But it's not all. Just a lot of the ways. Too many of them.

That's the point I'm making. You can buy expensive HDR displays that actually display correctly where it's not dark.

They're just expensive, and so most people aren't buying those ones.

So I will repeat, the problem is not with HDR content. It's with displays advertising themselves as HDR when they're simply not.

Maybe people should stop publishing HDR content if it worsens the viewing experience for almost everyone then?

Maybe "almost everyone" should stop buying it?

Spatial audio is like this too.

Oh yeah spatial audio (at least what iOS calls "spatial audio") is horrible. I disable it everywhere I can, but it has to be disabled in control center per app. Some apps stop playing audio when you open control center, making spatial audio seemingly impossible to disable there. There's not a single instance where I prefer having the audio sound like it's coming from the device.

However, like HDR, it can be difficult to avoid. My laptop screen supports HDR because the laptop is otherwise exactly what I want and it doesn't come in a non-HDR variant. My earbuds support spatial audio because I elected to get AirPods Pro for their other qualities and they don't come in a non-HDR variant.

"Vote with your wallet" isn't really an option with things like this.

It's one of the weights that you put into your purchasing decision. The phone that has all of my desired characteristics is kind of hard to find, and getting harder.

But, the net effect is still in the right direction, maybe.

I thought that Spatial Audio is different from “audio coming from the device” — the former is better physical separation of sound, the latter adjusts left/right balance when your head turns. And the latter can be disabled globally for AirPods.

I guess the option I'm thinking of is "Spatialize Audio", not "Spatial Audio". My bad.

Anyway I've listened to music mixed for Apple Music with "Spatial Audio" too and it sounds like crap compared to normal stereo mixes IMO so I guess my opinion stands.

Where do you configure "Spatialize Audio" globally? I can't find anything in the Bluetooth settings (where they've hidden every other AirPods config)

I actually think that probably is the correct approach. It seems like studios are releasing their 4K Blu-rays in HDR by default now, and it is absolutely worsening the viewing experience for a large majority of consumers.

Somehow the transition from SDR to HDR has been messed up in a major way, for which I can't think of any similar equivalent. E.g. there was never any "step backwards" in going from 480p to 1080p or 4K, or from stereo to 5.1, or from h.264 to h.265.

But the rollout of HDR has been bungled catastrophically. The content is technically fine but the hardware side has been a disaster.

If I were the movie studios, I would seriously think about releasing 4K only in SDR until television manufacturers start showing HDR at full brightness again, and release software updates to fix it in existing models.