10-bit monitoring on windows

I'm having trouble getting 10bit monitoring working on windows. I've enabled "Use 10-bit precision in viewers if available" in General settings, my monitor is configured for 10bit (HDR) viewing and I can successfully see HDR white in other applications (VLC, Premiere Pro, MPV), but the monitoring view in Resolve does not show full white.

Color space and gamma in project, timeline, and output (as well as input colorspace on the media) are all set correctly (Rec 2020 color space, Rec 2100 ST2084 gamma, though I've tried others with no success). Histograms and scopes show peaks to 1023 (and beyond).

The project is as simple as I can make it (a single prores 444 file with rec2020/rec2100 ST2084), no color grading no filters etc, but still, I get no HDR white on the viewers. I have DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.6.5 Build 7.

What am I missing here?

If memory serves, you can't view HDR in the GUI with Windows. You will need hardware output, like a Decklink.

If memory serves, you can't view HDR in the GUI with Windows. You will need hardware output, like a Decklink.

This.

If you feel like "hacking" your way to it, if your monitor allows it set it to force HDR PQ and send clean feed to it. You'll need a second SDR display for your desktop/ResolveUI for that to work though, unless you feel like staring into a colorful nuclear explosion.

Saves the trouble of needing hardware.

If memory serves, you can't view HDR in the GUI with Windows. You will need hardware output, like a Decklink.

That's extremely disappointing for a color grading software that claims to support HDR and 10bit output. I'd rather not shell out more money on more hardware when the hardware I have is more than capable of viewing 10bit in-desktop with most other software.

I purchased the pro version with the expectation that HDR would be fully supported, looks like I'll be fighting for a refund.

If you feel like "hacking" your way to it, if your monitor allows it set it to force HDR PQ and send clean feed to it. You'll need a second SDR display for your desktop/ResolveUI for that to work though, unless you feel like staring into a colorful nuclear explosion.

Saves the trouble of needing hardware.

That sounds interesting. How would I set resolve to "send clean feed" to a monitor? I would think it'd be under video I/O, but "Monitor Device" is greyed out

I’m curious as to the expectation of full white in HDR. Graphic white in HDR while technically brighter is commonly going to be dimmer because nobody, save colorists, view Rec709 at 100 nits. I don’t watch much TV during the day but in a bright room HDR is way too dark and I’ll switch to 709. Rec709 on the same display is retina searing at night.

Good Luck

I’m curious as to the expectation of full white in HDR. Graphic white in HDR while technically brighter is commonly going to be dimmer because nobody, save colorists, view Rec709 at 100 nits. I don’t watch much TV during the day but in a bright room HDR is way too dark and I’ll switch to 709. Rec709 on the same display is retina searing at night.

Good Luck

There is a lot to unpack here.
What do you mean by graphic white in HDR dimmer?

HDR looking dim in a bright room but better in 709?

Can you clarify?

What display are you using to watch HDR? When you watch 709, are you watching a tone-mapped version of the same video? I assume the tone mapped is done by a colorist, not some hardware/software conversion.

How would I set resolve to "send clean feed" to a monitor? I would think it'd be under video I/O, but "Monitor Device" is greyed out

That's just a UI option via the menu bar. Forgot where exactly but do a quick google search or check the manual and you'll find it. It sends the viewer out to any desktop connected display so having it hooked up to your GPU would work. But again, it won't send any HDR signal to the monitor so it needs to be able to force HDR mode itself otherwise it won't work.

I don't know the exact reason Resolve hasn't implemented viewer HDR support on Windows. There technically are no limitations in that regard afaik, so the only other reason I can think of is some stupid/fishy deal with Apple.

Maybe, since it works on Mx Macs and even iPads. See Dado Valentic, a very respected colorist, going overboard here regarding iPads

(around 5:04).

I’m curious as to the expectation of full white in HDR. Graphic white in HDR while technically brighter is commonly going to be dimmer because nobody, save colorists, view Rec709 at 100 nits. I don’t watch much TV during the day but in a bright room HDR is way too dark and I’ll switch to 709. Rec709 on the same display is retina searing at night.

Good Luck

There is a lot to unpack here.
What do you mean by graphic white in HDR dimmer?

HDR looking dim in a bright room but better in 709?

Can you clarify?

What display are you using to watch HDR? When you watch 709, are you watching a tone-mapped version of the same video? I assume the tone mapped is done by a colorist, not some hardware/software conversion.

A 1000 nit display can put diffuse white at 1000 nits because white is the brightest value in rec709. On the same display in HDR diffuse white sits at 203 nits. PQ allows for several stops over ""diffuse white".

