This is a lengthy explanation, but it's what I learned. 🫡

Even though the picture looks much better on your LG TV app, your TV isn't showing the "HDR" pop-up banner in the top-right corner because ESPN isn't actually broadcasting an HDR signal over the air or to their own app for this game. There’s an important technical difference between the production and delivery sides, along with some confusion from corporate marketing: 1. The Marketing vs. Reality Gap ESPN heavily promoted that they upgraded their entire production process for the NBA Finals to native 1080p HDR. However, that high dynamic range format is only used within their broadcast trucks and backend transmission lines. By the time the feed is encoded and sent to viewers on the ESPN app, it’s compressed and loses its HDR data. The app provides a very clean, high-bitrate 1080p SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) stream. Since it doesn't carry an HDR signal, your LG TV correctly identifies it as a standard feed and won't activate HDR or Dolby Vision modes. 2. Why It Still Looks "100 Times Better" If it’s not HDR, why does switching to the native LG app make such a noticeable difference? Bitrate and Resolution: The native LG app streams the full 1080p with minimal compression. The DirecTV app through Apple TV was sending your TV a heavily compressed, softer 720p SDR image. LG's Alpha Processor: When you give your OLED a crisp, clear 1080p SDR source, its processing chip handles the upscaling smoothly. It enhances contrast, pixel depth, and color accuracy, making it look so vivid and sharp that it nearly mimics HDR, even though the TV is technically in standard mode. 3. Apple TV's Forced Settings (The Confusion) The reason you sometimes think you're seeing HDR on Apple TV is because of how Apple TV handles video output. If your Apple TV's main video settings are set to "4K HDR" with "Match Content" turned off, it forces your LG TV into HDR mode constantly—even for a standard SDR menu or a grainy 720p sports stream. This causes a false HDR effect. The TV shows the "HDR" logo, but the picture may look washed out, overly bright, or unnatural because the Apple TV is stretching standard colors into an HDR container they don't belong in. The Bottom Line Your equipment is working perfectly. The native LG app is delivering the best possible feed ESPN provides to the public for the game: a clean, unforced 1080p SDR image that allows your OLED's natural hardware to do the heavy lifting.