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Mixed reality has TERRIBLE contrast on Surface Book 2

TLDR: Does anyone know how to change the color output from a Surface Book 2 to a Mixed Reality headset?

I bought a Samsung odyssey hmd to go with my surface book 2 and the contrast on the odyssey is horrible. The darkest black is dark grey at best. However, if I plug the headset into my desktop PC, I get inky blacks and phenomenal contrast and color depth.

Here's what I've tried to do to fix the output on the Surface Book 2:

1. Checked for the latest windows and driver updates (as recent as 12/26/2017).

2. Tried 3 different USB C to HDMI converters. A $50 Belkin adapter, an Insignia adapter, and the official Microsoft adapter that was made specifically for the Surface Book 2. All of the adapters were 4k 60hz capable. 

3. Tried 3 different Surface Book 2s (all the 15", 256GB SSD models).

4. Tried 2 different Samsung headsets.

5. Tried both Windows Mixed Reality and Steam VR games.

6. Called Microsoft customer support early in December. They said "sounds like an issue, we'll forward it along to our engineers."

7. Called Samsung support early in December. They said "What's an Odyssey headset? Try calling Oculus" No joke, that's literally what they said. I tried calling again to talk to a different person. That guy knew what the Odyssey was, but didn't have any advice and said he would make a note about the issue.

What I'm looking for is any solution that worked for someone else, or if anyone knows a way to change the USB-C output contrast manually,

Sounds like you've tried pretty much all of the standard trouble shooting steps.

3 additional points you can try.

First, try different video drivers. Try uninstalling and re-installing the video drivers. Try installing older video drivers

Second, if you have a separate video card (I think some surface machines do, I'm not sure), contact the video card help desk to see if they have any additional suggestions.

Third, use the Windows 10 Feedback Hub to submit a "bug report". Copy the above description and paste it in to the hub.

WIN10- SEND FEEDBACK TO MICROSOFT WITH THE FEEDBACK HUB APP <WIN><F>
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/402156...
There are real MS staff and developers who monitor all submissions to the UserVoice forums whether you submit them through the Feedback Hub, or by using the Feedback command built in to some MS applications, like Office 2016, or by using the appropriate link directly

This next link is a wiki with a collection of MS UserVoice.com sites I’ve encountered (I’m sure there are more):
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...

In addition, when you post a suggestion / complaint to UserVoice, if you have reached there by being guided while asking a question in a forum, please post a link back to your suggestion in UserVoice in the original Quetion. That way other people who see your original question because they are looking for the same fix can easily find your suggestion, vote for it and add supporting comments.
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*****
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As computer scientists we are trained to communicate with the dumbest things in the world – computers –
so you’d think we’d be able to communicate quite well with people.
Prof. Doug Fisher

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Thanks for the feedback! I'll give the video drivers a shot. I also submitted a bug report as you suggested. I didn't even know that option was there so thanks for that. :)

Here's the link to the bug report:

https://aka.ms/Tgrskh

I'll come back to update this once I've tried the drivers.

Edit: I tried updating both the NVIDIA and Intel display drivers, but that didn't fix the issue. Waiting to hear back on the bug report.

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Hi, any update on this issue?

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Yeah, I worked with Microsoft support and engineers to determine it's an Intel driver issue. I then contacted Intel with all the details Microsoft gave me and, unfortunately, Intel denies it entirely. I asked them to at least check the driver for the issue that Microsoft is seeing and they literally said no. :/ I'm going to try contacting Intel again, but speak to a different customer support rep.

Long story short. Intel's driver is outputting a black level of (16,16,16) instead of (0,0,0) and a white level of I think (236,236,236) instead of (256,256,256). Compressed values, which is the issue I was describing. Microsoft says it's an issue with the Intel driver trying to support legacy devices that don't support wide color gamut.

The bad news is it seems like Intel has zero intention of fixing it :/

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Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 293 Applies to: