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novono

macrumors member
Sep 10, 2012
54
3
Just to clarify, the issue of the contrast color desaturated when exit the video is present on my iPad 4, for a few seconds.
But the problem of the continue flickering during the video, which is a real issue, seem to be non existent on my unit

A week and half old iPad 4 here and no "pumping" issue at all.

The only thing I managed to kind of replicate is the issue with the icons just like you but I have to try a few times before it happens. The colors could revert back to normal a little faster I suppose, but other than that I don't think it's far from a regular behavior.
 

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
10,008
3,894
Seattle
A week and half old iPad 4 here and no "pumping" issue at all.

The only thing I managed to kind of replicate is the issue with the icons just like you but I have to try a few times before it happens. The colors could revert back to normal a little faster I suppose, but other than that I don't think it's far from a regular behavior.

I've repeated myself several times throughout this thread, but I'll do it again since it's hard to keep track of all the posts:

If you see the icon issue, you have the pumping issue. Period. If you don't notice it, great, but the contrast change happens BEFORE you close your movie/trailer etc. You're then seeing that contrast/light pumping result on the home screen before it reverts to normal.
 

novono

macrumors member
Sep 10, 2012
54
3
I've repeated myself several times throughout this thread, but I'll do it again since it's hard to keep track of all the posts:

If you see the icon issue, you have the pumping issue. Period. If you don't notice it, great, but the contrast change happens BEFORE you close your movie/trailer etc. You're then seeing that contrast/light pumping result on the home screen before it reverts to normal.

But a simple, smooth contrast change during a movie could also create the icon issue when going back to the home screen, couldn't it? It could be not "flashing" or "pumping", "flickering", whatever we call it, but still take a couple of seconds to adjust to the switch to the home screen. Or am I missing something?
 

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
10,008
3,894
Seattle
But a simple, smooth contrast change could also create the icon issue, couldn't it?

I think the point is that nothing should be happening during any application, video or otherwise, to cause any artificial bump in contrast etc. This never happened prior to iPad 4 (though we are seeing some sporadic reports of the issue on iPad 3 devices, for some reason).
 

uncore

macrumors newbie
Dec 9, 2012
9
0
All iPads (4) I have tried had the icon issue. I have tried to replicate the "pumping" problem, but no luck there. :confused:


Update : just noticed it while watching Family Guy... pumping is present... F''k!!!!!
 
Last edited:

Max(IT)

Suspended
Dec 8, 2009
8,551
1,662
Italy
I've repeated myself several times throughout this thread, but I'll do it again since it's hard to keep track of all the posts:

If you see the icon issue, you have the pumping issue. Period. If you don't notice it, great, but the contrast change happens BEFORE you close your movie/trailer etc. You're then seeing that contrast/light pumping result on the home screen before it reverts to normal.

I can see by myself if something is pumping on my iPad or not.
The contrast surely change in the movie BUT it definitely doesn't keep changing during video play. Period.

----------

I think the point is that nothing should be happening during any application, video or otherwise, to cause any artificial bump in contrast etc. This never happened prior to iPad 4 (though we are seeing some sporadic reports of the issue on iPad 3 devices, for some reason).

Nothing should happen during video to artificial bump contrast ???
Says who ???
If there is an algorithm written to improve contrast, and it works, I'm happy with it.
 

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
10,008
3,894
Seattle
I can see by myself if something is pumping on my iPad or not.
The contrast surely change in the movie BUT it definitely doesn't keep changing during video play. Period.

----------



Nothing should happen during video to artificial bump contrast ???
Says who ???
If there is an algorithm written to improve contrast, and it works, I'm happy with it.

Sure, - what I meant is that it would happen for all iDevices then, right?
 

Max(IT)

Suspended
Dec 8, 2009
8,551
1,662
Italy
Sure, - what I meant is that it would happen for all iDevices then, right?

Frankly I don't know ... Maybe is something related to retina displays only ...

The only thing I know is that mine isn't flickering at all BUT there are occasions in which exiting the video play I can see the blurried icons for a few moments.
 

CthrewU

macrumors member
Aug 11, 2010
97
27
Same issue here

Very subtle but it can be seen in the amazon player as well. Did not notice this in the native video app but just on amazon and safari so far. I submitted a ticket to Apple. Hopefully just a software issue that can be resolved in a future update.
 

jonnyb098

macrumors 601
Nov 16, 2010
4,250
6,503
Michigan
I need to chase Apple up about this again in short order...

