Inconsistent Colour Reproduction in Swiftin and Jellyfin Mobile iOS Clients

[milesmorales]

Jellyfin version: 10.9.9
OS: Windows 11
Configuration: Ryzen 5 5600x and Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti

Issue is present on both Jellyfin Mobile and Swiftin for iOS on both iPhone and iPad, File used is H.265 with Dolby Vision 8.1 and Fallback to HDR. I've tried with multiple such files and the result is the same!

Playback info states Direct Play -> Perfect colour reproduction
Playback info states Transcoding -> Washed out colours

In both cases the file is the same, clients are the same and the settings (below) are the same!
The client doesn't do Direct Play always and falls back to Transcoding randomly and if I close the app and try again after sometime it shifts again to Direct Play/ Transcoding at its will.

I want the playback to be Direct play always for accurate colour reproduction.

   

[TheDreadPirate]

Enable tone mapping. Currently, Jellyfin will always convert HDR to SDR when transcoding HDR video. Without tone mapping this will result in washed out colors. Tone mapping will gracefully convert the color spaces. You lose HDR but maintain accurate colors.

If it is sometimes direct playing and sometimes not, make sure that you've set the "maximum bit rate" to the highest manual value instead of auto. Sometimes the auto detection will return an incorrect and low value, resulting in unnecessary transcoding.

There is on going work to allow for HDR to HDR transcoding. But no ETA.

[milesmorales]

Enable tone mapping.  Currently, Jellyfin will always convert HDR to SDR when transcoding HDR video.  Without tone mapping this will result in washed out colors.  Tone mapping will gracefully convert the color spaces.  You lose HDR but maintain accurate colors.

If it is sometimes direct playing and sometimes not, make sure that you've set the "maximum bit rate" to the highest manual value instead of auto.  Sometimes the auto detection will return an incorrect and low value, resulting in unnecessary transcoding.

There is on going work to allow for HDR to HDR transcoding.  But no ETA.

Thanks for the input, what I understood so far is that if it is Direct play it isn't transcoding anything? (Only decoding but no encoding), but in the case of Washed out colours it is decoding and encoding as per the task manager info on my GPU.

So there is no way to view HDR or Dolby Vision content using Jellyfin on any client?

[TheDreadPirate]

If the client is direct playing the server is just sending the file to the client and literally nothing else. Not even decoding.

The washed out colors happens when the HDR video is transcoding but you didn't enable tone mapping. Transcoding happens when the client can't direct play the video due to compatibility issues.

There are many kinds of HDR and your client may not support all of them.

[milesmorales]

If the client is direct playing the server is just sending the file to the client and literally nothing else.  Not even decoding.

The washed out colors happens when the HDR video is transcoding but you didn't enable tone mapping.  Transcoding happens when the client can't direct play the video due to compatibility issues.

There are many kinds of HDR and your client may not support all of them.

Great! Thank you very much for the info!

[milesmorales]

If the client is direct playing the server is just sending the file to the client and literally nothing else.  Not even decoding.

The washed out colors happens when the HDR video is transcoding but you didn't enable tone mapping.  Transcoding happens when the client can't direct play the video due to compatibility issues.

There are many kinds of HDR and your client may not support all of them.

I have tried it just now, on iOS in both Jellyfin and Swiftin, direct play is a hit or a miss for the same file! It plays in direct play sometimes and sometimes it doesn't, if I enable force direct Play, I get a black screen with a slash over the play icon. Is there a way to make it consistent direct play.

[TheDreadPirate]

I have tried it just now, on iOS in both Jellyfin and Swiftin, direct play is a hit or a miss for the same file! It plays in direct play sometimes and sometimes it doesn't, if I enable force direct Play, I get a black screen with a slash over the play icon. Is there a way to make it consistent direct play.

If you forced direct play and the screen is black that means the device doesn't support the video.  Either the codec or HDR type.  Can you show me the media info for the file?

   

And the config I mentioned earlier (see quote below).  If your video is a super high bit rate it is possible that the "auto" setting, which attempts to detect your network speed, made an incorrect determination and is transcoding due to it thinking your network isn't fast enough Did you manually select a high maximum bit rate?

If it is sometimes direct playing and sometimes not, make sure that you've set the "maximum bit rate" to the highest manual value instead of auto.  Sometimes the auto detection will return an incorrect and low value, resulting in unnecessary transcoding.

[milesmorales]

I have tried it just now, on iOS in both Jellyfin and Swiftin, direct play is a hit or a miss for the same file! It plays in direct play sometimes and sometimes it doesn't, if I enable force direct Play, I get a black screen with a slash over the play icon. Is there a way to make it consistent direct play.

If you forced direct play and the screen is black that means the device doesn't support the video.  Either the codec or HDR type.  Can you show me the media info for the file?



And the config I mentioned earlier (see quote below).  If your video is a super high bit rate it is possible that the "auto" setting, which attempts to detect your network speed, made an incorrect determination and is transcoding due to it thinking your network isn't fast enough Did you manually select a high maximum bit rate?

If it is sometimes direct playing and sometimes not, make sure that you've set the "maximum bit rate" to the highest manual value instead of auto.  Sometimes the auto detection will return an incorrect and low value, resulting in unnecessary transcoding.

Hi, I forced the bitrate to 120 in the Dashboard > Playback > Streaming setting and my internet speed is 300 Mbps.     

But sometimes the Video plays in Direct play without any transcoding, I want this to be consistent..

Please check the file info and the settings below,

   

[TheDreadPirate]

That isn't the setting I was speaking about.  That will only define the absolute maximum allowed.

   
   
   

[milesmorales]

That isn't the setting I was speaking about.  That will only define the absolute maximum allowed.

That is set to 4K - 120 Mbps in all my clients!