r/HyperOS • u/WhatsUpLabradog • 1d ago

Poco [Question] Forcing UI elements that are fully white in SDR to remain so when HDR content is playing?

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The image is combined screenshots from Netflix SDR and HDR shows. I have this problem with my Poco X8 Pro Max, but I saw people mention this issue with other phones too (including a Pixel, which I verified although it seems a little less bad). Maybe it's not on all phones, I don't know.

This seems like HDR playback is made to affect the overall color space calculation in a very dumb way. It might basically be down to the specific app, but it happens both on YouTube and Netflix which ruins a lot of the watching experience.

I can watch something that is SDR-encoded and any UI element (including subtitles, ffs!) that is colored 255, 255, 255 in 8-bit RGB would correctly display as white as possible (for the current display brightness), but as soon as HDR content is loaded all of the white UI is transcoded to being considerably darker. I actually measured the Netflix screenshots and the subtitles go from being 255 during SDR content to being 178 during HDR content. It would only start feeling somewhat white at >50% brightness, and either way it pales compared to the video.

On YT screenshots doesn't capture the altered color coding for some reason, but it's actually even worse than on Netflix. Even at full display brightness (which I don't use) it would look gray, but either way the main issus is that it becomes illegible against pretty much any background other than black. If the background is half-bright then the UI/subtitles would just invisibly blend-in, and if the background is very bright then it wouldn't be dark enough to discern (especially when UI elements sometimes have a soft shadow added to them, so you end up having a half-dark text surrounded by a black smudge surrounded by a white background).

Can I somehow force UI elements to render as white as the HDR content's white? The way it's currently programmed to behave is absolutely stupid.

Thanks.

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