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[Paul Coddington]

With the release of v31, I decided to try JRVR again to see if the color management problems¹ were fixed and how it now compares to madVR.

According to the documentation, there should be a context menu entry and OSD controls for selecting profiles manually, but there is no sign of them anywhere. Ctrl-J reveals JRVR is running. I can select a profile using rules. But there is no manual selection anywhere that I can see.²

There is a JRVR entry in the DirectShow Filters context menu, but it is always disabled.

Otherwise, the quality seems excellent. The tone mapping HDR to HDR is particularly interesting because it provides another mapping option for HDR titles that do not behave well in clipped HDR-passthrough modes (this can be done in madVR using a bright SDR output mode but is a bit more clunky).

One downside compared with madVR is that JRVR does not seem to support adjusting monitor refresh rate to match the currently playing content in full screen mode. It always plays back in 60Hz and settings for manual overrides do not offer any options other than 60Hz at native resolution, nor do they appear to have the ability to distinguish between windowed and full screen.

Plus, there was a certain convenience with madVR being able to do HDR-passthrough on an SDR desktop, because I mostly do not use the HDR desktop at all (to get higher refresh rate, preserve backlight life, have more accurately managed SDR video and graphics editing).

--//--

1. In earlier versions, JRVR was putting out oversaturated content that approximately matched what would be expected if it were ignoring the monitor ICC profile altogether and always outputting BT.709.

2. I can get around the lack of manual profile switching using default settings with ICC profiles, but I wanted to see if there was any perceivable difference between using ICC profiles and using a dedicated profile that defines gamut and gamma given the monitor is hardware calibrated and simply needs theoretically ideal profiles not custom ones (unknown: would the built-in BT.2020 setting at γ2.4 use a better LUT than one derived from the system ICC v4 profile that describes the same?). Although it would be handy to toggle between HDR-to-HDR tone mapping passthrough and plain HDR-passthrough as the need arises.

[JimH]

Manual profile selection is coming in build 31.0.41.  It's documented at the bottom of the first post here:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133480.msg924609.html#msg924609

[Paul Coddington]

Manual profile selection is coming in build 31.0.41.  It's documented at the bottom of the first post here:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133480.msg924609.html#msg924609

Thanks, I must have misread.

Without the manual profile switching it is very hard to test the color management as there is too much delay changing settings between viewings. So, I'll give up testing until the new build arrives.

There is something very odd going on with the Ctrl+J information screen though...

Screen gamut = Auto; Calibration Method = ICC
Video source = BT.2020; ICC = Display P3

JRVR reports output primaries are BT.709, plus ICC LUT applied.

But, if the source video is BT.2020 and the ICC profile is Display P3 then the output primaries cannot be BT.709, they have to be DCI-P3 D65.

Is Ctrl+J not reporting correctly?

Or are all video sources being converted to BT.709 and then further calibrated through the ICC profile (bug)? That would both degrade the color gamut depth for NTSC and UHD/HDR as well as shift the colors.

[Hendrik]

Ctrl-J just reports what you have JRVR set to, it does not know what a ICC profile actually contains, which would override those settings.
Having an ICC profile loaded will completely replace the gamut and gamma output stages based on information from the ICC profile.

[Hendrik]

31.0.41 is now available here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,136686.0.html

Let us know if the manual profile selection works as expected, its still a brand new feature!
One thing to note is that its on a per-file basis, not globally. So good for testing to find your best default settings, but then you should set up the default profile to be that, or set up profile selection rules to pick an appropriate one (eg. for HDR vs SDR, etc).

[Manni]

31.0.41 is now available here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,136686.0.html

Let us know if the manual profile selection works as expected, its still a brand new feature!
One thing to note is that its on a per-file basis, not globally. So good for testing to find your best default settings, but then you should set up the default profile to be that, or set up profile selection rules to pick an appropriate one (eg. for HDR vs SDR, etc).

This is great. Is it possible to assign a hotkey to each profile, or is this coming later? This is important for remote control (for example with Roomie Remote using MCE controller).
Also is there a wiki re automatic profile rules? For example, which fields to use to identify whether the content is SDR or HDR, what the resolution or framerate is, etc. Can you do nested conditions as with madVR?

