This time I have three topics.
First, I want to promote the blog post I wrote to celebrate the landing of the Wayland color-management extension into wayland-protocols staging area. It's a brief historique of the journey.
Second, I want to discuss SDR and HDR video modes on monitors and TVs. I have seen people expect that the same sRGB content displayed on the SDR video mode and the HDR (BT.2100/PQ) video mode on the same monitor will look the same, and they can arbitrarily switch between the modes at any time. I have argued that this is a false expectation. Why?
Monitors tend to have a slew of settings. I tend to call them monitor "knobs". There are brightness, contrast, color temperature, picture mode, dynamic contrast, sharpness, gamma, and whatever. Many people have noticed that when the video source puts the monitor into BT.2100/PQ video mode, the monitor locks out some settings, often brightness and/or contrast included. So, SDR and HDR video modes do not play by the same rules. Hence, one cannot generally expect a match even if the video source does everything correctly.
Third, there is marketing. Have a look at the first third of this video. They discuss video streaming services, TV selling, and HDR from the picture quality point of view. My take of that is, that (some? most?) monitors and TVs come with a screaming broken picture out-of-the-box because marketing has to sell them. If all displays displayed a given content as intended, they would all look the same, major technology differences notwithstanding, but marketing wants to make each individual stand out.
Have you heard of TV calibration services? If I buy a new TV from a local electronics department store, they offer a calibration service, for a considerable additional fee. Why would anyone need a calibration service, the factory settings should be good, right?
