Apple laptops only 6bit color?

[istvanttt]

Today morning I read in the Macworld that 2 Apple-users started a law-action against Apple becasue the Monitors in the Laptop are LG monitors which have only 6bit of colors and not 8 like Apple advewrtised. Anybody knows somewthinng about this cases?

[Bruce Allen]

Yep, the panel in the MacBook displays 262,000 colors. I think it uses dithering to simulate the full 16.7m.

Most laptop panels are like that. Not that it's a good thing, mind you! I found this out when selecting panels for my LCD monitor - the smallest, crispest screens were often 6-bit only. Probably the Red LCD and viewfinder will also be 6-bit.

That's one of the reasons why I think it's ridiculous to spend large amounts on a field LCD monitor with "perfect color". There are true 8-bit per channel displays out there but often they are not as high res. If you want something for checking focus, 6 bit color is often a smart compromise to make.

The problem is when you're Apple and advertise the laptops as capable of displaying millions of colors ;) Yeah, only with an EXTERNAL display... I would agree that the marketing is deceptive.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Rocket]

Yep, the panel in the MacBook displays 262,000 colors. I think it uses dithering to simulate the full 16.7m.

Most laptop panels are like that. Not that it's a good thing, mind you! I found this out when selecting panels for my LCD monitor - the smallest, crispest screens were often 6-bit only. Probably the Red LCD and viewfinder will also be 6-bit.

That's one of the reasons why I think it's ridiculous to spend large amounts on a field LCD monitor with "perfect color". There are true 8-bit per channel displays out there but often they are not as high res. If you want something for checking focus, 6 bit color is often a smart compromise to make.

The problem is when you're Apple and advertise the laptops as capable of displaying millions of colors ;) Yeah, only with an EXTERNAL display... I would agree that the marketing is deceptive.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Wow, that's interesting. I have always been a die hard fan of massive, clunky, heavy, hi-res CRT monitors. I don't even own a LCD panel yet personally or for the company (apart from my laptop). I like the brightness and colours of a high end CRT monitor.

So, if the settings on my graphics card say 32-bit, my laptop LCD is not giving me true 32-bit (it's a Dell not an Apple) but my CRT is?

If this is the case, I'm going to be sticking with 24" CRT's on workstations for a long time to come.

[Bruce Allen]

So, if the settings on my graphics card say 32-bit, my laptop LCD is not giving me true 32-bit (it's a Dell not an Apple) but my CRT is?


Put up some gradients - if you see obvious banding, it's either 6 bit or there is something screwy in the image pipeline (anything from software LUT to video card gamma correction to on-monitor gamma / color temp correction).



If this is the case, I'm going to be sticking with 24" CRT's on workstations for a long time to come.

No, most 24" LCDs ARE 8 bit. Some have a bit of banding due to quantization errors in the color correction that happens ON THE MONITOR (look up the Genesis controller chip on the early releases of the Dell 2407 for example). But many are good.

Again, there are a lot of places where you can introduce banding into the proceedings. For example, even if you had a CRT, if you had a really severe LUT in your software, you could introduce banding there.

Even when setting up high-end stuff, ALWAYS disregard all marketing numbers / specs / fancy names that people throw at you and go with your eye. It doesn't matter if it's a Christie this or a 4K that. Check for banding / gamut limits / CC clipping / etc! Even if you have an 8-bit panel - because one of the many CC stages in your system can introduce it. I see these errors often in high-end digital projection.

4Khub, If you can just deliver consistent smooth, true 2K projection (let alone 4K!), you will be outperforming a lot of people in the industry ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Rocket]

If you can just deliver consistent smooth, true 2K projection (let alone 4K!), you will be outperforming a lot of people in the industry ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Well we are going to try our best to give the big guys (Refinery, Video Lab etc) a run for thier money, but time and marketing our facility right will tell. We will be much smaller than them though, more of a boutique facility really but concentrating on 2K and 4K DI from film and also digital aquisition.

There will end up being quite a few RED's in S.A., and if we are set up right to give them a start to finish workflow at a low cost (if I can pay off financed equipment and cover overheads I'm happy, I'm not in it for obscene profit or to rip anyone off), I think we could find ourselves quite busy.

Anyway, sorry to take this thread off course, back to 6-bit Apple LCD's!

Rich

[number6]

Put up some gradients - if you see obvious banding, it's either 6 bit or there is something screwy in the image pipeline (anything from software LUT to video card gamma correction to on-monitor gamma / color temp correction).



No, most 24" LCDs ARE 8 bit. Some have a bit of banding due to quantization errors in the color correction that happens ON THE MONITOR (look up the Genesis controller chip on the early releases of the Dell 2407 for example). But many are good.

Again, there are a lot of places where you can introduce banding into the proceedings. For example, even if you had a CRT, if you had a really severe LUT in your software, you could introduce banding there.

Even when setting up high-end stuff, ALWAYS disregard all marketing numbers / specs / fancy names that people throw at you and go with your eye. It doesn't matter if it's a Christie this or a 4K that. Check for banding / gamut limits / CC clipping / etc! Even if you have an 8-bit panel - because one of the many CC stages in your system can introduce it. I see these errors often in high-end digital projection.

