PlayStation 5 was launched back in November of 2020 and it was a great commercial success, with Sony managing to sell millions of consoles in the first few months. The PS5 outputs everything in a High Dynamic Range (HDR) container by default, including the Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) content as well.
However, people at Digital Foundry have discovered a problem with this. If you turn off HDR, the SDR reproduction still stays off. Even if you turn off HDR in order to properly play older titles that do not support HDR displays, the SDR reproduction stays off. Digital Foundry’s Alexander Battaglia explained this issue in his tweets.
PS5 is actually not displaying Original SDR content correctly – unfortunately. Does it with Backward Compatibility titles for sure. Could lead to 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 that can be negative.
PS5 is actually not displaying Original SDR content correctly – unfortunately. Does it with BC titles for sure. Could lead to Black crush or other changes in reprovuing the game's colour or Tone. https://t.co/yZ9mhTes5I
— Alexander Battaglia (@Dachsjaeger) March 28, 2021
The issue was further explained by another writer at Digital Foundry, John Linneman.
Yeah, it’s been a real issue for us. That said, in this case, it’s likely a full/limited RGB issue as PS5 typically crushes darker shades rather than increase the black floor.
The PS5 does not properly display SDR. 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.
So far, there has been no word from Sony on this matter. Since its launch on November 12 and the end of December 2020, the PS5 sold 4.5 million units. Sony previously said that this was its biggest console launch ever.
By the end of March 2021, the platform holder hopes to shift a total of 7.5 million units, which would mean the hardware selling faster than the PS4 did. We will have to wait and see what lies in the coming months for PS5 and Sony.
