Causes HDR: real 4K 60Hz over HDMI demands a Premium High Speed cable rated for 18Gbps and full HDR colour passthrough. The walkthrough covers setup, pitfalls and what to budget in Rands. Numbers and trade-offs sit alongside each spec.
Wrong-looking HDR colours on a 4K HDMI setup are caused by one of three things: the GPU or media player is outputting YCbCr420 (chroma-subsampled) instead of RGB or YCbCr444, the display's colour temperature or tone-mapping settings override the HDR signal, or the HDMI cable is marginal and forcing a lower bit-depth output to maintain the connection.
When an HDMI source outputs 4K/60Hz HDR10 at 10-bit colour, it has a choice of colour encoding: RGB (full colour data per pixel), YCbCr444 (same colour resolution, different encoding), or YCbCr420 (chroma data halved horizontally and vertically). YCbCr420 is used to fit 4K/60Hz HDR within tighter bandwidth, but it noticeably reduces colour accuracy, particularly in gradients and areas with fine colour detail.
HDR10 signals include static metadata that tells the display the peak brightness and colour volume of the content. If the display's own tone-mapping is set aggressively (to protect OLED longevity in bright South African rooms, for example), it may compress the HDR signal in ways that make highlights look dull or shadows lose detail.
An HDMI cable that cannot sustain 18 Gbps will sometimes maintain the connection by forcing the output to 8-bit instead of 10-bit colour. HDR10 at 8-bit displays colours with visible banding in smooth gradients (skies, faces, lighting transitions), which many users mistake for a wrong-looking picture rather than a bit-depth reduction. Confirm the cable is Premium Certified HDMI 2.0 and check the GPU driver's colour depth output setting. An RTX 50-series card should output 10-bit over HDMI 2.1 without issue. If you are connecting via HDMI 2.0 and the display shows 4K/60Hz HDR but colours look banded, upgrade the cable and re-check the GPU driver colour depth setting.
South African 4K TV manufacturers include a calibrated HDR viewing mode: Samsung calls it Filmmaker Mode, LG uses Cinema Home or Filmmaker Mode, and Sony uses Cinema Pro. These modes disable motion smoothing, reduce processing, and present the HDR metadata as the content creator intended. For films and native HDR games, enable this mode and disable any automatic brightness or picture enhancement features that override the HDR signal.
Yes. Gaming monitors typically have an HDR mode that must be enabled in the monitor's OSD (On Screen Display) menu separately from the Windows HDR setting. When only one side is enabled, HDR may be technically active but colour and brightness will appear incorrect. Enable HDR in both Windows Settings and the monitor's OSD.
Yes. Colour profiling software paired with a calibration device can create ICC profiles that improve how the OS and applications manage colour. However, HDR tone-mapping on TVs is typically handled in hardware and may not benefit from ICC profiles. For gaming monitors with hardware calibration support, calibration is worthwhile.
Gaming HDR is often implemented through the OS (Auto HDR in Windows 11 on RTX 50-series cards, for example) rather than native in-game HDR. Check whether the game has a native HDR mode separate from Windows Auto HDR, as native HDR implementations are usually calibrated to the game's art direction and produce the best result.
Getting odd colours or banding in your 4K HDR setup? A Premium Certified HDMI 2.0 cable ensures full 10-bit HDR10 signal delivery. Browse Evetech's HDMI cable range alongside 4K monitors and find the right combination for accurate HDR.
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