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House of the Dragon too dark in HDR

Ryan McNeal said:
The problem is more to do with auto dimming on displays that are in HDR mode, which you can see in the video, SDR or not.
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Out of curiosity, I looked at the PQ version of the video and in my personal opinion, many of the scenes are simply too dark (auto-dimming or not).
 
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Cary Knoop said:
Out of curiosity, I looked at the PQ version of the video and in my personal opinion, many of the scenes are simply too dark (auto-dimming or not).
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Yes, I agree. I think this is a creative misstep by the filmmakers and a technical QC failure allowed to go all the way to air.
 
Igor Riđanović said:
What's the logic behind auto dimming feature when the level is low? You'd think the danger of burning-in the screen at low level is, well, low.

Is it that because the light level is below some set threshold, the TV assumes the picture is not moving?

This wasn't the best day-for-night either. Good day-for-night is not as simple as turning the gain down. There should be some key and rim light that punctures the darkness.
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Thats correct, it engages because its threshold for movement detection is too high, so the low nits scene looks "paused" to the display, triggering the auto dimming. LG can fix by lowering their threshold, but filmmakers can fix by actually gut-checking the work on consumer displays and following QC standards.
 
Gustavo Bermudas said:
I wouldn't be surprised if this show was graded on a theater, even if it goes on TV.
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There are places that do that, but I don't believe that colorist Asa Shoul of Warner Bros. Leavesden in London did that. Even if he did, an A-list show of this kind of budget would go through multiple QC passes on different kinds of monitors. But the producer later commented perhaps they had gone too far:

'House of the Dragon' creator knows that one scene was too dark,
says he's learned 'we are making the show for people's television sets'
www.businessinsider.com

'House of the Dragon' creator knows that one scene was too dark, says he's learned 'we are making the show for people's television sets'

"House of the Dragon" showrunner Ryan Condal addressed viewer concerns, suggesting future episodes won't be as dimly lit.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com

I have cautioned clients many, many times in the last 30 years to try to let us at least pop the specular highlights to give the illusion of detail, and also to let us provide a "breath" in the shadows so the scene isn't crushed. I agree with @Igor Riđanović that adding a little rimlight and eyelight on set can totally take the curse off it, and it helps a great deal. When I worked on Lost 15 years ago, DP John Bartley was intent on doing that, and I like to believe that our night scenes were never too dark.

Me personally, I thought House of the Dragon looked fine in HDR and I didn't have a problem with it. And this was on a calibrated LG C9 OLED (with ABL turned off with the old factory controls).
 
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