Dark Bars on certain 4k movies

[firas1]

Ok thats really bad
Can you add a feature to automaticall play the files in hdr instead of DV inside the settings?
Then I would just watch everything in HDR

[firas1]

So is there no hope on getting this fixed?

[TheDreadPirate]

Without modifying your media, no. This is a device specific bug that has been around for multiple iterations of Android, Jellyfin, exoplayer, and multiple Sony TV models.

If it helps, removing dolby vision is literally a single command now. I detail the process in this guide.

https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-converting-...5#pid41935

[firas1]

And is there no way to add a on/off switch inside the jellyfin settings to activate DV or deactivate it? (same as AppleTV does)

[TheDreadPirate]

I'm sure it is possible, but I'm not aware of any efforts to add that functionality at this time.

[thorleif]

I have the exact same issue, with the Sony A95L. Didn't fully understand the discussion. Is the conclusion that this is a well known long standing issue with Sony TVs and the only reliable solution is to use another streaming device like a Nvidia Shield for example?

[TheDreadPirate]

Yep. Long standing Sony specific bug, it seems.

Your options are to use another device, like a Shield. I generally recommend this anyway.

Or you can strip out the Dolby Vision later so that you have a plain HDR10 video.

[thorleif]

Thanks for the advice. So really only Sony themselves could fix this then? I wonder if I could get any traction trying to pester them to fix it.

I had a hard time finding any mention of this issue online. If you have any kind of reference to other people experiencing this problem (for example in GitHub issues or the likes), could you post it here? Would be helpful if I reach out to Sony.

[TheDreadPirate]

I believe this is the issue.

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/8803

My understanding is that the issue is how the UI is rendered when the Dolby Vision video is not 3840x2160. All the Dolby Vision movies I've encountered were still 3840x2160 canvases even though the actual movie was a narrower aspect ratio. If your movie's canvas is 3840x1600, the Dolby Vision metadata is still 3840x2160 most of the time but the black bars on the bottom and top are baked into the DV metadata. Whatever Sony is doing does not render the black bars as part of the video and thus compresses the DV metadata vertically, resulting in uneven brightness.

[thorleif]

I mean no disrespect but I'm actually not sure that is the same issue OP and I are experiencing.

That issue seems to be about the bars at the top and bottom being grey instead of black. I find many mentions of this issue, for example this one
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/3470

Our issue is instead that there are shaded regions inside the actual movie (attaching a photo). This forum post is the only mention I find of our issue. What you wrote (about the DV metadata becoming compressed) makes sense though, so maybe this was already clear to you.

I can confirm that the only instances I have found for this issue were with movies in 3840x1608 using Dolby Vision profile 8.1. If I turn off Dolby Vision (I use the Vimu player), then the problem goes away. The problem is there using both Vimu and Exoplayer.

Do you still believe this is an issue only Sony can solve? If so I think I'll try writing them.