Screen Dimming - Sony Xperia Z Ultra

Odd issue i've got on my Z Ultra, easy to replicate by doing the following, bring up chrome, click the address bar, with nothing entered in the text box, but then type something, an the white box drops down, with search suggestions, I can see the brightness increase on my screen, clear the text box, brightness dims back down very easily by staring at the keyboard while this is happening.. is this a hardware issue, or software related? anyone else notice this? very strange. its like more white content on the screen, the brightness kicks up.

Seems normal from what I notice. If it bothers you, turn off auto brightness.

It's part of Sony's dumb LCD optimization gimmicks
It's equivalent to auto contrast used by TV's and LCD computer monitors
You'll notice your brightness goes down when much of image is dark, and you'll notice the brightness goes up when viewing white images
This doesn't happen on custom roms based on Aosp (like slimrom which I use aand prefer)

ShadowVlican said:
It's part of Sony's dumb LCD optimization gimmicks
It's equivalent to auto contrast used by TV's and LCD computer monitors
You'll notice your brightness goes down when much of image is dark, and you'll notice the brightness goes up when viewing white images
This doesn't happen on custom roms based on Aosp (like slimrom which I use aand prefer)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow this is crazy, I just noticed my phone doing this a couple of days ago, and here's this thread. While I do find this dimming "feature" a bit irritating, it's hard to complain about the screen on this device. It looks so damn good.

This feature is called optimized backlight and you could disable it in settings on android 4.2.2 (correct me if im wrong) but since android 4.3 sony removed option from settings menu and they enabled it by default, unfortunatly you cant disable it unless sony returns this option in new android version or if you downgrade to android 4.2.
Sorry for my bad English

Related

Color temp changing in browser

Is it normal that my color temperature seems to be changing when I'm in the browser. I notice it the most in there due to the white background. I'm running serendipity 8 but noticed before this. I'm not running the dynamic screen mode. Only the standard. Is this related to the auto brightness? Haven't tried disabling it yet but this color change is quite annoying as it goes from like cool to warm colors.
nh5 said:
Is it normal that my color temperature seems to be changing when I'm in the browser. I notice it the most in there due to the white background. I'm running serendipity 8 but noticed before this. I'm not running the dynamic screen mode. Only the standard. Is this related to the auto brightness? Haven't tried disabling it yet but this color change is quite annoying as it goes from like cool to warm colors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting the same on stock rooted. I think it's related to auto-dim because it's at 15 seconds, which is what my auto-dim is set to. Did you time it and verify the same for yours? Not sure why it doesn't just dim like past models, but goes to gross 1970's TV looking color haha
I believe you can adjust browser brightness aside from you regular screen brightness. When you bring up the browser again, look under setting and you will see "browser brightness"...let me know if that helps.
kezell said:
I believe you can adjust browser brightness aside from you regular screen brightness. When you bring up the browser again, look under setting and you will see "browser brightness"...let me know if that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The browser auto brightness toggle is jenky... when set to auto its when it kicks to low brightness the colors go warm yellow. If set to manual just above that point it disables the rest of the OS's auto dimness and the whole android is too bright dohh.
Color Temp of Browser
Is this just in your browser or does it show up on all white backgrounds? I thought my screen was defective because it would change color temperature with the backlight but the real culprit was that setting under Settings | Display which automatically checks the image being displayed and adjusts it to save battery power... I don't have the phone with me right now so I can't give the exact wording of the option, sorry.
toyfreak said:
Is this just in your browser or does it show up on all white backgrounds? I thought my screen was defective because it would change color temperature with the backlight but the real culprit was that setting under Settings | Display which automatically checks the image being displayed and adjusts it to save battery power... I don't have the phone with me right now so I can't give the exact wording of the option, sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems most noticeable in the browser because it is the only thing with a white background.
I see this problem mainly using the xda app... I will scroll and as I'm holding down on the screen, it will be sliiiiiightly pinkish... then as soon as I let go and the screen is static, it reverts to a cool blue... very slight

[Q] Brightness changing while watching youtube?