Good Luck

Maybe, since it works on Mx Macs and even iPads. See Dado Valentic, a very respected colorist, going overboard here regarding iPads

Haha, I mean, I get his sentiment, and he's right. It's a very welcome tool for the industry and Apple products themselves are predictable in the sense that there are not a lot of variables display tech wise. There's XDR with pretty much the same spec for the monitor, Macbooks, iPad, and there's the normal Display P3 ones. But I don't think that part is a possible reason. Whether or not the display plays nice is up to the user, perhaps some management mechanic in Windows OS is holding them back but others like video players or Premiere are capable meanwhile.

A 1000 nit display can put diffuse white at 1000 nits because white is the brightest value in rec709. On the same display in HDR diffuse white sits at 203 nits. PQ allows for several stops over ""diffuse white".

I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to point out here. In your first post you said

I’m curious as to the expectation of full white in HDR.

Do you have a question regarding white in this regard? Or did you want to make a point?
SDR and HDR are functionally different things. Setting the larger gamut aside the way luminance is distributed across the available dynamic range matches perception much more than SDR can. Viewing an SDR image at the typical max brightness of SDR displays around 350nits just stretches the low dynamic tone mapped range to that luminance. It looks very ugly compared to HDR and if talking in the context of a grade it deviates greatly from creative intent. This is mitigated a lot in HDR.

That's extremely disappointing for a color grading software that claims to support HDR and 10bit output.

Well...I think hardware output is pretty much the only 'correct' way to grade anyway. So even if macs can do it without, it's better not to.

That's extremely disappointing for a color grading software that claims to support HDR and 10bit output.

Well...I think hardware output is pretty much the only 'correct' way to grade anyway. So even if macs can do it without, it's better not to.

So why have a monitor in the desktop window at all? If it's not the canonically correct way to monitor video, why even have it, right? I can't imagine why someone might want to correctly see what they're editing *in* the software they're using to edit it... Even if I had a decklink and separate monitor, I'd still *want* to see the 10bit output in the monitor window.

I think it's insane to say "it's better not to" when what you're saying is that it's better *not* to see real 10bit output in the desktop monitoring window than it is to see it.

So why have a monitor in the desktop window at all?

Content monitoring.

For (proper) quality monitoring, you need the hardware.

So... the monitor vs display saga continues.

If our workstation displays have colour and brightness capabilities that cover the full range of what's required, and the workstation is correctly colour calibrated for monitoring, then why isn't the software capable of rendering it out in the viewer (incl. 10bit)? I've never understood why the limitations are in place that 'require' a separate output and monitor when our displays are perfectly capable.

For (proper) quality monitoring, you need the hardware.

That argument is frankly invalid. Proper monitoring means understanding what happens in the signal path and having the ability tools to verify that the output displays the expected results. Depending on the setup that process could be slightly easier with a separate hardware output but there are also stupid drawbacks like being forced to comply to imposed standards where your output needs to be 16:9 1080 or 4K. You can't scale a 4x5 social video to your hardware output to fit to the entire screen. You can also only pick between scaling up or down. So if you have a 1080p timeline and a 4K monitor, you set the hardware to scale up. But then you open another timeline that's maybe 5K. You now have a black screen unless you swap the hardware setting to scale down.

With a desktop extended clean feed such problems are non existent.

Decklink minimon 4k works very well

Yes, it does. And how do you think BM can feed their developers and their families with just 300 bucks for a permanent license? Their real business is hardware.
So, look for a more expensive software or get some of their stuff.

Yes, it does. And how do you think BM can feed their developers and their families with just 300 bucks for a permanent license? Their real business is hardware.
So, look for a more expensive software or get some of their stuff.

Agree. You can get Resolve Studio and Mini monitor for less than an annual license cost for most other software !! The mini monitor will work with that other software too. So for $200 you can get a correct output from all the editing software.

Yes, it does. And how do you think BM can feed their developers and their families with just 300 bucks for a permanent license? Their real business is hardware.
So, look for a more expensive software or get some of their stuff.

Considering I liked the Resolve software, was very happy with it grading SDR, and wanted to do HDR, I decided to pay for hardware that came bundled with Resolve Studio to *get* that advertised HDR functionality.

Then I'm told it can't do that without *even more* hardware, taking up an extra PCIE slot, more space on my desk, *another* very capable, color-calibrated HDR monitor.......

Hopefully you can understand that frustration.

So why have a monitor in the desktop window at all?

Content monitoring.

For (proper) quality monitoring, you need the hardware.

For (proper) content monitoring, you should be able to view the content. It's 10-bit, HDR content, but it's not displayed as such.

I have the hardware it takes to do what I would consider proper quality monitoring, too, but apparently not the software.

