VU Premium Android 4k TVs aren't really HDR! Please go through this thread before buying one.

[mrhohoha]

My sense from about a day's worth of research is the following:

• All TVs with 8-bit panels claiming to do "HDR" of any sort are basically doing some form of simulated HDR. With the exception of the Mi 4X Pro which claims a 10-bit panel, TVs significantly north of ₹60-70k seem to do this on a regular basis, including Samsung's competent RU7100, which also has an 8-bit panel. What Vu's offering, and other peers seem to be doing is essentially remapping the 10-bit colourspace down to the closest 8-bit representation, which I understand still results in a better outcome than playing the content in SDR.
• A common way 8-bit panels simulate 10 bit HDR is through a method called FRC (Frame Rate Control). I'm curious to know if the Vu panel under discussion does this, or simply treats all external inputs as SDR (to simplify, are all external sources only SDR capable?)
• I'd be curious to know if @MultiversalSapien it's only your PC that's you have problems with, or if this happens with other devices as well (Fire TV stick/Xbox One X). Tried any other computers?

At the end of the day, I'm interested more in a device that provides a competent image quality more than the semantics of whether its "true" HDR.

As far as I can see, while Vu's claims might be somewhat shady, they do clearly state that it's an 8-bit panel, which decodes and plays back HDR10 and Dolby Vision content (HDR10+ is notably missing). What I would find a little more disturbing would be if it were the case that external inputs are unable to negotiate an HDR connection to the TV at all but if thats not the case, I'd be more than happy getting the Vu Premium Android series.

Personally I have skin in this game as I'm in the middle of a purchase decision between the Mi 4X Pro (apparently a true 10bit panel) versus the Vu Premium Android (both 55"). Thoughts?

 

[MultiversalSapien]

My sense from about a day's worth of research is the following:

• All TVs with 8-bit panels claiming to do "HDR" of any sort are basically doing some form of simulated HDR. With the exception of the Mi 4X Pro which claims a 10-bit panel, TVs significantly north of ₹60-70k seem to do this on a regular basis, including Samsung's competent RU7100, which also has an 8-bit panel. What Vu's offering, and other peers seem to be doing is essentially remapping the 10-bit colourspace down to the closest 8-bit representation, which I understand still results in a better outcome than playing the content in SDR.
• A common way 8-bit panels simulate 10 bit HDR is through a method called FRC (Frame Rate Control). I'm curious to know if the Vu panel under discussion does this, or simply treats all external inputs as SDR (to simplify, are all external sources only SDR capable?)
• I'd be curious to know if @MultiversalSapien it's only your PC that's you have problems with, or if this happens with other devices as well (Fire TV stick/Xbox One X). Tried any other computers?

At the end of the day, I'm interested more in a device that provides a competent image quality more than the semantics of whether its "true" HDR.

As far as I can see, while Vu's claims might be somewhat shady, they do clearly state that it's an 8-bit panel, which decodes and plays back HDR10 and Dolby Vision content (HDR10+ is notably missing). What I would find a little more disturbing would be if it were the case that external inputs are unable to negotiate an HDR connection to the TV at all but if thats not the case, I'd be more than happy getting the Vu Premium Android series.

Personally I have skin in this game as I'm in the middle of a purchase decision between the Mi 4X Pro (apparently a true 10bit panel) versus the Vu Premium Android (both 55"). Thoughts?

