XPS 15 9550 4K black level clipping

Hi everyone,
I'm having an issue that my XPS 15 keeps clipping the lowest black levels on my screen. For example, see this image:
http://gonedigital.net/wp-content/uploads/AVStest-black.png
edit - if the first link is broken try this one: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DaveMDS/epymc/master/epymc/plugins/calibrator/AVStest-black.png

On all of my other monitors I can easily make out lines 18-25 (line 17 should be dark), but no matter how I calibrate the XPS 15 I cant resolve the lower bars. I can -barely- see 23-25, but if I up the gamma anymore I start washing out the white levels. Its almost like the colorspace is set too wide.

I use the machine for a lot of image processing, so it's causing me a bunch of headaches. The Intel HD utility, Dell premier color, and the ICC profile on notebookcheck also haven't helped. Are other people seeing this on their machine? Does anyone have settings which will help raise the black level values to a more normal level?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

At work i have a 24 inch HD dell screen and i can really really barely see 20-25.
On my XPS 9550 4k (i7, 512) i can see 22-25 but clearly.
I'm using the AdobeRGB Profile of Dell premier color, if i change to standard, it doesnt change, but it changes on the cinema profile where i almost dont see it anymore.

 

Thanks, sounds like you're seeing what I'm seeing. I've attached an image comparing my previous laptop with the Dell - mind you the screen on the old one is pretty bad but as far as the gray bars go, they also look the same on my HDTV and home computer screen.

 

just tried this

currently i'm doing colour work on a tonne of images for print, so using AdobeRGB.

on the built-in 9550 display using Dell Premier Color: with black levels untouched at 0, i see pretty much nothing. i can make out a slight difference on 25, but that's it. switching to sRGB is the same.

upping Black Levels to 4 or 5 i can make out a gradation from 18-25. and tweaking the gamma very slightly enhances.

on my Dell 34" Ultrawide (sRGB) external display, i can make out 18-25 nicely.

 

Does anyone have an ICC profile other than the one from notebookcheck? I don't have a display calibration tool myself.

 

Quick ICC profile question - I've noticed that when I apply the ICC profile under color management, it does change the screen noticeably, but it also seems to somehow combine the values with the intel hd graphics settings. For example, if I set all of the intel values (red, green, blue) at 50 and apply the ICC profile, it looks different than if I set the intel values at blue75, red50, red50 and apply the ICC.

My understanding was that the ICC profile should be independent of what the intel HD color settings are, but maybe I'm incorrect? Is there something else I need to disable to have the ICC profile work correctly?

 

Could this be due to the wide gamut being covered by just 8 bits?
I mean, my old laptop has a "typical laptop" lcd panel with <50% sRGB gamut, 6 bits per channel and awfully twisted channel responses. Calibration straightens the colour responses, but the number of distinct colours even decreases, so there is severly ugly posterization even away from deep blacks and whites.
I understand 10 bits are recommended for good wide-gamut display, and AFAIK only HP DreamColor has 10 bit laptop panels, and gaming graphic cards don't output 10 bits even to external dlsplays except in DirectX (games).

 

In the thread below, newer versions of the Intel HD Graphics Driver are blamed:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/t/19663748

Another related thread at Intel (discusses black levels and flickering):

https://communities.intel.com/thread/104349

 

Anybody tried the new BIOS 1.2.16 (1.12.2016)?
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=J8GY6
No mention of related issues in Fixes & Enhancements ("Fix Dell Thunderbolt Dock issue" only)

 

I rolled back to the 4331 Intel HD video driver from Dell site. I did not apply the latest BIOS update yet.
Brightness flickering is gone.
The heavy blacks posterization was gone too, but the blacks were even darker in the test charts. However they are adjustable via gamma in Intel HD graphics Control panel, I've changed it from 1.0 to 1.3.

 

I had the same issue and uninstalling the Dell premier color app fixed it.
If you have it installed get rid of it then download the latest Intel and Nvidia drivers and use DUU to uninstall both drivers, restart and install the new drivers. (assuming you haven't done this already)
If that doesn't fix it then you have a bad panel and need to contact Dell to get it replaced.

 

I haven't uninstalled DPC (yet) and no longer have black level clipping and brightness flicker, after Intel video driver rollback...
Btw, it is probably possible to use color profiles in one PremierColor folder in windows color management manually, without having DPC active. One icc profile is also available in the notebookcheck review.

 

Was this problem ever solved? I've got the exact same problem with black levels 1-4 not being displayed. No matter what I do there simply isn't anything. When I change the gamma everything is lighter but I still don't see those black values. This is with Dell Premier Color installed. It doesn't matter what profile I use. When I uninstall Premier Color everything is fine and all the black levels are displayed.

I calibrated my screen with an i1display pro and when not using Premier Color everything is perfect. But the reason I want to use it is to switch to sRGB so programs without color management arent displayed oversaturated.

 

No the panel design will not be changed. It carried over to the 9560.

 

DPC is not good with calibration. Some say the Intel video drivers mess with profiles too, dunno.

Best if you find color managed programs for everything you do.

The other option is to extract the sRGB color profile from the DPC program folder and switch to it in Windows CM.

I've had the black levels issue even without DPC, with certain BIOS + Intel video driver combinations.