Official 4:4:4 / Chroma Subsampling Thread - Page 9

Same on my Es6900!

A Samsung LN40C630 is what i used before. Its a 2010 LCD TV and they may have changed the features of PC mode since there after. Thats cool though. More power to you guys.

Everythings great on my Samsungs PC Mode. It's just it's a shame it defaults to "Native" Color space, which means that the colors are a tad over saturated, auto is more accurate.

On that LN40C630, in PC mode, color space was locked to AUTO which made it look actually under saturated and since you couldn't change color saturation, you had to live with it. So i guess Samsung changed some things for the better and borked others.

You generally want "Native" or "Wide" because that is showing the panel's native color gamut. If not, then Auto would be the next best because it would conform to RGB or YCbCr based on what its being fed.
Edited by MDA400 - 2/28/13 at 12:35pm

I really want native? I thought almost everything you would ever do or use would be in sRGB on a PC. Video games for a start, that's why I would think Auto would be better, seeing as it's closest to the REC 709 space.

Video games and PC content is mostly (if not always) in RGB. Rec 709 is YCbCr for HD signals and should only be used with content such as Blu-ray, DVD, and Cable/Satellite HD broadcast.
If you have one device converting the color space for outputting to your TV from the source (such as a blu-ray), you still want to have your endpoint (being your TV) to be in the widest gamut it can possibly be set in. This is so the TV doesn't have to take another conversion step to convert to YCbCr which could possibly degrade color saturation even further.

Think of it like the same way i described setting your TV to 4:4:4. You would not be set up to lose any potential color information when using a source that is also 4:4:4. With color spaces, setting your TV to Wide or Native would be that "window" in that same way you make your TV have a 4:4:4 "window" for the source.

If you're forced to use AUTO, your relying on the source to control color saturation. This is why on the Samsung that i've used in PC mode, colors look washed out since color information is being lost to that incorrect "window". If you're using Native or Wide color space, you won't have to set if at all, adjust the color saturation on your TV if brightness and contrast kind of settings are properly set (-2 to +2 from the color midpoint if anything). This is one of those things on that Samsung that gets sacrificed for faster image processing.

Don't worry about this too much unless your trying to calibrate your display for utmost viewing pleasure than for low input delay when gaming. Different manufacturers do different things to sacrifice image processing for low input delay.
Edited by MDA400 - 3/6/13 at 8:22am

Are there any new TVs out there in the 30-40" range that are worth looking into to use as a computer monitor? Looking for low input lag and 4:4:4.

Panasonic plasma monitors do not subsample and have lower input lag than any other flat panel
I own the 42PF30U (2011) model and it has been great as a PC monitor straight out of the box
You have Cinema/Dynamic/Normal/Monitor(disables ABL) presets, a full set of white balanced controls, 2.0/2.2/2.6/S-curve gamma etc

So do Samsung, LG, Sharp, and Sony. Not to bash Panasonic though because I equally recommend all 5 of those brands. But if you want a surefire way to get low input lag and 4:4:4, Samsung, LG, or Sony produces HDTV's that are capable of this most of the time. Panny's and Sharp's i have not had enough time with, even though my friends have TV's from both brands and they say the experience is perfectly fine for them. So I could not say much for them, but yeah any of those 5 brands.

I can confirm on Sony 55HX750 both Graphics mode and Game mode have 4:4:4 . I am using Nvidia - HDMI to HDMI connection and color in nvidia set to RGB . If while TV is in Graphics mode i select YCbCr 4:4:4 in nvidia , the image becomes washed out ( just like when using a Limitied 16-235 Range ) . If i Select the tv to be IN General mode the washed out blacks and colors kind of get a bit better but then happens the blurring of everything especially Red , Blue or Yellow text . Actually if i use General mode with my pc i feel like i need glasses and after an hour i feel my eyes so tired .