Appreciate your insight and your day's worth of research. Well, as far as my pc goes, here's what happened and I never bothered heavy-lifting again my entire 14 kg rig atop the tv table: I connected to all the HDMI ports one by one and only one port (but I doubt if there's one more capable of doing that) was able to activate the HDMI Enhanced and Full HDMI Dynamic Range options in the Picture settings of the TV which are very crucial to turn on for proper HDR output, otherwise in half HDMI dyn. range and standard hdmi (instead of enhanced) options I found my TV to display noticeably inferior color gamut and content quality, I mean the icon text was looking blunt and poor quality in these latter HDMI options. So once I enabled the former options of HDMI and let some HDR10 HEVC samples to play on both MPC-BE and MPC Classic x64 players the picture was decolorized as it would on an SDR monitor which again raised a complex suspicion for me whether this TV is even HDR10 or not but I confirmed it under the Windows HD Color settings as 8-bpc color depth. I finally came down to this after this thead informed me about tone-mapping: it seemed (acc. to a person who commented 3rd of 4th place from top) like the tv was unable to do WCG (wide color gamut) handshake on HDR10 input while the actual output is limited to 8-bit only resulting in that 'decolorization' or washed-out colors if you will.
So, my amended question to VU is "Why didn't you managed to inculcate HDR tone mapping to from 10-bit -> 8-bit for native YT while you successfully incorporated it into Netflix, Prime, and PC signals via HDMI Enhanced?" Why is it that there's an HDR10 logo appearing on top left along with the resolution details and not in YT?

 

[shivamahajan13]

How I wish it were that straightforward (as it should have been)
Unfortunately three separate competing standards (Dolby Vision , HDR10, HLG) and the fact that different OTT providers (e.g. netflix/ Prime) support some devices and not others makes it a lot more complex.

Just as an example, if you own say a Samsung Q90 (flagship) and choose to stream a HDR title from Netflix via a Amazon fire stick 4K expecting a bright & vivid video
What you will get instead is a completely washed out image that looks a lot worse than what it does on an old Panasonic LCD.

The reason for that being Samsung does not support Dolby Vision (but it does support HDR10) while Netflix supports Dolby Vision on firestick but not HDR10
Thus the TV gets a narrow color gamut signal while it thinks it is receiving a wide color gamut and thus the resultant picture is flat.

In order to get good HDR while ensuring non HDR isn't flattened to lifeless , You need to do two things

a) Enable your streaming setup to auto switch to HDR when available (most often, it is set to always HDR) - At least it will ensure that if there is a mismatch you will at least get good SDR (which is far better than bad HDR as in the example above),

b) Ensure your TV , playback device and source match up

c) Ensure you are using high speed HDMI cables

The most HDR compatible streaming device at the moment is Apple TV 4K which from an India perspective supports both Prime and Netflix for DV as well as HDR10 (as well as ATMOS)
The Fire TV stick falls short on this measure and so do the native streaming apps on majority of chinese sets like Mi or Ifalconn

Thanks for explaining this so succinctly!

I own an IFFalcon 4K TV that supports HDR content and am facing the exact same problem as mentioned by this post's author. Whenever I try to play any HDR content on Netflix or Amazon PrimeVideo, the colours look extremely dark and washed out.

I was hoping if you have something to help me troubleshoot:

1. My setup consists of my 4K TV (an official Android TV running Android 8.0) connected via its HDMI ARC port to my Sony AVR (all HDCP 2.2 ports) via a high quality HDMI cable.
2. Playing any sort of HDR content via the TV's native Netflix app (pre-installed with the TV from Play Store) results in washed out colours.
3. I also have a 4K Roku stick plugged in to my AVR, and I tried playing HDR content from it, yet faced with the same washed our colours problem.
4. I have also attached screenshots of Netflix stats for your reference, if it helps.
5. My TV originally came with Android 7, and there were none of the HDR colour problems with it until there was an official OTA Android 8 update that I (now, regrettably) installed.

I read your points on how the TV expects a WCG but instead gets a narrow colour gamut. What I am trying to understand is how can I ensure that the handshake happens properly, without the mismatch in the colour gamut.

Any pointers or help would be sooo much appreciated! Have been scratching my head over this for weeks, without any resolution!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Vinod.R]

It is sad indeed that an end consumer has to have a fight with conflicting standards be it HDR10, DOLBY VISION OR HLG. (As far as I know hybrid log gamma is not another standard).

The convenience we get with HDMI has it's payout does it not? Handshakes? Conflicts? Freezing pictures!