Please do. I'm holding out hope that this will be addressed in the 6.1 update due early 2013. But if that doesn't happen then unfortunately we may be stuck with it. For me it's really annoying but not a total deal breaker for using my ipad for video. Thanks for your devotion to this issue William. I have sent bug reports about this to Apple.
 

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
10,008
3,894
Seattle
Please do. I'm holding out hope that this will be addressed in the 6.1 update due early 2013. But if that doesn't happen then unfortunately we may be stuck with it. For me it's really annoying but not a total deal breaker for using my ipad for video. Thanks for your devotion to this issue William. I have sent bug reports about this to Apple.

:)

Thanks for the support. I got lambasted for most of this thread, so it's reassuring to see someone post something nice. :)

I'll get onto Apple about it, don't worry.
 

Even Longer

macrumors 6502
Dec 12, 2012
486
440
Heidelberg
Just to confirm:


A. An iPad 4 here has had that flaw as well. Was returned anyways to Apple Store.

B. Issue is not reproducible on my iPad mini and iPhone 5.

 

MrGimper

macrumors G3
Sep 22, 2012
9,043
12,964
Andover, UK
Wow, ten Pages full of an issue that in real-life use of the device will bother you what... 52 times a year for 2-3 seconds?

Try having an iPad 3 and no location based reminders tho promised.

But rather bizarrely, my cellular mini has location based reminders. My iPad 3 doesn't.
 

jonnyb098

macrumors 601
Nov 16, 2010
4,250
6,503
Michigan
:)

Thanks for the support. I got lambasted for most of this thread, so it's reassuring to see someone post something nice. :)

I'll get onto Apple about it, don't worry.

Yeah, Im not sure why some people are getting so nasty about this. I know its more of an annoyance for some than others but its definitely obvious this "feature" was not implemented very well depending on the video you watch.
 

nathanjbrown

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2008
265
57
Santa Barbara, CA
I'm happy to have found this thread (though disappointed that there's no apparent solution).

I travel frequently for business and purchased the "iPad 4" a couple of weeks ago so that I can enjoy movies - in additon to productivity apps - while in flight. On Friday, I decided to watch the Dark Knight Rises. I encoded the film using a custom, higher-quality version of the AppleTV 3 preset in Handbrake. Almost immediately, I noticed a painfully obvious "washing out" of various scenes. The phenomenon came and went frequently and was terribly distracting. Downright annoying. In some cases, the "washout" was so dramatic that significant image detail was lost.

I feared that my Handbrake encode was to blame so I created a few different versions of the file - all HD - but with the same result.

I then searched Google to determine if other Handbrake users had experienced the issue. By way of Google, I stumbled upon this thread and proceeded to read pages and pages of people painting the OP as a nit-picky Apple customer. So the issue either varies in severity or a significant percentage of the population fails to notice dramatic changes in brightness/contrast.

I consider this problem to be both significant and unacceptable (particularly considering Apple's promise of an industry leading multimedia experience). I hope a solution is on the horizon.

Nathan
 

Claefer

macrumors regular
Jun 1, 2011
166
0
I've attempted this several times and I can't seem to replicate this on my iPad.
 

dcorban

macrumors 6502a
Oct 29, 2007
915
30
I just performed the "trailer 4" test from the OP on my new iPad 32GB. I played through the whole trailer full-screen and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I went back and paused at 13 seconds and stared intently at the screen for almost a minute. The backlight didn't waver at all. The contrast was normal. It looked great. I then switched to the home screen, expecting the blurry/pixelated icons. Again, the screen and everything on it looked perfect.

To clarify, this is a brand new retina fourth generation 32GB black iPad. I set it up as a new iPad.
 

nathanjbrown

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2008
265
57
Santa Barbara, CA
I just performed the "trailer 4" test from the OP on my new iPad 32GB. I played through the whole trailer full-screen and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I went back and paused at 13 seconds and stared intently at the screen for almost a minute. The backlight didn't waver at all. The contrast was normal. It looked great. I then switched to the home screen, expecting the blurry/pixelated icons. Again, the screen and everything on it looked perfect.

To clarify, this is a brand new retina fourth generation 32GB black iPad. I set it up as a new iPad.

