not have old HDMI cable.
There should be a way to disable it from box settings.

 

[Siva]

Thanks for you input @Siva.
I tried this. Once I connect xstream box, tv automatically detects it as HDR input and switches on HDR.
My TV is acting too smart and making me feel like dumb.
I do not have old HDMI cable.
There should be a way to disable it from box settings.

That's too much. So, there is no way to disable it via TV software! Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to disable it in the STB. You are probably left with the option of trying an old cable.

 

[parag]

The setting is working fine for ps4. I guess ps4 uses hdmi/hdr differently than xstream box. On ps4, it gets enabled only if the game supports it. Xstream box turns on hdr when box is switched on with no check if the content is in HDR.
I do not have an old cable. Only high speed cables are available in market.

 

[Siva]

The setting is working fine for ps4. I guess ps4 uses hdmi/hdr differently than xstream box. On ps4, it gets enabled only if the game supports it. Xstream box turns on hdr when box is switched on with no check if the content is in HDR.
I do not have an old cable. Only high speed cables are available in market.

Yes that's right. Box isn't giving any priority to the content and enables HDR for everything. They would've to fix it via a software update. Not sure if that'll happen at all!