Hey guys I have a quick question. I was watching a youtube video in my room last night in complete darkness on the lowest brightness setting and I noticed the brightness would change slightly at random. I also noticed it on the skyrim live wallpaper and also while scrolling thru the marketplace. It appeared that when there were more white pixels on the screen then the screen would get slightly brighter. This doesnt happen in netflix or movies that i put on there so I'm hoping this is a software bug happening in google apps. Autobrightness is not on and i tried all the power modes with the same response. Anyone else notice this or also able to replicate this? Thanks!
hey dude!
I have the same issue! I think it is on purpouse. Some kind a way to save power? Here is my thread about this. Try my country and please give me some feedback. Most of users dont notice this. Maybe because their eyes are not so sensitive?
Oh and also if you switch to power saving mode the brightness change will much more significant than on the other two modes
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1419583
Really no one of you have this issue?
Sounds like a possible LCD screen flickering problem. It's a problem a lot of LCD display mobile devices have. My HTC Sensation has it.
Here's how to test it: at night, turn off all the lights in your home. Basically, your test area needs to be as dark as possible. Set your Prime to a set brightness, preferably as low as it can go. Open up something that has a uniform color and general brightness throughout, XDA app works perfectly. Go near a wall and point the display at the wall. Start scrolling back and forth through the app.
If your device has screen flickering, you should notice that the light on the wall rapidly fluctuates whenever you scroll.
will try. but i wonder if this is relatd to tegra 3 power saving system? i notice the brightness / contrast automaticly change while watching movies, surfing web and gaming despite off turning off autobrightness
so the question is. is my prime damaged or this is normal? dear xda users please how does your prime behaves?
It could also be a "feature" called dynamic contrast which is an idiotic way of making LCDs look like they have more contrast than they really have. But I hope it isn't, I despise it. Dynamic contrast works like that: during bright scene it brightens the screen, and during dark scene it darkens the screen. It's really annoying (and shouldn't be on ever apart from maybe when watching movies).
ok but the question is. how many of you noticed this issue?
Orion66 said:
ok but the question is. how many of you noticed this issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think everyone.
For youtube don't use eco. It's to aggressive and outside of normal videos apps like diceplayer it is useless.
I hope nVidia and Asus will decrease it or give us the option to disable it. Because i like the eco mode for watching flash videos. Much better than Balance and Normal because it's enough and i can save battery.
Magnesus said:
It could also be a "feature" called dynamic contrast which is an idiotic way of making LCDs look like they have more contrast than they really have. But I hope it isn't, I despise it. Dynamic contrast works like that: during bright scene it brightens the screen, and during dark scene it darkens the screen. It's really annoying (and shouldn't be on ever apart from maybe when watching movies).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it's not for contrast. It's for saving energy by decrease the screen brightness and increase the color level. And it's always doing it. What we see are the problem of the technique.
Well if it is on purpose then it is very annoying. The only thing that helps a bit is to make screen brighter.
I hope it is not a defect of the screen.
Was looking for a thread with this issue, I'm also experiencing this effect.
It's also noticeable with the stock browser, seems some powersaving technique. Hopefully they will optimise it in ics or make it an option.
this DIDIM technology is constantly at work on our device. I saw a Ram dump txt(which I don't know where it came from) in ly Astro explorer. I looked at it and seen that DIDIM feature is constantly working and adjusting.
demandarin said:
this DIDIM technology is constantly at work on our device. I saw a Ram dump txt(which I don't know where it came from) in ly Astro explorer. I looked at it and seen that DIDIM feature is constantly working and adjusting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any idea how to disable it?
eL_777 said:
Hey guys I have a quick question. I was watching a youtube video in my room last night in complete darkness on the lowest brightness setting and I noticed the brightness would change slightly at random. I also noticed it on the skyrim live wallpaper and also while scrolling thru the marketplace. It appeared that when there were more white pixels on the screen then the screen would get slightly brighter. This doesnt happen in netflix or movies that i put on there so I'm hoping this is a software bug happening in google apps. Autobrightness is not on and i tried all the power modes with the same response. Anyone else notice this or also able to replicate this? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You guys know that it's not the power setting right? It's in the screen setting under brightness. If you set it to auto, it will adjust depending on your light source, if it's all white, it will be bright in a dark room and will adjust itself. Turn it off, adjust manually.
And you know, its not. It sets brightness high of overall picture is bright and dark if picture is dark... Much like dynamic contrast. It has nothing to do with auto brighteness. I tried that first.
But can I believe it was fixed in some update, since no one continues this thread after ICS? I cannot update becouse of unknow SN bug. Waiting for Asus to say either send it back or release fix. Thanks.
Happening to me right now with ICS, in performance mode, docked with charger in.
I've been noticing subtle changes in brightness no matter what performance mode I'm in, and I always have auto-brightness off. I normally keep the device in Balanced mode. It's most noticeable if I'm watching videos before bed, as I have the device brightness near minimum, and any change in brightness is pretty clear. At first I thought it was something to do with BS Player, but I've been using Dice as well and see the same effect. It may be a little better on ICS than it was with Honeycomb, but it's hard to tell.
If this is DIDIM, then I guess there's not much I can do about it besides hoping nVidia/Asus tunes the effect to be a little more subtle. :-/
I notice it, however it only affects me with low brightness/auto brightness setting. It does NOT kick in for me over 15/20% brightness combined w/ balanced/normal mode.
That is still on HC, wont get ICS update until two weeks.
Can also be noticed when canging homescreen tabs, slide it over slowly with your finger on the display (keeping it from flipping), once moved more than 30%, the display dims.
I am experiencing this brightness fluctuation, in all power modes, with auto brightness turned on or off.
Very annoying.
newfie99 said:
I am experiencing this brightness fluctuation, in all power modes, with auto brightness turned on or off.
Very annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thing that annoys me the most is that it does it with a freakin live wallpaper lol. I guess the snow falling in the skyrim live wallpaper triggers it or something but it is annoying and still exists in ICS. Oh well, maybe they will tone it down soon... here's to hoping.
Ciddy said:
I notice it, however it only affects me with low brightness/auto brightness setting. It does NOT kick in for me over 15/20% brightness combined w/ balanced/normal mode.
That is still on HC, wont get ICS update until two weeks.
Can also be noticed when canging homescreen tabs, slide it over slowly with your finger on the display (keeping it from flipping), once moved more than 30%, the display dims.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running the newest ICS update (9.4.2.11) and it's still doing it. The dimming at 30% home screen scrolling still happens too. i'm pretty sure it's DIDIM

