"Use limited colour range (16-235)" confusion

  • My TV is set to limited colour range. I don't want to change this because it is connected to an AVR with other devices which are all sending limited RGB (e.g. the Bluray player).

    My HTPC has an nvidia card.The nvidia driver is configured to Full RGB, which should be correct according to https://kodi.wiki/view/Video_levels_and_color_space

    In Kodi 19.4 I have set "Use limited colour range (16-235)" to 'on'. The picture both from Kodi menu and video files is fine.

    A Rasperry Pi 2 is set to hdmi_pixel_encoding=1 RGB limited (16-235). I need to set "Use limited colour range (16-235)" to 'off'. Otherwise the dark parts of the skin look grey.

    Should I set hdmi_pixel_encoding instead to 'to Full RGB' and activate "Use limited colour range (16-235)" ?

    My third machine is a Rasperry Pi 4. The parameter hdmi_pixel_encoding in config.txt seems to effect nothing, and from what I have read the Pi4 is always on Limited RGB and this can't be changed. I also need to set "Use limited colour range (16-235)" in kodi to 'off', otherwise the dark parts of the skin look grey. Is there anything else I should do?

    Both Raspis are running LibreElec 10 with Kodi 19.4

    On a CoreElec system (Odroid N2+) I even don't have the "Use limited colour range (16-235)" in their Kodi 19 expert setting. Did they remove this by patching do avoid user confusion? The picture looks like my other 3 machines with my described settings.

    What does "Use limited colour range (16-235)" effect? Is it only for the Kodi skin or has it an effect on movie playback?

    My TV is a Samsung UE40F6500 and I believe that it's edid may be wrong, because without any hdmi_pixel_encoding setting the Raspi 2 always had washed out colours.

  • My TV is set to limited colour range. I don't want to change this because it is connected to an AVR with other devices which are all sending limited RGB (e.g. the Bluray player).

    Limited/full range is signalled over hdmi (in the AVI infoframe) and generated by the source (e.g. the Pi)

    You shouldn't set it on the sink (TV) - it should just display in the colour range that has been signalled.

  • I doubt that my TV respects the AVI infoframe and automatically changes the colour range. If this was the case, I shouldn't get grey colours instead of black or even washed out colours.

  • I also wondered about the "limited colour range" setting.

    On my 10 years old Philips TV i noticed the same behavior as the OP, if i enable limited colour, then Kodi skin looks "washed out" with graysh black.

    Also on my TV there's no setting to choose the colour range.It does have a PC Mode which may set the Full RGB, but the TV manual doesn't say anything about it.