4Khub, If you can just deliver consistent smooth, true 2K projection (let alone 4K!), you will be outperforming a lot of people in the industry ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Bruce, I thought about asking what ELSE you know a lot about, but I think it would be easier to ask what things you DON'T know about.

Anyway, you are wearing me doun. Due to your price point, I may break doun and order one of your viewfinders for one of my Reds. Keep us up-to-date how things are going. Annnnnnd, like Jim Jannard, tell us what goes wrong during the process. Maybe if the Forum Monitors are o.k. with it, you could put up a thread that gets updated from time to time?

[istvanttt]

Put up some gradients - if you see obvious banding, it's either 6 bit or there is something screwy in the image pipeline (anything from software LUT to video card gamma correction to on-monitor gamma / color temp correction).
....
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Hi Bruce,
is there an other way to find out if a dispay shows only 6 bit? I'm not a person who has his eyes 32 hours a day on a monitor, so my eyes are not trained so well to catch on the fly the difference between 6 and 8 bit (my background is painting:)

Exist there a test-picture which may help to identify quicky all those thresholds?
Thanks
Istvan

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

I was astonished at how bad my macbook pro screen was out of the box - all purple. I had to buy a Spyder Colour Calibrator just to use the thing, and I'm no expert in these matters but after calibration it seemed that I could see a new range of colours. Would that be banding banished?

[Anders Holck]

Hi Bruce,
is there an other way to find out if a dispay shows only 6 bit?

Only way is to find out which LCD panel is used in your screen, and then track the supplier (Most likely Samsung)

http://peewaiweb.free.fr/ is the resource on that!

[Bruce Allen]

Anyway, you are wearing me doun. Due to your price point, I may break doun and order one of your viewfinders for one of my Reds.

Number6, I recommend the Red one if you're just going to buy one. It should be worth the extra money due to better integration with the camera. If you wanted to buy another monitor, though... ;)


Keep us up-to-date how things are going. Annnnnnd, like Jim Jannard, tell us what goes wrong during the process.

Haha! So far:
1. first controller / panel combo didn't work properly
2. first prototype too heavy
3. blew a panel by plugging in wrong way
4. ordered wrong size screws (twice)
5. button design failed
...and we're just getting started ;)



Exist there a test-picture which may help to identify quicky all those thresholds?
Thanks
Istvan

This one's kinda cute...
http://www.spronkey.com/sdc-gradients.png

Although it's a .png file (which can lead to different gamma behavior on PC vs Mac... with different browsers, etc.)

Maybe I will make one? There should be more out there, though...

Banding is most obvious in the darker tones, sky gradients... also in the darker parts of grayscale ramps you might see different colors of gray waver from warm to cool.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[number6]

Number6, I recommend the Red one if you're just going to buy one. It should be worth the extra money due to better integration with the camera. If you wanted to buy another monitor, though... ;)


Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

And a master of diplomacy, as well...

[istvanttt]

.....
Maybe I will make one? There should be more out there, though...

.....

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Well this would be extreamly nice, or at least if you or somebody who has a good theoretical understanding of how to use test-pictures could explain better how to read those examples.
Thanks
istvan

[Bruce Allen]

Well this would be extreamly nice, or at least if you or somebody who has a good theoretical understanding of how to use test-pictures could explain better how to read those examples.
Thanks
istvan

Okay, can't do it right now though - insanely busy. If anyone else wants to do it, I won't be insulted!


I was astonished at how bad my macbook pro screen was out of the box - all purple. I had to buy a Spyder Colour Calibrator just to use the thing, and I'm no expert in these matters but after calibration it seemed that I could see a new range of colours. Would that be banding banished?

The only way to tell would be to look at some gradients...

The theory would say that color calibration will never expand the range of colors beyond what you saw with an un-calibrated monitor (provided it was at optimum brightness / contrast / gamut settings). On the other hand, maybe the Macbook Pro had a bad default CC slapped on? In which case you could increase your color range with a good color calibration.

In general, color proofing done in software (eg not going through the video card) can even slightly INCREASE banding (or reveal banding in the source image). But the more accurate colors make it worth it.

I just checked some gradients in Photoshop on my system at work (a nice company called mOcean). There's a TINY bit of banding due to the color calibration, I think. I use two LaCie CRT screens (22" & 19") and have used this system to finish a lot of things that went to film - Borat titles, Ocean's 13 trailer, etc.

Side note: Russ - mOcean's theatrical department art director who sits next to me - just upgraded to an Apple LCD and prefers it... he has done major theatrical work on the LaCies (main titles for Crash, etc) so I won't argue with him ;)

Then again, we're often working in pure CG-land (with no live action integration) we can always just set our projects to 16bit and be pretty sure of no banding in the end... banding therefore not often much of an issue, although we do look for it. And yes we notice it in other people's filmouts sometimes ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Gregory Karydis]

Have a look at the colour EIZO Radiforce (medical Imaging) displays.
They are capable of 10bit :) I am using this one http://www.radiforce.com/en/products/col-r31.html

[Rocket]

Have a look at the colour EIZO Radiforce (medical Imaging) displays.
They are capable of 10bit :) I am using this one http://www.radiforce.com/en/products/col-r31.html

Wow, that's a 10-bit per channel 2K display right there! 1536 x 2048!