[Hendrik]

We don't offer customizable keybindings through the MC UI at all. But you can automate any changes through MCC or MCWS.

As for rules, just look at the library fields which ones you want to read. Any special JRVR runtime filled fields are documented in the profile announcement thread:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133480.0.html

Otherwise its just the search expression language MC has had for years and is documented on the Wiki.

[Manni]

We don't offer customizable keybindings through the MC UI at all. But you can automate any changes through MCC or MCWS.

As for rules, just look at the library fields which ones you want to read. Any special JRVR runtime filled fields are documented in the profile announcement thread:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133480.0.html

Otherwise its just the search expression language MC has had for years and is documented on the Wiki.

Thanks. What does MCC or MCWS mean?

[mattkhan]

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Web_Service_Interface

[Manni]

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Web_Service_Interface

Thanks a lot. I had looked at MC Core Commands but I couldn't see any profile-related command. What would be the command number and syntax to select a profile, if it's not in the list yet? If it is please let me know in which section, I really can't see it, sorry.

If anyone has worked out the best way to control MC with Roomie Remote re profiles switching, please let me know. I use an MCE remote interface and that works great with Roomie Remote for standard player control.

[mattkhan]

Thanks a lot. I had looked at MC Core Commands but I couldn't see any profile-related command. What would be the command number and syntax to select a profile, if it's not in the list yet? If it is please let me know in which section, I really can't see it, sorry.

If anyone has worked out the best way to control MC with Roomie Remote re profiles switching, please let me know. I use an MCE remote interface and that works great with Roomie Remote for standard player control.

I think the wiki has been updated now with the command id (or see https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,136686.msg947624.html#msg947624 for details)

I don't use roomie but I see it has a generic URL command so that should work ok as MCC is accessible via a URL (with basic Auth if you secure it) like

MCWS/v1/Control/MCC?Command=10074&Parameter=yourProfileId

[Manni]

Thanks a lot, much appreciated!

[Drybonz]

For those of us who aren't as technically inclined, what are a few examples of how we could use the configuration profiles in some common situations?  I see that there are a lot of options when setting these up, but I'm not sure how I would best use them.  Thanks.

[Paul Coddington]

Ctrl-J just reports what you have JRVR set to, it does not know what a ICC profile actually contains, which would override those settings.
Having an ICC profile loaded will completely replace the gamut and gamma output stages based on information from the ICC profile.

Well, that's a relief. But you can see how it would be confusing.

I'll have a look at the new build when I get over the mild gastro bug I've picked up yesterday.

One reason I am interested in manual and automatic profile switching is because I can't see any other way to have HDR tone mapping work correctly for all selectable monitor profiles seamlessly when JRiver is set to use the current ICC profile.

When JRiver uses ICC profiles on the SDR desktop, the tone mapping will be incorrect in some cases because the peak nits value cannot be set per ICC profile:

BT.2020/BT.709 monitors are 100 nits (legacy) or 203 nits (modern)
sRGB/Display P3 monitors are 80 nits

One could also have custom monitor profile setup that is BT.2020 used with the maximum nits the monitor is capable of displaying for the purpose of being used with tone mapping to provide an alternative to having the monitor clip above maximum supported nits (to display a slightly less dynamic HDR with all details intact as an alternative to HDR passthrough).

JRiver allows profiles with different peak nits, gamut and curves to be created for all these scenarios, but they cannot currently be scripted to be automatically loaded according to which system ICC profile is current.

So, to have peak nits set correctly for all monitor modes, one must be able to toggle them manually for now.

In my use case, I use JRiver for both entertainment and for sanity checking edited video, so it is preferable for it to work seamlessly regardless of which mode the monitor is currently set to: sRGB, Display P3, BT.2020, BT.709 for SDR desktop, HDR passthrough for HDR desktop). That includes full screen dedicated video (BT.2020/709) but also corner of desktop casual playback when working on office work or coding (sRGB) or graphics (Display P3). It's nice to just have things work without having to change settings in multiple places.

BTW: JRiver still does not display album art or video thumbnails correctly on wide gamut displays. Album art on a Display P3 monitor is oversaturated but mostly tolerable (case-by-case), but on a BT.2020 display it comes out a bit bonkers.