Interesting. I'm tempted to exchange my iPad (4th gen, 64GB) in hopes of a different result. I'm going to try to capture the anomaly later this evening. I'll post it here if I can capture it on video.
 

dcorban

macrumors 6502a
Oct 29, 2007
915
30
I just tested again with iPad set to max brightness. I may be detecting a slight automatic contrast adjustment when the scene changes from bright to dark, but it is probably either an illusion, or just the bright letterbox scene leaking light into the neighbouring black bars. Ether way, I could detect absolutely no changes when viewing at max brightness in the dark, and in the light, when viewing the trailer at about 18 inches. Also, I noticed zero changes when switching out to the home screen icons.

The is most definitely no wavering of contrast when pausing the video at the supposedly obvious scene.
 

AnybodyM

macrumors newbie
Sep 1, 2011
4
2
I'm also suffering from this. It's most noticeable (can't be missed) for me when switching from viewing a movie (I'm using the Filebrowser App to watch .mp4 on a SMB share) directly to the Home Screen.

For a few seconds the icons are are WAY to bright. I haven't done intensive tests when it happens but I think it's especially noticeable on my iPad 4 when Brightness is set the the lowest setting possible (which is what I usually have it set at when watching movies at night).

I for a long time thought there is something about the gamma value that changes when exiting the app and it takes some time to apply it.

But: Unfortunately, in a few movies (~5%, perhaps less) this also happens quite periodically during the movie and is really annoying. I hope there will be a software fix - mine is definitely affected and it's really not something I'm imagining. This was not present on the iPad2. I'm not sure if it's present at higher brightness levels. Auto-Brightness set to off doesn't fix or change the problem.
 

edwrap

macrumors regular
Nov 7, 2012
109
245
I just tested again with iPad set to max brightness. I may be detecting a slight automatic contrast adjustment when the scene changes from bright to dark, but it is probably either an illusion, or just the bright letterbox scene leaking light into the neighbouring black bars. Ether way, I could detect absolutely no changes when viewing at max brightness in the dark, and in the light, when viewing the trailer at about 18 inches. Also, I noticed zero changes when switching out to the home screen icons.

The is most definitely no wavering of contrast when pausing the video at the supposedly obvious scene.

Could you try this brief clip? Just pause it anywhere in fullscreen and hide the interface. The yellow car should noticeably shift in color within a second or two.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fx3t28i3nx5kkj7/sample.mp4

Will look something like below if your ipad has this issue.
XODxY.png
n54Fw.png
 

stevemiller

macrumors 68020
Oct 27, 2008
2,057
1,607
Well based on the examples posted, it does look like it can be a legitimate problem on effected units. Also strange if its affecting 4s more than 3s (I definitely cannot get anything even remotely similar to occur on my 3, and I was under the impression display tech was the one thing that hadn't really changed this round).

That said, you can pretty much look to any apple product release and find a display quality complaint. The 3s lead to many threads here about uneven backlighting and colour temperatures, and I ended up exchanging mine after a week (luckily the replacement has been absolutely great--no complaints).

My feeling is that apple does have market leading display tech, but they also have incredibly high volume, which makes consistency and quality control much more challenging. Even if only 1% of their product has a problem, that can easily equate to hundreds of thousands of actual units. (And if it is a "bad batch" scenario, it makes sense that if you come across a bad unit, you might come across a bunch more if that batch was shipped to your region). It's not really an excuse or a condemnation, it's just the reality of being such a big operation.

Hopefully those affected can get themselves a unit that they're happy with!
 

Piccio

macrumors member
Dec 10, 2012
54
0
Well based on the examples posted, it does look like it can be a legitimate problem on effected units. Also strange if its affecting 4s more than 3s (I definitely cannot get anything even remotely similar to occur on my 3, and I was under the impression display tech was the one thing that hadn't really changed this round).

...
The display is still the same, but is changed the supplier, LG in iPad 4, Samsung in iPad 3.

I've heard that iPad 4 displays have other flaws, like the massive backlight bleeding... Apple should be more careful in they quality control of third parties stuff.
 

dcorban

macrumors 6502a
Oct 29, 2007
915
30
Could you try this brief clip? Just pause it anywhere in fullscreen and hide the interface. The yellow car should noticeably shift in color within a second or two.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fx3t28i3nx5kkj7/sample.mp4

Will look something like below if your ipad has this issue.
ImageImage

Yes, this clip did cause a shift. During this time, if I exit to home screen, everything is washed out for a couple seconds. Also, just bringing up the user interface reverts the shift back to normal.

I tried the batman clip again and still do not see it there.
 
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