Miss the old days when you pushed the analogue cable in, tuned your picture to the best of your ability and you were good to go.

 

[superczar]

Thanks for explaining this so succinctly!

I own an IFFalcon 4K TV that supports HDR content and am facing the exact same problem as mentioned by this post's author. Whenever I try to play any HDR content on Netflix or Amazon PrimeVideo, the colours look extremely dark and washed out.

I was hoping if you have something to help me troubleshoot:

1. My setup consists of my 4K TV (an official Android TV running Android 8.0) connected via its HDMI ARC port to my Sony AVR (all HDCP 2.2 ports) via a high quality HDMI cable.
2. Playing any sort of HDR content via the TV's native Netflix app (pre-installed with the TV from Play Store) results in washed out colours.
3. I also have a 4K Roku stick plugged in to my AVR, and I tried playing HDR content from it, yet faced with the same washed our colours problem.
4. I have also attached screenshots of Netflix stats for your reference, if it helps.
5. My TV originally came with Android 7, and there were none of the HDR colour problems with it until there was an official OTA Android 8 update that I (now, regrettably) installed.

I read your points on how the TV expects a WCG but instead gets a narrow colour gamut. What I am trying to understand is how can I ensure that the handshake happens properly, without the mismatch in the colour gamut.

Any pointers or help would be sooo much appreciated! Have been scratching my head over this for weeks, without any resolution!

Thanks in advance!

Ideally shouldn’t have happened with the native app as you’d assume the TVs OS would be optimised for it but considering this happened after an OS upgrade, I suppose they released the firmware without thorough testing.
I haven’t seen this particular TV but considering even the native app now has this issue, the best solution I can surmise is disabling HDR10 altogether for the time being until the next update comes along (and hopefully fixes this).
A proper SDR picture looks far better than a broken HDR10 one

 

[nitesh2001]

Appreciate your insight and your day's worth of research. Well, as far as my pc goes, here's what happened and I never bothered heavy-lifting again my entire 14 kg rig atop the tv table: I connected to all the HDMI ports one by one and only one port (but I doubt if there's one more capable of doing that) was able to activate the HDMI Enhanced and Full HDMI Dynamic Range options in the Picture settings of the TV which are very crucial to turn on for proper HDR output, otherwise in half HDMI dyn. range and standard hdmi (instead of enhanced) options I found my TV to display noticeably inferior color gamut and content quality, I mean the icon text was looking blunt and poor quality in these latter HDMI options. So once I enabled the former options of HDMI and let some HDR10 HEVC samples to play on both MPC-BE and MPC Classic x64 players the picture was decolorized as it would on an SDR monitor which again raised a complex suspicion for me whether this TV is even HDR10 or not but I confirmed it under the Windows HD Color settings as 8-bpc color depth. I finally came down to this after this thead informed me about tone-mapping: it seemed (acc. to a person who commented 3rd of 4th place from top) like the tv was unable to do WCG (wide color gamut) handshake on HDR10 input while the actual output is limited to 8-bit only resulting in that 'decolorization' or washed-out colors if you will.
So, my amended question to VU is "Why didn't you managed to inculcate HDR tone mapping to from 10-bit -> 8-bit for native YT while you successfully incorporated it into Netflix, Prime, and PC signals via HDMI Enhanced?" Why is it that there's an HDR10 logo appearing on top left along with the resolution details and not in YT?

Hello brother. Do you still own VU Premium Android TV?
If yes, then can you please provide me the screenshot of System, CPU and Display section from the app AIDA64 from your TV?

I am confused, whether I should buy this TV or not. As not detailed specification is not available anywhere about mediatek chipset used or about the graphics card.

 

[firephoenix]

Hey MultiversalSapien, I am buying the 43 inch variant of this Vu Premium Android TV because none of the other brands have this good PQ under 25K other than this according to all reviews available, even the new MI 43'' UHD panel looks dull but I would be buying the Firestick 4k with this, so you are using this setup, could you please tell whether the content from Firestick 4K looks good now on this TV with Netflix and Prime with DV and HDR 10 or is it still inferior compared to already installed OTT apps in TV?

