I Need a Home Theater PC... NOW! - NVIDIA RTX HDR

it sucks when you buy into the latest

technology only to wait years for the

content to catch up and if you have an

HDR display you know exactly what that

feels like obscure anime old TV shows

cult classics great movies the studio

just didn't love enough forget about it

now there are solutions to convert SDR

to HDR like this one from Aja but

$2,000 I could get an RTX 2060 for a

tenth of that price on eBay and

according to Nvidia it can do the same

thing which means they finally did it

what Intel and Microsoft failed to do 20

years ago Nvidia has given the home

theater PC its killer app but there's

got to be some kind of catch okay but

does it Spike power consumption like RTX

super resolution it's got to look awful

right is it full of artifacts like when

dlss first came out you're just going to

have to wait to find out what line is uh

fine can I at least tell them about our

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with the link down below when Nvidia

recently announced their new Nvidia app

we assumed that they would move the RTX

video HDR toggle into that alongside the

beta that now works with games but

instead no it is still buried in the old

Nvidia control panel but the good news

is that toggling it is as simple as

click on click off plof suggested we

start with Wicked City an anime from

1987 that looks like it's from 1987 this

is pretty low bit rate dude anyway

that's not what we're here for we want

to see how our HDR toggle is going to

impact the

oh well that really is something isn't

it

that flatness in the clouds in the sky

yeah it just gives it so much more depth

kind of brightens up the whole image

which I think looks good here yeah it

looks really flat with HDR and all of a

sudden it's like you see more detail too

right this won't be the last time we

touch on this but that may not be the

artist's intent that may be the artist's

intent but as a viewer I know which one

I would choose even I like this one

better too and I tend to stick with

artist intent right just like kind of a

p

this is even better okay hold on a

second I haven't even toggled yet but

yeah oh the way that the Night Lights

pop just looks kind of brighter and

Bluer here it's lifting up some of the

low lights which has the benefit of

allowing us to see more details but

honestly in the bar scene I feel like

it's taking away from the mood a little

bit yes and that's kind of my issue with

doing up mapping especially with some of

these dark scenes the original Gray

is Smokey and hazy and kind of gloomy

whereas this is is bright it's very

colorful yes poppy next up we've got

Phil Tippets Mad God a stop motion film

from 2022 that suffers from the long

night syndrome and doesn't have an HDR

version at the

moment

okay that is wow those lightning flashes

though with the HDR toggle on he huge

difference first lightning flash eh eh

okay it's

on that's lightning now the color

changed a lot here yeah the background

went to like a blood red on off on

that's changing the colors a lot yeah

see I don't like that oversaturation it

changes the mood of that scene right it

really does however the effects boy does

it ever make them pop oh yeah that looks

good so you can see you can really see

when it toggles you don't even have to

check it's like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah I

just need every movie to have a proper

HDR grade because it's clear even with

this faux HDR how it could look without

HDR the specular highlights on a slimy

monster they don't look like slime they

just look like I don't know smooth yeah

tell me this though okay you've never

seen the original grade how pleasing is

this to the eye it's colorful I like it

do you like it well I don't know what

the heck's going on in the

scene I like the

Colors oh the highlights so much better

just look at it you can really make out

that detail right in the center of those

specular Reflections looks like a

Shining Light we're off to a really

great start aside from some minor

quibbles about color saturation and the

the mood there's no question that I

would choose RTX video HDR over vanilla

for everything we've seen so far except

everything we've seen is two pieces of

cont content and none of it included

live action here's the thing a

compelling use case for this Tech like

with their RTX super resolution

upscaling is streaming so whether you're

watching someone game or drop expensive

technology on your screen now you can

make just about everything pop a bit

more and as you're about to see it's not

all sunshine and rainbows here's a

recent video that we didn't upload an

HDR or did we ah the sunlight glinting

off the garage door back there oh wow it

really messes up some things like white

texts I mean oh W oh

wow some of this is okay I mean these

are people that I know obviously this is

Maria and alade it actually adds a

little bit more lifelikeness to them

like look at Maria particularly oh yeah

yeah like you can kind of

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images would you take oh definitely the

