Discussion Fix PQ Issues on Airtel Xstream box due to HDR

[parag]

I guess they do not even know that a bug like this exist. They could have thought of this as feature instead of a bug, which it was suppose to be. I will be really surprised if they fix it.

 

[Happy Self]

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.



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

Dear Mr. Siva

You seems to have better understanding. I also have XStream box connected to one of the HDMI inputs of my Home Theater (HT) and then Video output from HT to the TV .

I am having some issues on HDMI-CEC and its volume control. What is your setting of HDMI-CEC> CEC Volume control and Sound> System Sounds? I have kept HDMI-CEC> CEC Volume control off and programmed the remote volume buttons to my HT volume control. Also I have kept System Sound off to pass-through the audio from the box and get the audio signal in my HT in bitstream mode but the output quality is bad. I have a good Onkyo HT System.

Also, the XStream box does come to standby when I switch to other source.

Anand

 

[Siva]

Dear Mr. Siva

You seems to have better understanding. I also have XStream box connected to one of the HDMI inputs of my Home Theater (HT) and then Video output from HT to the TV .

I am having some issues on HDMI-CEC and its volume control. What is your setting of HDMI-CEC> CEC Volume control and Sound> System Sounds? I have kept HDMI-CEC> CEC Volume control off and programmed the remote volume buttons to my HT volume control. Also I have kept System Sound off to pass-through the audio from the box and get the audio signal in my HT in bitstream mode but the output quality is bad. I have a good Onkyo HT System.

Also, the XStream box does come to standby when I switch to other source.

Anand

Dear Anand,

I have opened a separate thread to discuss the audio issues. Let us discuss there.

Discussion - Audio issues on XStream Smart box

 

[alien_satrun]

Dear Siva,

I beg to differ with you on HDR impacting overall experience and picture quality. On the contrary, i have LG nanocell uhd tv, supprting hdr, hlg as well as dolby vision and I'm pleasantly surprised with the hdr being available all the time on my xstream box. Perhaps a bit of tinkering / calibration is required if one finds luminance levels to be slightly on the higher side. But even the sdr content looks great with hdr on, colours have more depth and there are fewer darker spots on the screen. Even though the colours are in 8 bit, still they seem quite vivid when compared to regular sdr content. The conversion of non sdr to hdr is working out excellent for me. I've stopped watching content on official lg store apps (hotstar, youtube, prime video, Netflix - only sdr content not the one with Dolby vision support, dlna steamed movies etc).

One more thing, hdr only kicked in for me once i changed resolution in display option on xstream box, to 4k. It was not available with default resolution. I truly and sincerely hope that this feature doesn't go away, as hdr can be turned off locally in every tv setting, by simply disabling deep colour / Enhanced signal (or whatever it is called in other TV manufacturer models), but can't be turned on the way it is available right now.

@parag - to disable HDR on your lg tv, you simply need to disable deep colour for respective hdmi port in your TV settings. Follow this path, settings - picture - additional settings - hdmi ultra hd deep colour - toggle off deep color for respective hdmi. But... Try with hdr first and calibrate your screen a bit, it should work wonders.

Cheers.

 

[Siva]

Dear Siva,

I beg to differ with you on HDR impacting overall experience and picture quality. On the contrary, i have LG nanocell uhd tv, supprting hdr, hlg as well as dolby vision and I'm pleasantly surprised with the hdr being available all the time on my xstream box. Perhaps a bit of tinkering / calibration is required if one finds luminance levels to be slightly on the higher side. But even the sdr content looks great with hdr on, colours have more depth and there are fewer darker spots on the screen. Even though the colours are in 8 bit, still they seem quite vivid when compared to regular sdr content. The conversion of non sdr to hdr is working out excellent for me. I've stopped watching content on official lg store apps (hotstar, youtube, prime video, Netflix - only sdr content not the one with Dolby vision support, dlna steamed movies etc).

One more thing, hdr only kicked in for me once i changed resolution in display option on xstream box, to 4k. It was not available with default resolution. I truly and sincerely hope that this feature doesn't go away, as hdr can be turned off locally in every tv setting, by simply disabling deep colour / Enhanced signal (or whatever it is called in other TV manufacturer models), but can't be turned on the way it is available right now.

@parag - to disable HDR on your lg tv, you simply need to disable deep colour for respective hdmi port in your TV settings. Follow this path, settings - picture - additional settings - hdmi ultra hd deep colour - toggle off deep color for respective hdmi. But... Try with hdr first and calibrate your screen a bit, it should work wonders.

Cheers.

Glad to hear that it's giving good results for you. Unfortunately on the Sony FHD TV that we have, the setting is not working very well and the HDR kicks in even at 1080p resolution. There are more blacks even on faces which is kind of annoying to look at. Anyway, those who like it can keep it on and those who don't like it can turn it off from TV settings.

 

[Preet]

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.



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

Plz give me solutions for mitv
I’m facing same issue

 

[Siva]

Plz give me solutions for mitv
I’m facing same issue

In your TV playback settings you can go to hdmi and then select hdmi 2.0. From there you can turn off HDR.

 

[Preet]

But my tv is not hdr

In your TV playback settings you can go to hdmi and then select hdmi 2.0. From there you can turn off HDR.

 

[Siva]

But my tv is not hdr

What's the issue then? This thread is for users who are facing issues due to HDR.

 

[Preet]

See these pictures siva
there is too much black or red colour
This is happening with only xstream box
Previous internet tv box don’t have this issue
I already concerned with engineer he said that it is in ur tv