PS5 Report Sheds Light on Bizarre Issue With the Console

Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X released last November with a host of issues and design oversights. That said, of the two, the PS5 has some of the more rather peculiar issues. For example, the PS5 outputs — as a default — everything with High Dynamic Range, which isn’t a problem until you go to play a game that doesn’t support HDR and uses Standard Dynamic Range (SDR). Of course, this — reported — problem isn’t a huge deal because the console’s HDR can be turned off, but, for whatever reason, the console’s SPR output isn’t right, and so it’s a major problem.

Taking to Twitter, Alexander Battaglia of Digital Foundry recently revealed that the PS5’s SDR is not working, though right now it’s unclear what the problem is. That said, while it’s unclear what the issue is, what Battaglia does note is that it can lead to a black crush or other tone/color issues.

“PS5 is actually not displaying original SDR content correctly – unfortunately,” said Battaglia. “Does it with Backward Compatibility titles for sure. Could lead to a black crush or other changes in reproducing the game’s color or tone. It is not as dramatic as the limited vs full issue shown in the quoted tweet – but if you capture SDR on a PlayStation 4 Pro and compare it to SDR on PS5 of that same game there are differences which can be negative.”

At the moment of publishing, it’s unclear if Sony is aware of this problem, but Battaglia isn’t the only one who has noticed it.

“The PS5 does not properly display SDR,” added John Linneman, also of Digital Foundry. “If we capture the same game from all PS4s and Xbox systems using the same settings, blacks are crushed on PS5 in SDR. I’m convinced SDR output is broken. SDR in HDR container is better here. SDR just doesn’t seem to be quite right – all of our captures from PS5 in SDR are slightly crushed compared to all other machines…but if your display does a poor job with HDR it might still look better in SDR.”

Again, it’s important to note that it’s unclear what the issue is here and right now Sony hasn’t confirmed or acknowledged any of this, which means it’s unknown if a fix is in the pipeline.

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H/T, Wccftech.