Second Screen dimming

Just got the V10 and the second screen dims after 2 or 3 seconds after turning off the main screen. Is there a way to adjust the timing when the second screen dims? The dimmed second screen is almost unreadable because it is so dim.
Ditto, the idea that this is a replacement for a notification LED is really damaged by the dimming. (It's not just me that bought the phone based on that idea, right?) What I've found so far:
With the screen brightness set to 0, the second screen dims fully a few seconds after sleeping. Icons become about as noticeable as dust reflections.
With the screen brightness set to 100, the second screen follows the ambient light sensor after sleeping. Under bright light it turns itself up to the point where it's useable.
I've been playing with all the LEDs that Light Flow sees, but at least without root, nothing has any effect. I might look through the /sys files later. We probably need to get root first to figure this out.
On auto brightness it seems to be that the device adjusts the dimmed display for the ambient lighting? It's not the easiest thing in the world to see, but it's certainly not hard for me to see what notifications I have. I really prefer this over a colored LED.
Light Flow settings
For what it's worth, here's my current setup, now that the T-Mobile H901 is rooted. This does no one without root any good, and I don't know how it would translate to similar LED managers. I've been using Light Flow since the Sapphire (MyTouch 3G).
Light Flow device settings: check direct mode, root mode, and run every command as root. The Nexus 5 force reset option is checked by default and I don't know if that's relevant (no calls yet). Everything else in the menu is unchecked.
Let Light Flow control lcd-backlight-ex.
In a notification, set that "LED" to Solid and to 255 brightness. Check Enable Mixer and App controlled flash. With that last setting, the app will reset the brightness every few seconds even if the system dimmed it due to an ambient light change.
Now I need to edit some notification icons to be big and colorful. I wonder how this will impact battery life? Now the app is going to be awake all the time.
I've noticed that today on auto brightness the second screen will increase in light but not much. It also is not as smoth of a transition as on main display. It kinda jumps up real quick..
Yes for me I've noticed on Auto brightness the second screen will dim in a dark room and if you turn off your phone while in that room then come out... The second screen is still dim.... It's like th second screen doesn't respond to the light sensors at all unless the main screen is on.
Sent from my LG-H901 using XDA Free mobile app
It would have been nice if lg included the capability to change the second screen settings such a brightness or text color.
m0n0t0ne said:
It would have been nice if lg included the capability to change the second screen settings such a brightness or text color.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another one of many things that it would be cool to see baked into a custom stock rom. Good stuff. I wonder if Cloudyfa might come over and cook on this awhile. I have always loved his stock Roms....
Sent from my LG-H901 using XDA Free mobile app
m0n0t0ne said:
It would have been nice if lg included the capability to change the second screen settings such a brightness or text color.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Color would be cool. A classic CRT bright/lime green, for instance, would probably show up much better than the white.
We need to get on their forums with these ideas. Maybe some will get squeezed into an update
An app which turns off auto dim in case screen is off would be pretty much help. Maybe I'll develop one.