HR all right let's find some sweaty

greasy looking people

here you know what in this case um yeah

you're definitely getting a little bit

more

glisten just gives it a bit more depth

it doesn't feel in an unnatural way yeah

I mean he's sweaty as hell and there's a

ton of Lights in that oh those lights

just kind of yeah I like it it's a weird

fallof cuz you're going from like pure

white to like the shine around it that's

what the court lines look like I'll tell

you that much they don't look like that

okay the towels a bit much that's a

shiny

towel yeah the court actually they look

unnatural yep that's clearly not right

if we weren't toggling back and forth

and we weren't thinking about it I would

feel like those Court lines have almost

a reflective element to them yeah in

person they don't honestly the only

thing that's standing out to me is that

towel in the left corner that towel is

like unnaturally bright

God's towel I like it I just don't want

to have to use the Plex web interface in

order to enjoy it with my media library

so if this worked with the app or was

built into the Shield or something like

I'm ready right now I'm mixed I think

watching it now I've kind of grown into

it but I don't know I still have to look

at more things for me to like decide and

it's going to be the same for you but

what I will say is aside from some

quirks it works pretty well

however we haven't compared it to proper

HDR mastering yet our reptile brains

just being tricked by more brightness

and color just like if we were shopping

at a Best Buy to find out we're going to

use some of our own footage from my

giant TV video I've been told that one

of these files is HDR and the other is

SDR masquerading as HDR using nvidia's

tool that's fake

oh they're not going to tell me yet it's

good but it's fake you're right I know

I'm right yeah in some ways the image is

a little more pleasing but look at this

I'm

pink whoops it's too bad I wanted it to

be perfect but obviously a properly

graded piece of content is going to pop

where it's supposed to like this content

behind me looks almost

identical but is also going to retain

the natural look of someone who is back

lit and not for lit

whereas I'm just I'm just lit why am I

so FL flush was like drinking James

looks better here though and that's

interesting is NVIDIA making assumptions

through the selection of their training

data about properly lit people so is

this kind of like you know taking the

the studio mode of your selfie camera

and applying it to any content that you

watch in fact now that I'm lit properly

it's far less noticeable see in this

dark shot I look more lifelike whereas

this is more reflective of the fact that

I have no light on

me damn that is really close this is a

very impressive example if I didn't know

that that's a bit too much Brown for my

couches I would probably take that image

you're right it's very close like the

display is look basically the exact same

here I actually think that the pinpoints

on our light sources in the room look a

little more convincing in the Nvidia

version of course we're not using

exactly the same display so there is a

little bit of variation there but

there's some banding here there like

very little banding there oh you're

right well spotted I didn't see that

that's

ugly oh wow interesting now that I know

what I'm looking for this is a much more

egregious example of what Brandon just

pointed out where that brighter object

was

clearly manipulated in a way that lost

some of its original quality look at

this compared to this there's a subtle

difference and glow on the track from

maybe the

headlights the is

this I'm still very torn looks pretty

good handled this white background

actually really well yeah I noticed

Nvidia they do a good job for the most

part at recognizing when something's

like a white screen and not like blowing

it up some of these look more lifelike

on the f one which is very

interesting so how the heck are they

doing this the first step is they expand

the color gamut from srgb to

srgb using a transformation matrix and I

can practically hear you saying SC

RGB I wasn't familiar with it either

it's kind of a weird color space but

their use of it here makes a lot of

sense just like it makes sense to go

with a Honeywell PTM 7950 thermal pad

for your next build now available for a

reasonable price from a reliable source

LTD store.com

srgb is compatible with regular srgb but

uses 16bit floating point to calculate a

massive dynamic range compared to 8bit

integer on srgb all while using the same

white and black points so in total you

end up with 281 trillion possible colors

compared to the 16.7 million of srgb now

when I say possible colors that's cuz we

can't actually see a lot of them making

scgb completely overkill for actually

displaying anything modern panels don't

have 16bit control over their pixels let

alone the ability to reproduce trillions

of colors but what it's great for is

internal rendering and mathematical

computation so with that background in

mind RTX HDR kind of works like dlss

upscaling where Invidia is taking an

image blowing it up then using machine

learning to fill in the gaps it's the

same idea here just with color and light

so to train their model they analyze a

ton of content ideally in both HDR and

SDR then they take that converted

srgb frame they apply their D noising

algorithm and then they convert it to

bt2100 HDR using that AI model to Output

a finished frame that brightens or dims

specific spots in a scene or saturates

colors to help them appear more Vivid

ideally without it looking like a Best

Buy demo it's really cool it also isn't

really new windows 11 Auto HDR has been

doing something kind of like this for

SDR games for quite a while now often

with decent results as long as you've

completed Microsoft's calibration

process it's also been a thing on the

Xbox series X for a few years and it can

really make those older games pop all of

a sudden bright flashes are hitting

about a thousand nits and they actually

