Selective transcoding for 4k HDR to SDR tonemapping

Plex Players Streaming Devices
,
1

I am not sure if there is already a workaround for this or not, or if this is even the desired behavior.

HDR to SDR tonemapping is working fine for my 4k content, but the other night I played a movie on a Firestick 4k that was plugged into a TV that maxes out at 1080p.

Because is is on the local network it direct played, and the device / Plex client handled converting the output to 1080p for the TV, but the colors were really washed out. If I told it to transcode to 1080p it looked fine, but:

  • I don’t want to disable direct-play system wide, because this only applies to 4k content

  • I don’t want to have to select this each time I play 4k content on this TV, as its in front of a treadmill and I would prefer to not have to fiddle with settings while on it.

Is there any workaround for this outside of the 2 options above?

2

Can you disable HDR in the FireStick 4K settings?
Amazon Fire TV Settings → Display & Sounds → Dynamic Range Settings = Disable HDR

I’ve a FireStick 4K Max connected to a 4K LG TV. When I disable HDR on the FireStick, Plex Media Server transcodes & tonemaps 4K HDR media.

Note: I had to restart the FireStick for the setting to take effect, even though I confirmed the setting on-screen after changing it.

3

Looks like the only options I have are ‘Always HDR’ or ‘Adaptive’, the description of which says is marches the source content… which is kind of the opposite of what I am looking for because I don’t want to do HDR despite the original content being in HDR.

I don’t get it because when I do video diagnostics it says under detected video capabilities that it supports HDR but that has to be the Firestick, the TV was made before HDR was common in displays and was a cheap 32 inch Samsung.

4

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.