Blacks are gray in photos, rather than true blacks

[marciot]

I've noticed that when I display jpg photos on my WD Live TV Hub the colors are significantly washed out, and in particular blacks are gray rather than true blacks. I was able to confirm this by creating a fully black jpg in a paint program and placing it on the WD Live Hub. When I view that picture, then toggle between the options screen and the photo, I can clearly see that the options screen is much darker than the jpg. I can also see that if I bring in the translucent navigation bar, the gradient goes from true black on the bottom of the navigation bar to a washed out gray on the picture itself. If a picture is not the correct aspect for the screen, then the letterbox frame is also gray (rather than a true black).

I believe the entire color range is compressed (not just blacks), so hues on photos look significantly less vivid on the WD TV Live Hub than do video frames or the GUI itself. No amount of tweaking with my TV or with the WD Live TV Hub have been able to overcome this problem; I believe the WD Live TV Hub simply isn't rendering the pictures with the entire color range.

I am using the HDMI output and a Philips 46PFL4706/F7 TV. I am curious if others can reproduce this problem or have a workaround.

[TonyPh12345]

This was an issue quite a while back...  what version of FW are you using?

[marciot]

My firmware is 3.03.16 . I had the device check for firmware updates and it tells me that it has the most current one.

[TonyPh12345]

What if you save the image to the backdrop?   Does the blacks appear grey then?

I have a pretty high-contrast image saved to my "wallpaper" backdrop, and I don't notice that, but I haven't tried it through the Photo viewer.