 

[firephoenix]

Hey Everyone, so I am having a VU Premium Android TV with cricket mode, first time I received the TV it didn't had cricket mode so I replaced it, today I have received the replacement and this model has Cricket Mode but now I am facing another issue with this TV, I am using Fire TV Stick 4k and whenever I am playing any 4K DOlby Vision Content on it, the bottom part of the screen is turning green almost covering the playback bar, this issue was not happening on previous one that was without cricket mode.

I checked by downloading Netflix on TV also and in that Dolby Content works without any issues but it is creating this green bottom problem in Firestick, even HDR 10 videos are working great just the issue with Dolby Vision Content.

Posting the pics also

https://imgur.com/OWteTsO

https://imgur.com/g8msAqW

 

[nitesh2001]

Hey Everyone, so I am having a VU Premium Android TV with cricket mode, first time I received the TV it didn't had cricket mode so I replaced it, today I have received the replacement and this model has Cricket Mode but now I am facing another issue with this TV, I am using Fire TV Stick 4k and whenever I am playing any 4K DOlby Vision Content on it, the bottom part of the screen is turning green almost covering the playback bar, this issue was not happening on previous one that was without cricket mode.

I checked by downloading Netflix on TV also and in that Dolby Content works without any issues but it is creating this green bottom problem in Firestick, even HDR 10 videos are working great just the issue with Dolby Vision Content.

Posting the pics also

https://imgur.com/OWteTsO

https://imgur.com/g8msAqW

Bro, I also have the same TV. But I think your this issue is hardware related. I will suggest you to get a replacement asap. Also talk to VU Customer care to confirm about it.

 

[nitesh2001]

Hey Everyone, so I am having a VU Premium Android TV with cricket mode, first time I received the TV it didn't had cricket mode so I replaced it, today I have received the replacement and this model has Cricket Mode but now I am facing another issue with this TV, I am using Fire TV Stick 4k and whenever I am playing any 4K DOlby Vision Content on it, the bottom part of the screen is turning green almost covering the playback bar, this issue was not happening on previous one that was without cricket mode.

I checked by downloading Netflix on TV also and in that Dolby Content works without any issues but it is creating this green bottom problem in Firestick, even HDR 10 videos are working great just the issue with Dolby Vision Content.

Posting the pics also

https://imgur.com/OWteTsO

https://imgur.com/g8msAqW

Or maybe, it's an issue of the Firestick you are using. Did you try playing Dolby Vision content on TV through pendrive?

 

[firephoenix]

Or maybe, it's an issue of the Firestick you are using. Did you try playing Dolby Vision content on TV through pendrive?

Didn't try that, would try that today, but have sent Fire TV Stick 4K for replacement, lets see if that fixes the issue or not, the last return date for the TV is 15th November, would see if new Fire Stick fixes the issue, otherwise would contact Vu one last time to get the issue resolved as they are still saying that it is a software issue, but they are not able to resolve this, otherwise would return it and order again this or some other TV during some future sale.

But I was seeing Amazon Forums, another user has reported this issue https://www.amazonforum.com/forums/...fire-stick-4k-and-vu-premium-android-tv-43#c5

Even on Fire TV Stick 4K review another user has posted the review on Amazon that green strip is appearing for his VU Premium TV too, don't know who is to blame, Vu is taking TVs from Hisense but not providing regular updates or continuing support from them, just keeping same default Software and not resolving issues present in default software.

 

[MultiversalSapien]

Didn't try that, would try that today, but have sent Fire TV Stick 4K for replacement, lets see if that fixes the issue or not, the last return date for the TV is 15th November, would see if new Fire Stick fixes the issue, otherwise would contact Vu one last time to get the issue resolved as they are still saying that it is a software issue, but they are not able to resolve this, otherwise would return it and order again this or some other TV during some future sale.