flash instead of just Whiting at you of

course all of this assumes that the

display that you're using can reach that

luminance level and display it

accurately I've complained a lot on this

channel about the HDR displays that are

more like HDR R because while their vase

is certified and they can interpret an

HDR signal their backlight and panel

technology just aren't good enough to

make much of a difference compared to

watching something in

SDR with all of that out of the way then

what about games where the competition

is tighter for nvidia's new hotness to

investigate we've grabbed a couple of

the latest QD OLED panels and we've

upgraded our modest home theater PC with

a second near identical computer for our

second monitor by the way we'll have

links to all of this stuff down below if

you're looking for PC parts or maybe a

new monitor oh look at that green that

saturation on the green okay here let's

look at shiny boy here oh yeah yours

look so much better okay hold on let me

just CLI oh okay or we can shoot the

shiny oh okay yeah well the shine still

looks good even without oh come on it

still looks pretty decent yeah it's all

relative decency is relative flash on

the Fireballs from the imps not even

close what we're comparing right now is

real HDR to SDR but that's not what

we're supposed to be comparing why don't

you go ahead and turn on RTX HDR yeah I

can actually see the appeal of the RTX

HDR version of this yeah if you're into

a really poppy contrasty look it's great

and guess what most people people tend

to prefer whether it's correct or not I

know they want brightness they want

contrast they want color and that's kind

of what we're getting here I I honestly

I'd probably turn it on even here I

think it looks a little better than the

uh actual native Doom HDR setting I mean

the native Doom HDR is pretty good

though it's pretty good man that is

really poppy though it's fun you know

yeah there isn't a major impact on the

visibility of dark regions or anything

like that okay what's next Windows Auto

HDR versus RTX HDR oh okay uh this does

not look very good no no I I agree no it

just doesn't have that Poppy contast it

doesn't even look as good as the HDR

implementation yeah it doesn't like the

Nvidia one is taking it even further

this one is like not taking it as far

it's very dull like look at the the

candy that pops out of the enemies is

not glow like this stuff looks okay the

flashing but that looks decent in SDR

anyway yeah this does not look a lot

better than SDR to me if at all right I

don't think I would turn this on in this

game anyway it does make a lot of non

HDR games pop a little more especially

games who never got like they're older

like 2010 and earlier than that for

example I play a lot of DOTA with

Windows HDR turned on yeah and uh not

much you know but when you like get the

big match accepted uh screen there's

like all these flashes of light and it

looks pretty good but uh I'm going to

probably turn RTX hdr on at home what's

in convenient is that every game's

implementation is going to either be

best with auto HDR or best with RTX HDR

or best with the games native HDR and

switching between those is sort of a

pain in the but oh yeah there this took

a while to get working perfectly right

like some games for example don't allow

you to calibrate the brightest Point

according to the capabilities of your

display you're going to end up with all

these blown note clipped messes RTX HDR

might be way

better that's

son oh man it's such a small part of the

scene but it makes such a difference it

really

does interesting and okay okay okay it's

catching these lights on the

little rad oh shoot oh balls I forgot

this game is really hard yes

um muzzle flashes wild yeah those muzzle

flashes almost look like Stormtrooper

shots like they're so

bright okay not going to lie pretty cool

it's actually really not that overdone

either though no man that glinted off

the water too BL what's the I can't

remember I can't remember I haven't

played crisis in 15

years I keep expecting to like slide if

I you know Sprint and Crouch no no man

pre-s slide era old game just like super

resolution this is pretty cool Tech but

it comes at a cost it doesn't use up

nearly as much power as the upscaling

tool but it does consume a not

insignificant amount and it's still in

beta so there are some bug bears for

example the video HDR doesn't work on

DRM protected content at least not yet

and the game HDR doesn't work if you

have dual monitors at least not yet I

have a wild theory that Nvidia is

basically waiting for Nintendo to launch

the switch 2 before they will launch the

shield Pro 2 and all of this software

development is happening very rapidly

right now because they're gearing up for

the release of The Shield Pro 2 I mean

think about it the original switch and

the original Shield Pro actually very

similar in terms of hardware and Nvidia

has seemingly been due to release a

successor to that damn thing for years

and man with some of the recent

advancements we've seen RTX HDR super

resolution I can see the shield Pro 2

being a killer box not just for watching

video right I mean you know obviously

this is great for that but think about

it for streaming in games man deblocking

all those compression artifacts just

converting to hdr on the local side so

that they don't have to send all that

additional information over your

internet

connection I'm excited and I'm also

excited to see more solutions for using

HDR displays with content that doesn't

necessarily natively support it even if

it's not perfect today and hey back to

what we were talking about before if I'm

wrong about the shield Pro 2

maybe at long last the home theater PC

will be a thing again and you will all

Ru the day you mocked me for keeping my

Windows Media Center Edition remote Ru

it I say just like you'll Ru asking me

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opposite if you guys enjoyed this video

make sure to check out the one about

nvidia's upscaling technology RTX super

resolution it's also really cool