Minimum Brightness too bright?

The minimum brightness level on this phone is quite a bit higher than other phones with OLED panels. Is there any way to change this? Using power saving mode with the screen at minimum brightness makes the screen a bit dimmer and so does inactivity so we know the screen definitely has the capability to go darker. Anyone know how we can make the brightness darker?
P.S no screen filter suggestions pls
I use Lux Auto Brightness, screen can go significantly darker
Out Of Code said:
I use Lux Auto Brightness, screen can go significantly darker
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And that would work for me but the only issue is the software buttons at the bottom don't dim with the screen and it's really weird looking. That's why I said no screen filters, please.
ethanscooter said:
And that would work for me but the only issue is the software buttons at the bottom don't dim with the screen and it's really weird looking. That's why I said no screen filters, please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a screen filter, what would even make you think that? Plus it does dim the software buttons. Maybe it's because you don't have root?
If you on 7.0, try "Night Mode Enabler" from the PlayStore.
On my Z Play, the Lux app does not dim the buttons either. I don't have root. OTOH I don't recall seeing in the Lux documentation that it uses root for anything?
Also, I'm 90%+ certain that Lux *is* a screen filter. I say that because it differentiates between two ranges of brightness: "above zero" and "below zero". It seems likely that the "below zero" settings (which are necessary to get the display very dim at all) are modifying the display data rather than the system brightness setting. Of course, on an AMOLED screen this should be just as good... except for those darn buttons!!
BTW, all of this "night mode" stuff has, unfortunately, just confused the issue for those of us who need to preserve our night vision while using our phones. "Night mode" has come to mean "make the color temperature redder" because that seems to avoid some of the ill health effects of blue light at night. But it doesn't do squat to preserve night vision---for that you need to get the brightness way, way down. If you're trying to use your phone at the telescope, you're just as screwed as before, only now, the google search terms are more polluted, making it harder to find an actual solution.

