It's Looking Like 2024 Could Be The Year Of HDR On The Linux Desktop

[phoronix]

Phoronix: It's Looking Like 2024 Could Be The Year Of HDR On The Linux Desktop

KDE developer Xaver Hugl has shared a status update on the current state of HDR support for the KDE Plasma desktop...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-HDR-End-Of-2023

[mirmirmir]

Looks like we are carving to say year of something linux desktop 🤭🤭

[vipor29]

i remember them saying 2023 was gonna have hdr, good to see it's finally happening.

[RAINFIRE]

Looks like we are carving to say year of something linux desktop 🤭🤭

2024 is the Year of the Linux Desktop! For sure this time. lol it is for me anyway. For free, on the side, I'd like to add the my debian stable pleases me greatly with no snack packs (snaps) or flatpacks or corporate Pro version added to it for $$$ support. Now to unsub this thread to slow down the hate mail...

[reba]

I know this might be an unpopular opinion but I actually dislike HDR.

When using HDR I have the brightness of the monitor much higher, which uses more energy, creates more backlight bleeding, carries the danger of blinding me unexpectedly when some application or webpage or whatever considers itself to be "I have to be bright!" or is not HDR-compatible and thus misrepresents its brightness.

I sincerely see no need for HDR. None. Why?

In photography, okay. 10+ bit/color channel, okay. But HDR monitors?

[uxmkt]

What good is "the year of HDR on the Linux desktop" if we haven't even had "the year of the Linux desktop" yet ;^)

[dimko]

I know this might be an unpopular opinion but I actually dislike HDR.

When using HDR I have the brightness of the monitor much higher, which uses more energy, creates more backlight bleeding, carries the danger of blinding me unexpectedly when some application or webpage or whatever considers itself to be "I have to be bright!" or is not HDR-compatible and thus misrepresents its brightness.

I sincerely see no need for HDR. None. Why?

In photography, okay. 10+ bit/color channel, okay. But HDR monitors?

No one forces you to use HDR 24/7. I want it ONLY in video content and in games. Rest of time SDR is fine for me, or HDR may be too.

[bug77]

KWin now supports ICC profiles though at the moment apps are still limited to sRGB use

Which would be a problem for me, because one of my monitors is wide-gamut. Apparently Plasma 6 has fixed that by not allowing me to set an ICC profile at all. Or at least they buried that where I can't find it anymore.

[Chugworth]

I know this might be an unpopular opinion but I actually dislike HDR.

When using HDR I have the brightness of the monitor much higher, which uses more energy, creates more backlight bleeding, carries the danger of blinding me unexpectedly when some application or webpage or whatever considers itself to be "I have to be bright!" or is not HDR-compatible and thus misrepresents its brightness.

I sincerely see no need for HDR. None. Why?

In photography, okay. 10+ bit/color channel, okay. But HDR monitors?

10-bit color is obviously good, but I have yet to be convinced on the need for variable brightness in content. Maybe it would look better on OLED, although my phone is OLED and I'm not really convinced there either. I certainly wouldn't want an OLED computer monitor because the risk of static content on the screen for extended periods of time is extremely high.

Several times I have looked at content on an HDR screen and thought "wow, this looks great!" only to realize that HDR was not actually enabled. When it does come to Linux, I hope there's a way to verify that what you're looking at is, in fact, HDR.

[bug77]

I know this might be an unpopular opinion but I actually dislike HDR.

When using HDR I have the brightness of the monitor much higher, which uses more energy, creates more backlight bleeding, carries the danger of blinding me unexpectedly when some application or webpage or whatever considers itself to be "I have to be bright!" or is not HDR-compatible and thus misrepresents its brightness.

I sincerely see no need for HDR. None. Why?

In photography, okay. 10+ bit/color channel, okay. But HDR monitors?

Far from being unpopular, this is what most people think about HDR. But this isn't based on the merits of HDR (HDR is awesome), but on the crappy monitors people use to "experience" HDR.
For HDR, you need OLED or some other tech that features per-pixel lighting. Many of the better monitors that tout HDR capabilities, only have up to 384 zones of local dimming. That's way too coarse, it will cause lighting to bleed and kill the image quality.
As for brightness, you can read the specs for that. Peak brightness is meant only for a few percent of the screen surface and is only sustained over a few seconds. Screen-wide max brightness is much lower than that. And yes, for added realism, when staring directly into a light source, that should result in your pupils closing.

If you want a proper assessment of HDR, forget about PC and try demos from YouTube or some Netflix titles. It can look truly awesome.