On top of all of the frustration of trying to get software to do what it's advertised as doing, it's going to be even more frustrating to try to return hardware that comes with a license key.

I’m curious as to the expectation of full white in HDR. Graphic white in HDR while technically brighter is commonly going to be dimmer because nobody, save colorists, view Rec709 at 100 nits. I don’t watch much TV during the day but in a bright room HDR is way too dark and I’ll switch to 709. Rec709 on the same display is retina searing at night.

Good Luck

I'm not talking about graphic white, I'm talking about the brightest the display can manage. E.g. in a video pointed at the sun, the sun can be effectively infinite luminance. In the viewer in resolve, on a 10bit HDR desktop in windows, the brightest it will go is 8-bit, SDR white, instead of 10-bit HDR white.

Just for fun, here's a linear-gamma, crushed back down to 8bit (hence the apparent darkness and banding) screenshot showing the difference between the white being displayed in the same image by both Davinci Resolve Studio and Adobe Premiere, both in rec2100:


Premiere shows the HDR content. Resolve Studio doesn't

In the viewer in resolve, on a 10bit HDR desktop in windows, the brightest it will go is 8-bit, SDR white, instead of 10-bit HDR white.

I understand what you're trying to explain but the terminology is not quite accurate.

Bits have nothing to do with SDR or HDR. Both 8, 10bit and any other integer bit amount have the same min and max range, you just have more or less steps in between. The HDR PQ signal is distributed across this range, but the bit depth could virtually be anything, it's just that the standard requires 10bit as the minimum to not have obvious banding.

What you are displaying in the screenshot is actually 'correct' on both sides. It's just that the Resolve image viewer isn't being color managed by the OS so it can't convert neither SDR or HDR to your display. You are looking at it as is which looks similar to a camera log image. Premiere does support display color management and thus the signal is properly converted to your monitor. On BMD's end this only works for Macs.

In the viewer in resolve, on a 10bit HDR desktop in windows, the brightest it will go is 8-bit, SDR white, instead of 10-bit HDR white.

I understand what you're trying to explain but the terminology is not quite accurate.

Bits have nothing to do with SDR or HDR. Both 8, 10bit and any other integer bit amount have the same min and max range, you just have more or less steps in between. The HDR PQ signal is distributed across this range, but the bit depth could virtually be anything, it's just that the standard requires 10bit as the minimum to not have obvious banding.

What you are displaying in the screenshot is actually 'correct' on both sides. It's just that the Resolve image viewer isn't being color managed by the OS so it can't convert neither SDR or HDR to your display. You are looking at it as is which looks similar to a camera log image.

The image on Resolve looks nothing like a camera log image and simply exhibits clipping of the highs, like viewing a 10 bit signal clamped to only 8bit FWIW. I understand the difference between HDR and SDR and 10bit/8bit as well as gamma vs colorspace etc. It really seems like it boils down to Resolve not being able to output the 10bit, HDR output I need it to.

For (proper) content monitoring, you should be able to view the content.

You can.

It's just not going to look exactly the way it will be delivered (unless you get the hardware).

I have the hardware it takes to do what I would consider proper quality monitoring

Unless you have a Decklink and a second calibrated display, I don't believe you do.

But if you publish to the internet, it doesn't matter very much.
Everybody will see their personal version anyway, most of the time on smartphones. Compare your video on two different brands of smartphones, and you'll see what I mean.

But if you publish to the internet, it doesn't matter very much.
Everybody will see their personal version anyway, most of the time on smartphones. Compare your video on two different brands of smartphones, and you'll see what I mean.

This delves in to my world, which is advertising work for print and web. Colour management and calibration are critical to both establish a starting point based on colour science and a proper colour foundation, and also to help ensure that what I see is what the agency / client sees during the decision making process. It's a workflow based around computer displays and mobile devices and not the limitations of broadcast standards. To say that colour accuracy 'doesn't matter very much' is not something an agency would say to a client and certainly not something I would say to anyone. It may not 'matter' to the end viewer, but it most definitely matters to the people creating the content.

It all depends. If you do professional work for clients, yes, you need proper monitoring. And you better make sure that they also have calibrated screens, or at least hand them an iPad.
But these days, I’d assume that 99% of the users of DR are not in this category. And those who are can be kindly asked to help financing the software by buying proper hardware from BM.

I have the hardware it takes to do what I would consider proper quality monitoring

Unless you have a Decklink and a second calibrated display, I don't believe you do.

I would argue that if you don't have a calibrated *first* display you're not doing quality editing. The 2nd display is nice to have but if your primary display is well-calibrated you don't particularly need a 2nd.