Weirdly i found this all on my own at first , i come from thread for the Oficial HX750 thread and i have been explaining the people there WHY Graphics mode is superior to General and that it gives the PC timing and real 1:1 pixel mapping . I just came across this thread here and its great to have that thread . Still reading all the good info . Here u go a close up of the HX750 that i made like 1 month ago for the HX750 thread . If you want i will make pictures with your tests . Also i can confirm that the HX750 can output both 4:4:4 RGB and 5.1 Audio passthrough the HDMI on all HDMI ports( thought it only outputs Doulby Digital ) so i still use the SPDIF connected directly to the Audio reciever for PC use but i was so happy when i found out i can use HDMI and 5.1 Doulby Digital audio for Xbox360 and 1:1 pixel mapping , while for my old Samsung it was Either you have 1:1 mapping on HDMI 1 DVI and u have no Audio , or you get the image processed and worsened or using a D-SUB VGA cable ( which is analog and also carries some distortion ) but has 5.1 SPDIF out .
Image : Graphics - TOP vs General - bottom ( note that this is not 1 pixel text so even thought u can see distinct difference , the tests in your thread do provide more distinct difference )

Will running two pcs to different hdmi inputs and a tv cable signal to a third disrupt the settings optimized for pc usage? In other words, will the settings need to be reset every time you switch inputs? (I have not yet purchased a kvm switch nor the Comcast dvr that I intend to use for this and therefore I'm unable to currently test this myself. My TV is an Insignia NS-39L240A13.)

If anyone has any experience with this I'd definitely like to know. Thanks.

Settings for picture are independent to each input. Some TV's have an option to copy one's input settings to ALL the other inputs. You should be fine as long as you properly calibrate for each source device (DVR will have different settings than PC of course). If you're asking that hooking other things up while this "PCmode" is enabled, no it should not conflict with 4:4:4 since, again its input specific (TV can only control one input at a time).

Hey - hoping for a little guidance here... Noticing in the HDTVTest ZT review: http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-txp60zt65b-201305062961.htm?page=Performance

The comment on panasonic and its video processor and 4:4:4 content over a computer connection.

I was planning on using my HTPC's bluray via HDMI for bluray content - should I be bothering to connect w/ DVI-> HDMI to a ZT or other 2013 Panasonic Plasma I hook up - or do other workarounds?

I'm a bit of a newb and reading some older threads is making me think I am being led astray by worse problems on other sets... and potentially by an incomplete understanding of the issue itself.

Guess I just don't want to have my blurays compromised in any way - does this mean spending 100 on a standalone player is better than a 100 on PowerDVD? Was hoping I could keep things simple and pretty much have my computer being the only source aside from my TV provider STB...

hold my hand please..

EDIT: I see now that maybe my question is moot if Bluray content is actually 4:2:2 (or 4:2:0??) anyway - is this really not a big issue at all then? I guess if blurays are already lower than 4:4:4 I probably don't have any content/usage model where this issue would even rear its head, maybe just video games?
Edited by praktik - 5/6/13 at 5:58pm

There are several things you could first try to see if you can get 4:4:4 to work on your display.

First, what confuses me (and leads me to believe its just poor design) is that all fixed-pixel TV's have 3 sub-pixels to every main pixel on the screen (Red, Green, and Blue). To officially say a display doesn't support 4:4:4 (these days especially with growing connections for High Def. content) would mean that a manufacturer needs to create an algorithm for when to blend certain pixels for 4:2:2 input at all times (which would essentially be an "enhancement" and a conversion process in itself).

Some manufacturers don't give the "PC" input label option for HDMI ports on their TV's (LG and Samsung are officially known to do this, but there may be more. Sony does it with a certain picture mode). Make sure you have your HDMI cable plugged into the "HDMI/DVI" labelled port if your TV denotes it, as some HDTV's only support 4:4:4 input from certain HDMI ports.

You could try and see if your TV can do this "rename input label to PC" feature (have never used a panasonic HDTV before, but going from general HDTV experience), you could try the DVI-HDMI cable trick if the first trick doesn't work, or you could override your display's EDID as per this instruction: EDID Override Instructions for 4:4:4

As for your thoughts on Blu-ray, you don't have to worry about 4:4:4 chroma support even when using a PC (which is still made to use 4:4:4) because Blu-ray and television broadcast material are shown in 4:2:0 chroma (subsampling) which saves a lot of bandwidth for those applications, but since current spec. HDTV's and HDMI version don't support native 4:2:0, then next best thing is 4:2:2 (which has a little upscaling conversion to it).

HDMI 2.0 is rumored to change that with support for native 4:2:0 (as an option, I hope as I even prefer 4:2:0 output upscaled to 4:4:4, but you lose your display's 24hz cinema fps when you enable 4:4:4).

