This was all a waste of money. - Why HDR Sucks on YouTube.
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Promos
Get the ultimate Father's day gift with iFixit at: ifix.gd Many of you have been asking why we upload our videos in SDR instead of HDR. Well, we’ve been asking the same question, so let’s examine why HDR content creation is such a pain on YouTube, and what YouTube can do to help make things easier (hint: it involves LUTs!) HDR test footage courtesy of Links TV: youtube.com Discuss on the forum: linustechtips.com ► GET MERCH: lttstore.com ► SUPPORT US ON FLOATPLANE: floatplane.com ► AFFILIATES, SPONSORS & REFERRALS: lmg.gg ► PODCAST GEAR: lmg.gg FOLLOW US --------------------------------------------------- Twitter: twitter.com Facebook: @LinusTech Instagram: @linustech TikTok: @linustech Twitch: twitch.tv MUSIC CREDIT --------------------------------------------------- Intro: Laszlo - Supernova Video Link: youtube.com iTunes Download Link: itunes.apple.com Artist Link: soundcloud.com Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High Video Link: youtube.com Listen on Spotify: spoti.fi Artist Link: youtube.com Intro animation by MBarek Abdelwassaa @mbarek_abdel Monitor And Keyboard by vadimmihalkevich / CC BY 4.0 geni.us Mechanical RGB Keyboard by BigBrotherECE / CC BY 4.0 geni.us Mouse Gamer free Model By Oscar Creativo / CC BY 4.0 geni.us CHAPTERS --------------------------------------------------- 0:00 Intro 1:34 The problem 2:45 What is HDR 3:57 Why it's hard 6:15 Look up Tables 7:55 FRUSTRATED 9:12 Dear Youtube, 10:22 an Inconvenient Truth 11:45 Outro
This video opens with a critique of HDR on YouTube, arguing that HDR is not being utilized effectively by the platform despite widespread HDR-capable devices. The creator explains that the real problem is not the content creation itself but the technical and platform limitations of YouTube, which fail to deliver a consistent HDR experience across diverse displays. He emphasizes that simply uploading HDR content is not enough, because metadata, tone mapping, and display capabilities must be aligned for viewers to see true HDR quality. The discussion then delves into the concept of dynamic range, color gamuts, and the role of colorists and mastering displays in achieving natural, lifelike images. A key part of the video introduces lookup tables (LUTs) as a workaround to render HDR content on SDR displays and explains why YouTube’s automatic HDR handling often dulls colors or flattens details. The creator critiques the SDR to HDR translation, laments the lack of full support for HDR10+ on YouTube, and highlights the convoluted workflow to upload and apply LUTs to HDR content. He concludes with a call for YouTube to improve HDR support and metadata handling, and to make the process more accessible for independent creators, while also offering a promo of iFixit tools and a nod to related HDR resources. The video blends practical explanations of HDR concepts with a candid, opinionated rant about platform constraints. It argues that tone mapping metadata and per-scene dynamic metadata are crucial for consistent viewing across devices, but that current implementations on YouTube fall short. Examples include how SDR viewers may experience a degraded image if metadata is not properly embedded, and how LUTs can mitigate some issues but are not a perfect solution due to limitations in Google’s tooling and workflow. The host intersperses humor, sponsor mentions, and references to HDR standards to illustrate the complexity of delivering high fidelity video on a mass audience platform, while urging viewers and YouTube to acknowledge the untapped potential of HDR when done correctly.
Topics · technology · video production · digital media · consumer electronics · streaming video
Questions answered
- What is HDR and why is it challenging to implement on YouTube?
- HDR is a method to reproduce a wider color gamut and greater brightness range. On YouTube, delivering consistent HDR across many displays is difficult because metadata, tone mapping, and display capabilities vary between devices, and YouTube’s handling of HDR metadata and per-scene tone mapping is not fully implemented.
- Why are LUTs used in HDR video delivery, and what are their limitations?
- LUTs are lookup tables applied to video to adjust color and brightness to better suit SDR displays or limited HDR implementations. They help improve the appearance when YouTube’s automatic SDR conversion is used, but they are not tailored to each video and may not preserve all intended colors, especially across different scenes and displays.
- What changes does the creator want from YouTube regarding HDR support?
- The creator asks YouTube to stop half-baking HDR features, improve the integration of HDR metadata and tone mapping, support scene-by-scene dynamic metadata like HDR10+, and make the workflow for uploading and using LUTs more accessible for independent creators.