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Comment by akmittal | Hacker News Reader

> 2,000 nits of peak brightness

Is this much brightness even needed for a TV?

It's not just how bright it can get, but also how specular highlights are retained. Instead of having a white blob of white blob, a screen with high peak brightness can show details in that white blob.

For example, clouds could be just white (low max brightness) vs. clouds could have details (high peak brightness). And this is especially important in how the HDR movie is graded (and which peak brightness it is targetting).

Vincent (HDTVTest) made a good video on the subject.

If you want a TV for true HDR content you need a couple orders of magnitude more brightness than that. 2000 nits is a fraction of the peak brightness you see by just going outside. If you want to recreate an outdoor scene on your TV you just can't do it with the current displays.

If you want the video camera to be able to point up to the sun and your TV to display the sun in the video with the same brightness as the actual sun, then yeah, you will need a very very bright TV (and a pretty special video camera and video coding format as well).

You are missing my point. I'm talking about an inside theater use case. In order to recreate an accurate image of what an outside scene looks like 2000 nits is not enough.

This is not about being able to see the image with good enough contrast, it is about creating an image that is life like.

I’m talking about the same thing. It’s not realistic or even desirable to have a screen outputting/reflecting with the same brightness as the sun.

In a sunlit room, or to be able to be seen outdoors in full sunlight, yes. For normal indoor use in a non super brightly lit living room, no.

That's nowhere near good enough to see in full sunlight, which is about 10k - 30k nits.

I was just answering the op's question why you would need a brighter TV. A 2000 nit TV would certainly be better in thrse situations, hence why someone would want one, answering ops question.

Also, you're way off on your units or something. Specifically built, very expensive digital signage lcd displays only go up to a max of 6000 nits, which is crazy high and results in a display that draws 20 amps at 220v. Source below, and I've designed them. A 65" display at 30k nits would draw more than a thousand amps at 220v, it just isn't true. 6k nits is the practical limit of a display like this. Even jumbotrons don't go to 30k nits.

https://ultravisionledsolutions.com/blogs/news/what-are-nits...

The power usage of signage isn't relevant to the brightness of a sunny day. It's easy to lookup the numbers I gave directly.

Please link to a commercially available display that has the brightness specs you say.

The power usage of signage is relative to its power (light) output. The energy to create those photons has to come from somewhere.

Who said there is a display?

I said that's the brightness under full sunlight; that's the ambient light which a readable display needs to compete with.

You said 2000 nits is nowhere good enough to be seen in daylight. 5000 nits is about the maximum you can get in specific high power outdoor displays, 2000 nits is common in applications like digital signage, etc. I personally know that 2000 nits is plenty to be seen in daylight, it's a common choice you see every day in your day to day life.

The display doesn't need to compete with the brightness of the sun u less you want a display as bright as the sun, which is crazy. You just want to be able to read it in daylight, not light the world.

Daylight is different than "full sunlight". A 2000-nit display is readable, but it looks washed out if in an exposed area on a sunny day. Probably why those 5000 nit displays exist.

Peak brightness typically refers to how bright a display can get over a small surface area (usually 2% of screen real estate).

For HDR I think you need it. Tho Samsung doesn’t support HDR standard that Apple TV does which is seems the only solid HDR content source.

Supports HDR10Plus which is meant to be comparable.

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