Dark scenes difficult too see in movies

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 and it's great but I can't figure one thing out. Which is the screens contrast. Dark scenes in Netflix or VLC player are too dark and hard to see. I tried different brightness settings, with/without blue light filter and the other color correction option for cinematic mode but nothing really works properly.
Is this an issue with the tablet or is there another setting to change the contrast or something?
man_with_hair said:
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 and it's great but I can't figure one thing out. Which is the screens contrast. Dark scenes in Netflix or VLC player are too dark and hard to see. I tried different brightness settings, with/without blue light filter and the other color correction option for cinematic mode but nothing really works properly.
Is this an issue with the tablet or is there another setting to change the contrast or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also noticed this with Netflix. Was hoping that turning up the brightness would help but it doesn't.
YES, YES, YES, I am shocked this isn't widely reported, I couldn't find almost anything about it and I've been searching for quite a while.
First of all it is really crazy that popular apps like plex or netflix don't offer any capability to change the brightness of the video played. No, we don't change the colorspace, black levels, bla bla bla.
I DID find eventually a solution (the ONLY one that works, a bit clumsy as it is): http://phandroid.com/2016/03/22/twilight-app-reduces-dark-contrast-on-samsung-galaxy-s7/ (yes, it's for the S7 and yes I did notice there the same issue, which makes it even crazier that it isn't something widely known and fixed).
I just picked up an S3 last night and I'm having this same issue. I watched the opening scene of The Defenders on Netflix, and I could hardly tell what was going on. Rewatched it on a proper display, and you're clearly upposed to tell it's Danny Randy much earlier in the scene, but I had no idea in the S3 until a blue light was clearly shining on him from above.
I used Twilight on my Nexus 7 because it lacked a night vision mode, ala blue light filter on the S3. I'm not sure how that can really help. Surely other people have found more elegant solutions to this problem? I've opened up other media files and they're all simply too dark. I get it's an HDR screen, but surely it has a mode for non-HDR content!
Do oled display have a blue light problem, I though it was only really a led thing.
John.
Might be an inconsistency with the displays. I have no problem with mine. Not getting any lag either but running a heavy debloated rom also. Battery life could be better. It's stupid you can't turn off the Wacom digitizer when s pen not in use. On my note 4 when I lost my s pen battery life was terrible because the Wacom digitizer stayed on. Should be an option in settings to turn it off. If anyone knows how please let me know. I don't use the s pen very often.
man_with_hair said:
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 and it's great but I can't figure one thing out. Which is the screens contrast. Dark scenes in Netflix or VLC player are too dark and hard to see. I tried different brightness settings, with/without blue light filter and the other color correction option for cinematic mode but nothing really works properly.
Is this an issue with the tablet or is there another setting to change the contrast or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try switching from "adaptive display" to "oled cinema".
Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk
DAvid_B said:
Try switching from "adaptive display" to "oled cinema".
Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Switching to modes other than Adaptive Display just gives me seemingly the same shade of yellow....
I have tab s2 and you can't change adaptive display. I wouldn't have bought this tablet if I'd known about this issue. Very annoyed.
I actually have the issue on my Samsung Tab S2, that the colors are really "hard" and lots of color information are missing in the video, details are lost in dark areas. Is there some fix for this or is the screen just too bad on the Tab S2? I know the Tab S3 has a HDR screen, and the S2 not. I dont have any HDR screens actually, but I can put color range to "full" on my desktop PC, which will en-light colors a bit, making details more pop out in dark areas (though black isnt fully black anymore if so).
Any color profile other than basic is mostly unusable, too much saturation. Still dark areas lack lots of information. Is there no way to fix this? I tested this actually
https://phandroid.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Screenshot_20160321-154452-400x711.png
and it helps with the details in dark areas, but it also makes the black bars of movies in Netflix and video players not black anymore but gray.
So from what i can tell, it's only a stock rom problem. As the screen looks amazing running liniage (best screen in the house). But I've recently decided to go back to stock debloated, as I think its running a bit snappier than liniage 16 or 17.
Has anyone found a black level fix for stock yet? (preferably not a screen tint app)
Touch the left hand side of the screen when watching netlix and a brightness slider appears
Baxy57 said:
Touch the left hand side of the screen when watching netlix and a brightness slider appears
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:cyclops: It's beyond what you're suggesting which is known :cyclops: but thanks for it
EDIT: I have now found a full workaround. First you need to enable Blue Light Filter. Then go to Settings > Accessibility > Visibility enhancements > Color adjustment > Personalized color, and choose all the colors in the correct order. If you do it correctly there won't be any change to the colors and Blue Light Filter will be "on", but actually not, which will override whatever Android is doing that's making the dark parts of movies way darker than they should be. So far I haven't found any cons of this workaround.
Original post:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but after trying to fix this problem for like half a day (lol) I think I found the best workaround so far. If you turn on Blue Light Filter and set its opacity to minimum, the filter will be barely noticable, but the brightness issue will be fixed.
One thing I noticed is that not all apps have this problem. For example VLC, Youtube do have it (you can even see the transition of colors and brightness for a second when exiting to desktop view). However Youtube Vanced doesn't have this issue, so I asssume the operating system does this dumb change of colors when it sees certain parameters in an app (maybe something in the manifest.json file?). It would be awesome if some more knowledgeable people could look into this issue, maybe they could find something about why YT Vanced has normal colors.

Categories

Resources