If you're among those few million gamers that managed to snatch a PS5 console so far, you'll probably have noticed by now that Sony's latest gaming system outputs by default everything in a High Dynamic Range (HDR) container, Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) content included.
However, it appears that even if you turn off HDR in order to properly play older titles that do not support HDR displays, the SDR reproduction is off. Alexander Battaglia from Digital Foundry explained this in a couple of tweets today.
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 colour 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.
His colleague John Linneman agreed, later adding that all of the game captures made by Digital Foundry in SDR have problems with 'black crush' compared to other platforms.
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.
Hopefully, Sony can produce a fix for this outstanding PS5 issue. While HDR content is the future, there's no reason why reproducing old SDR content should be a problem for the console.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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