Awesome. Nutman, how much did it cost you?

I think you just sold a bunch for them. I think our planned facility's workstations need those throughout, animation and compositing suites, DI, the works. I probably wouldn't waste the money with them on the offline Avid suites though. Still, you should get a commission.

Rich

[Gregory Karydis]

I got a demo model (was used for 2 days at an expo) for 5K euros
Here you can see the full price list: http://www.eizo.org/eizo/smpage.fwx?smlanguage=&page=175
If you decide to get one (or some) make sure you get the R31 and not the R31-C since it has slightly higher brightness.
Also keep in m,ind the response time is 50ms.

[Lucas Wilson]

I got a demo model (was used for 2 days at an expo) for 5K euros
Here you can see the full price list: http://www.eizo.org/eizo/smpage.fwx?smlanguage=&page=175
If you decide to get one (or some) make sure you get the R31 and not the R31-C since it has slightly higher brightness.
Also keep in m,ind the response time is 50ms.

...and none of the supported graphics boards support anything other than Win2K or WinXP. And the Windows framebuffer is 8-bit. So you will never ever see anything on that monitor via DVI that is anything more than 8-bit.

But it's not even that simple, because the frambuffer table is 8-bit, but is filled with 10-bit values - so you are seeing 10-bits of color fidelity, but only 8-bit worth of those values. And of course, there is all the stuff that monitors do to dither and sample and sub-sample, etc, etc..

That's assuming that the app driving the cards is feeding things properly, hasn't done any weirdness in OGL to truncate or add without expanding, and all that good stuff.

And with any LCD panel - the problem is not so much calibration and getting accurate color, black, white - it is how long does it keep those colors before drifting. And how much is the drift? And how often does the monitor have to be recalibrated?

Color fidelity isn't just about the monitors... it's about the entire chain of how an image gets from disk to the screen.

Bottom line - Every color image chain in every facility is different. For video, it was easy. There were only a few, internationally recognized standards. And everybody knew how dial in 75% and 100% bars, line up pluge, and go to blue-only to calibrate.

But with P3, 3D LUTs, DCI, and all the other new stuff assailing us - how do you set up that chain? How do you know that white = white and red = red? And how much is good enough?

There is no magic bullet. There is no "this 10-bit monitor is all I need!" (...and this remote control, ... and this chair... and that's all I need...)

I don't have great answers other than work with people and hire people who ask these questions and can work logically and reasonably through the answers!

Lucas
------
(with apologies to Steve Martin...)
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Rocket]

In all my excitement I wrote to Eizo about the R-31 and the response from Masato Nakashima, the global product manager, was that the R-31 does not have suitable specs for d-cinema applications, namely response time and contrast ratio.

He recommended the CG241W, which at 24.1" has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 and features 12-bit hardware LUT, and 16-bit internal processing. However the end result is still a 8-bit image. He did say that these displays will be shipping with all new systems of Smoke, Lustre, Flame and Inferno.

Later in the year they will have an identical 30" display with a native resolution of 2560 x 1600, which would be ideal for working in 2K on Scratch.

It seems there is no way to get true 10-bit colour. Windows screws us and the display manufacturers screw us, so I guess that is the end of that. A 8-bit interpretation of 10-bit data is all we've got. Kind of ironic isn't it?

[Lucas Wilson]

It seems there is no way to get true 10-bit colour. Windows screws us and the display manufacturers screw us, so I guess that is the end of that. A 8-bit interpretation of 10-bit data is all we've got. Kind of ironic isn't it?

There is absolutely a way to get 10-bit data... dual 4:4:4 HD RGB to a CRT that supports dual-link input. Of course, those CRTs are very expensive, and are not being made anymore.

So then you go to a projector that supports those bit depths. That means a DLP micromirror device that accepts dual-link 4:4:4 HD RGB. Those start - at the low end - at around US$50K. Accurately projecting that image means at least a microperf screen at least 16 feet wide.

DCI, by the way, specifies that any true DCI-compliant screen starts at 22' across.

So to see true 10-bit images at 10-bit, you have a choice:

1) CRTs that are no longer being made
2) Building a theatre with a DLP projector and a 16'+ microperf screen.

Now ask yourself - is it worth it? Really... is it worth it? Have you put up the test charts and done the side-by-side comparisons with different projectors in a really good room?

I have and so have a lot of my customers. And it does make a difference. But you need to be in a position as a business where that difference is worth US$100K+.

Now if was affordable... whole new ball game. ;)

But until then, no easy answers...

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[istvanttt]

Luki,
thanks for helping us to understand better the possibilities. But I have still 2 questions:
- monitor: where there something which limited physically the possible the resolution, so 2k was impossible to show?
- I thought always that the DLP chip has such big color limts that it is necessary to use a medium-grey colored screen to fake the whole color range. So we do never see whites at all
Thanks
istvan