If all else fails, blame the poor design of Panasonic's video processor and menu layout. My grandparents recently bought the 2013 UE60F8000 Samsung LED Smart 3DTV and I hooked my basic laptop to that and its supports 4:4:4 (renaming the HDMI input to "PC" of course). So size is not factor for 4:4:4 support.
Edited by MDA400 - 5/8/13 at 7:42am

Hey thanks for the help! I realize too late now I was also posting in an LCD forum... and I am talking about a panasonic plasma... Hope the thread topic was 4:4:4 in general....

But I have a plan of attack:

Option A: go 16-235 through the whole chain to preserve optimum video quality, suffer a bit in games/desktop
Option B: try one HDMI connection that is straight 16-235 in the entire chain and a separate DVI-HDMI to another HDMI input on TV and have THAT one set to RGB full - switch modes when I am watching video vs desktop/gaming....
Option C: one HDMI connection @ RGB Full, will have some banding on gradients introduced when bluray content is converted to 0-255, but this may not be very noticeable and only introduces potential problems on calibration day

What a confusing minefield its been last 72 hours trying to figure this out! I am leaning towards option B....

Well if you're trying to achieve 4:4:4 (and don't worry. this thread is for all types of compatible 4:4:4 displays and not just LCD) the only viable option is Option B for you, because the others are just about changing between contrast range/black levels (which again is TOTALLY different than 4:4:4 Chroma output).

DVI-HDMI (Cable. NOT DVI/HDMI adapter as some adapters still contain HDMI pinouts in them which a compatible video card could treat it still as HDMI) should then "trick" your display into receiving a DVI connection which is designed for computing display use and with computer's, comes 4:4:4 chroma most of the time.

Also with Blu-ray content/DVD/Television Broadcast, its mastered in 16-235 video black levels (0-255 is Full range PC black levels). An HDTV is designed for 0-255 range, but can display limited range 16-235 material as well. If you want optimal contrast range for a Blu-ray, you WANT to show it in 0-255 range because then it enhances the 16-235 (fills in the 0-15 and 236-255 contrast shades) to fit the native range of your display (0-255).

When playing a video game, developers know that they can artificially capture all 0-255 levels to show from a console or PC so they send a 0-255 natively (consoles are also basically a PC). If you had a BLACK LEVEL setting on your TV, you would then set it to HIGH/NORMAL because that would tell the display to detect 0-255 levels as the input. With LOW/DARK, you are telling the display that you are sending 16-235 content to it and for the TV to fill in the 0-15 and 236-255 shades (this causes input delay which is fine for movies, but not for gaming).

If you send 0-255 content with LOW/DARK set, you overconvert which leads to crushing contrast. If you send 16-235 with HIGH/NORMAL set, you are not enhancing the contrast (pure black will become grey and pure white will become dim white). If you do not have a black level setting, when your display detects a PC connection (DVI/VGA) it will automatically set itself for 0-255 range. The Black Level setting is beneficial for HDMI because it can work with both video and PC content seamlessly.
Edited by MDA400 - 5/9/13 at 9:07am

(deleted due to double post)

Hey everyone i need some help, i have a panasonic plasma gt50 model calibrated and it supports this mode called 1080p pure direct which enables 4:4:4 30bit yuv. Now i have a problem, i was doing some tests and the 1080p pure direct mode is actually two settings in one 4:4:4 mode and yuv which is essentially ycbcr video format. So i have a wii u and it has a web browser, i pull up the magenta test pattern. With 1080p pure direct off the letters in the magenta box are blurry, when i turn it on the letters are sharp indicating that both the wii u and the tv is displaying 4:4:4 chroma, but now the colors are slightly off, the reds become slightly orangeish and the blues are a little darker. I'm guessing this is because consoles support rgb in games just like they should so maybe there is some conversion going from yuv to rgb and in the end there is color loss. Is there a solution to this problem. What can i do to have the reds looking normal again while still keeping 4:4:4 mode? Thanks for the help.

Well it seems like Pure Direct mode is the same as "PC" mode on LCD's in a sense that it enables 4:4:4, but also has a different picture profile "zone" than non-pure direct mode. This means all the Standard, Sports, Cinema, Vivid, etc. picture modes are not linked to the same name profile in non-Pure Direct (if you have made picture changes to one of those picture profiles before going into Pure Direct). That is why you may see the colors change different hue's and brightness levels.