But I was seeing Amazon Forums, another user has reported this issue https://www.amazonforum.com/forums/...fire-stick-4k-and-vu-premium-android-tv-43#c5

Even on Fire TV Stick 4K review another user has posted the review on Amazon that green strip is appearing for his VU Premium TV too, don't know who is to blame, Vu is taking TVs from Hisense but not providing regular updates or continuing support from them, just keeping same default Software and not resolving issues present in default software.

Sorry to revisit this thread after ages but seems like VU is just another terrible company who can't even fix existing issues. No android update yet which is really frustrating that it's been a whole year now. Also, my Netflix still doesn't play content in Dolby Vision most of the times. When it works, it works just fine in two available modes: Dolby Vision Bright & Dark.

 

[sujithblaze]

Just went through this thread was thinking of purchasing the vu premium range of tv's but after reading this thread having second thoughts, whats ur opinion about the Motorola nd nokia tv's launched recently @MultiversalSapien

 

[OM_2K19]

Please check 'After Sales Service' in your city before investing money on these new brands. After all, you are going to enjoy this set for the next 3 to 4 years.

 

[MultiversalSapien]

Please check 'After Sales Service' in your city before investing money on these new brands. After all, you are going to enjoy this set for the next 3 to 4 years.

Yeah it's still running fine as expected with not potato response and quality at least. It's totally acceptable from an average tv-watching perspective. Hence, I don't regret my 1yr 3 Mo old purchase of this TV despite of all the deceiving by their shitty marketing material and their fancy Dolby Vision branding.

 

[MultiversalSapien]

Just went through this thread was thinking of purchasing the vu premium range of tv's but after reading this thread having second thoughts, whats ur opinion about the Motorola nd nokia tv's launched recently @MultiversalSapien

Always go for a reputed company. It is always considered a positive investment. Bear in mind that I got literally zero software updates thus far. Just dig deeply and see what exactly do you want your TV to do and what your desires and expectations are, like - you want to play games, go for a low input lag, faster pixel response TVs else for causal Netflix binge sessions, just any 4k HDR TV would work just fine but if you want the best of the best, go for 1+ lakh models from Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, OnePlus (maybe?!?)

 

[sujithblaze]

Always go for a reputed company. It is always considered a positive investment. Bear in mind that I got literally zero software updates thus far. Just dig deeply and see what exactly do you want your TV to do and what your desires and expectations are, like - you want to play games, go for a low input lag, faster pixel response TVs else for causal Netflix binge sessions, just any 4k HDR TV would work just fine but if you want the best of the best, go for 1+ lakh models from Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, OnePlus (maybe?!?)

I wont be playing games it would mostly be regular hd tv through tatasky hd box and 4k content from Netflix and blu ray movies,thats y i am looking for hdr10+ Dolby vision nd hlg, does the nokia Motorola,vu tv's have them

 

[harryneopotter]

I wont be playing games it would mostly be regular hd tv through tatasky hd box and 4k content from Netflix and blu ray movies,thats y i am looking for hdr10+ Dolby vision nd hlg, does the nokia Motorola,vu tv's have them

Yes, Nokia, Moto and VU do have models which support DV, not sure about hdr10+ though.

 

[MultiversalSapien]

I wont be playing games it would mostly be regular hd tv through tatasky hd box and 4k content from Netflix and blu ray movies,thats y i am looking for hdr10+ Dolby vision nd hlg, does the nokia Motorola,vu tv's have them

These companies are not quite there yet. Consider other options.

 

[MultiversalSapien]

Yes, Nokia, Moto and VU do have models which support DV, not sure about hdr10+ though.

Again, idk how many times do I have to say it but DV is just a gimmick in these budget TVs. I am better off without it as it only just washes the sh*t outta picture being displayed and the brightness dips are unacceptable. I would love to turn it off if there was an option but seems like they've permanently embedded it into my tv.