Grey bars in HDR instead of black

Plex Players Streaming Devices
,
64

@rwoffice said:
FWIW, if your video is showing 60mbps that just means that’s the average, it could still have spikes much higher than that.

this is true. And it´s also true that we only have a 100mBit LAN Connection on our TVs which is not so great. Don´t know if the wireless connection handles more Data…anybody knows that? But this all gets a liitle bit offtopic… Fact is: HDR is not diplayed correctly on our android plex app and i can only see plex developers working on new features like VR support etc. instead of fixing their main bugs and requests from their costumers. I can understand this is a huge project to support so many plattforms with all their different versions und codecs and i have big respect to the developers but on the other side I have to say that there a more basic bugs/problems that are making me nervous sometimes. I really think devs should focus more on basics like this instead of trying to impress potential new costumers with new features. Its not that i say “new features are bad” - i love them but I also want a stable product that gives me the possibility to love it.

65

I’ve just went through the topic again and I can see people having this issue on both ATV1 and ATV2 models.
The weird part is that I have the cheapest ATV2 model (XD75) and I haven’t seen grey bars yet on HDR. But that is probably i did’t get to that content you are all playing. I have hevc hdr with black bars, many videos like that. Will try to do more testing today.

66

by the way guys. have you updated to firmware 6.2858 - european models ? (ATV2) it is qyuite recent firmware - like a months ago.

67

@mmhorda said:
by the way guys. have you updated to firmware 6.2858 - european models ? (ATV2) it is qyuite recent firmware - like a months ago.

Yes, I updated the same day firmware was released but the problem still persists.

68

Cannot believe this is not fixed yet.
I’m so pleased i took my Sony x930e back and bought an LG oled instead.

69

@treboR2Robert said:
Cannot believe this is not fixed yet.
I’m so pleased i took my Sony x930e back and bought an LG oled instead.

Why would you do that?
As long as I know Sony buys OLED panels from LG.
all what you did is replaced broken a$$ Android for even more broken a$$ WebOS where in a year or two you will start loosing all apps and first one will be youtube.

70

Couldn’t live with the black bar blooming and AWFUL cpu running android on the sony.

Couldn’t be happier with the LG.

Will probly buy another one in a couple years.

71

Bump for this issue as it continues, please address this program devs!

72

I’m pretty sure I’ve fixed this by manually adjusting my TV settings. The black bars are not fully black, but 90% of the way there that they’re not an annoying grey either.

Direct Play of the Matrix in 4K
Edit picture setting on Sony TV
Brightness 11
Contrast 92
Gamma Min
Black level 66
Black adjust off
Adv contrast enhancer Medium

Sony Android 2016 55” x905c
Standard Plex app from chrome store

73

I was getting this issue, but I just manually updated to v6.5603 and it seems to be resolved.

74

update> @ek5932 said:

I was getting this issue, but I just manually updated to v6.5603 and it seems to be resolved.

Where to download and How to do a manual Update? Thanks

75

@ek5932 said:
I was getting this issue, but I just manually updated to v6.5603 and it seems to be resolved.

I got out of bed in the middle of the night because of this comment to update my TV and check this.

Sorry to report that those damn grey bars are still there.

Only solution so far is to play files on Sony’s “Videos” player, not in Plex.

I can’t understand how this hasn’t been resolved yet.

76

Grey Bars is not Plex problem but Sony TV problem.
Try to play the same video in MX Player you will get grey bars too. This problem is not happening on Philips android TV.
Another problem is that PGS subtitles (on HDR HEVC) are grey on Sony android TV, when white on Philips android TV.

It is either broken color space on Sony android TV for HDR content with x265 codec (and HEVC seems like too) or HDR color space just different from different manufacturer what would be quite funny in either case.

77

@mmhorda said:
Grey Bars is not Plex problem but Sony TV problem.
Try to play the same video in MX Player you will get grey bars too. This problem is not happening on Philips android TV.
Another problem is that PGS subtitles (on HDR HEVC) are grey on Sony android TV, when white on Philips android TV.

It is either broken color space on Sony android TV for HDR content with x265 codec (and HEVC seems like too) or HDR color space just different from different manufacturer what would be quite funny in either case.

Sorry mate, but you are wrong.
4K HEVC/x265 HDR plays lovely with perfect BLACK bars on Sony’s own player (called “videos” or something).
Of course this has something to do with the Sony tv set, but its not impossible to play it correctly on those TVs.
It’s the player (plex in this case).

78

Why some people always want to argue?
This problem you are having is not happening on all Sony TV sets but only on some.

Go to Sony forum and read what it is.
here for example: https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-tv/amazon-prime-4k-hdr-grey-letterbox/td-p/2278204/page/2
It is a very well known issue happening in all 3rd party apps. (Sony “weirdo” video app has a lot of interesting audio and video supporting features which will probably never be supported on 3rd party apps because of licensing maybe.

79

THX for the link but there is one question that has to be asked: Why does Netlix work perfectly?

80

@Radl25 said:
THX for the link but there is one question that has to be asked: Why does Netlix work perfectly?

I am not from netflix but as long as I’ve heard they use HEVC (grey bars happening on x265 codec - free version of hevc).

81

I don’t think it’s the codec. If I remember correctly Kodi works without grey bars too for the same files that have grey bars when played with Plex

82

@lackmake said:
I don’t think it’s the codec. If I remember correctly Kodi works without grey bars too for the same files that have grey bars when played with Plex

The probably Kodi plays the same files without HDR

83

@mmhorda said:

@lackmake said:
I don’t think it’s the codec. If I remember correctly Kodi works without grey bars too for the same files that have grey bars when played with Plex

The probably Kodi plays the same files without HDR

As has been stated multiple times in the thread: Kodi absolutely DOES play files with HDR correctly, the Plex app does not. I’ve tested it with multiple files on both apps with the same results again and again. If Kodi was playing without HDR the video would appear washed out when played, which it does not. HDR files are playing flawlessly in Kodi.