YUV (or YCbCr) is a digital color space used for compressed media such as a Blu-ray or DVD (also television broadcast as well). YPbPr is the analog format, but is the same color space as YCbCr. With any type of computer (classified as something with a CPU, GPU, and memory), the default color space is RGB. The Wii U SHOULD be outputting RGB by default, but should also have an option to change color space if using HDMI and are watching DVD's or downloaded movies (since HDMI can support both the uncompressed RGB format and compressed YCbCr format ).

What I'm saying is you generally want RGB by default (even though Panasonic states that Pure Direct enables YUV 4:4:4 30-bit which is again, a color format used with compressed media, but a pixel format that is used with computers). If you have an Nvidia or AMD graphics card, you can force full range RGB through their respective control panels (when connected by HDMI of course). For the Wii U, just make sure RGB is being output and Pure Direct is still enabled.

If you find out that the colors are still tinted differently or darker than suppose to be after changing to RGB, it will probably take some color calibration in the form of tint for your red color and luminance for your blue color (if your TV has these fine adjustments). If not, color temperature, color saturation, and the main tint control are all you can use to correct this issue. But with the orangish red and darker blue's, it sounds like it could be the compressed color space you may be using.

Hope this helps.
Edited by MDA400 - 5/13/13 at 7:45am

Thanks for the reply MDA, i just read what the problem was. If you enable the 1080p pure direct mode rgb color decoding will be messed up, it was confirmed by chadb and he is right. http://www.avsforum.com/t/1470089/calibrating-vt50-to-rgb-444-source. Now i have an idea since the wii u has both hdmi and component entrance and component is basically the analog form of ycbcr (ypbpr) the color decoding should not be messed up since the signal will be ypbpr right? And that would allow both 4:4:4 and 30 bit yuv signals. But which is a better trade off? Isn't ypbpr analog and hdmi digital? Some users have reported using component cables on the wii u makes the color a little more vivid and the image pops out more and that hdmi looks a little washed out. But doesn't that just mean that component is crushing some colors since it is analog? Thanks.

I see and I will take note of that if I see that on a plasma in the footure (lol).

However, Component cannot provide true 4:4:4. While it is a YUV-capable cable, it is analog and not clean. Since I say that Pure-Direct mode is like renaming an HDMI input to "PC" on an LCD, it ONLY works on HDMI inputs and only if its a progressive signal (no 1080i) because HDMI is essentially DVI + Audio and DVI is a computer specific cable. Computer graphics also default to progressive scanning resolutions since a computer is capable of high bandwidth content.

With the Consumer Electronics Industry (CEI), Available Bandwidth is the key factor when bringing new resolutions or features to available media. This is why interlace signals worked the best back then because it only sends half of the image every other time. Today, with capable hardware and infrastructure, we can send a 720p or 1080i HD broadcast with HDMI as a digital and viable cable, but i guess 1080p or 4K is the next frontier so compression with methods like HVEC is the next step.

In summary, Digital is bit-for-bit representation and is capable of being lossless while Analog is a lossy degrading frequency the more conversion steps it takes. So I'm saying you may not get Pure Direct with an analog signal from a component cable because the TV is designed upon these measures and will prohibit it.
Edited by MDA400 - 5/15/13 at 6:31am

Hello, i have to ask a question about the EDID override, , mainly how to do it on AMD cards, on nvidia i was able to fix it in the drivers and in the registry, however i cannot find the nv_disp.inf anywhere in my amd drivers described in the nvidia link, and the currysauce link is dead.

I know my tv is 4:4:4, but i cannot fix it on my new amd card like i could my nvidia card, please help.

The distorted red text is hurting my eyes, so please, any help is much appreciated.

EDIT:Tulli in the EDID override thread helped me fix it, ignore my post, my apologies.
Edited by Tatsuya1221 - 5/16/13 at 10:33am

I can confirm the RCA 32LB45RQ (2012 32 inch 60Hz RCA) can do 4:4:4
I had to do an EDID override on my laptop (Dell E6500) and after doing that, my TV gave me a "Dot-By-Dot" screen size option and things are just swell. The blacks are pretty good as well.. I did take a screen shot with my camera phone