» Deep Color

Add this blog to my Technorati Favorites!

Editor's HDTV Pick

HP 47 inch MediaSmart 1080p LCD HDTV "Out of the box" digital media platform. Enjoy videos, pictures and music from home network + digital media delivered over your broadband Internet connection + 3 x HDMI

HP 47 inch MediaSmart 1080p LCD HDTV on Amazon

LCD or plasma interactive flat panel overlay

February 4, 2008

Deep Color

Color depth describes the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel. Higher color depth, bits per pixel (bpp), allows a wider range of distinct colors to be defined.

Without sufficient color depth, flat panel displays can have difficulty reproducing color gradients resulting in bands of color known as false contouring (also known as banding or posterization). Deep Color refers to the use of greater bit depths to boost the number of colors which can be reproduced. Boosting the number of distinct colors which can be represented enables color gradients to be reproduced consequently eliminating false coloring.

Deep Color is an optional inclusion in HDMI 1.3 supporting the use of 30-bit, 36-bit, and 48-bit color in displays allowing progressively more distinct colors to be represented. For reference, 24+ bits, commonly referred to as “true color” and can be used to represent 16.7 million distinct colors.

Benefits or Deep Color are:

Enabling displays to reproduce billions of colors rather than millions
Allowing smooth tonal transitions and subtle gradations between colors - eliminating false contouring
Enabling increased contrast ratio
Increasing, typically eight or more times, the shades of grey between black and white

Technorati Tags: Color depth, bits per pixel, bpp, false contouring, banding, posterization