Need a better explanation of x.v. Color and Deep-Color...

7058 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by dalmeida, Jun 10, 2007

crellion

Discussion Starter · May 25, 2007

Sony is releasing HD-cams with x.v. color capabilities - pair that with the latest 36-bit Onkyo HDMI 1.3 A/V receivers and what do you get? Can someone lay out all this confusion of x.v., Deep-Color, 36-bit, 48-bit? It doesn't seem one single article I found gives clear explanations on any of these technologies....

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PooperScooper

· #2 · May 25, 2007

You won't get much without a display that supports "deep color".

Basically at the HDMI level, 1.3 allows more than 8 bits per pixel for RGB 4:4:4 and (I guess) YCbCr 4:4:4. It's up to the 2 ends to decide what color gamut to use when processing the pixel bits. Previously you only got 10 or 12 bit video with YCbCr 4:2:2 via HDMI (RGB is always 4:4:4).

larry

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crellion

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 25, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by PooperScooper /forum/post/0

You won't get much without a display that supports "deep color".

Basically at the HDMI level, 1.3 allows more than 8 bits per pixel for RGB 4:4:4 and (I guess) YCbCr 4:4:4. It's up to the 2 ends to decide what color gamut to use when processing the pixel bits. Previously you only got 10 or 12 bit video with YCbCr 4:2:2 via HDMI (RGB is always 4:4:4).

larry

But even upcoming HDMI 1.3 displays like the Sony 70XBR3 LCD which has x.v. color - will they be fully utilizing the 48-bit color capabilities of Deep Color?

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PooperScooper

· #4 · May 26, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by crellion /forum/post/0

But even upcoming HDMI 1.3 displays like the Sony 70XBR3 LCD which has x.v. color - will they be fully utilizing the 48-bit color capabilities of Deep Color?

The LCD forum would probably be a good place to ask that question. I haven't kept real close track, but I think the most colors any digital display can do is around 11bits per component. Except for cams and maybe future console games, the deep color is problaby only useful for 10bit RGB 4:4:4 or YCbCr 4:4:4 from DVD players and scalers. All disc and broadcast sources (SD and HD) is 8 bit.

larry

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phtnhappy

· #5 · May 26, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by crellion /forum/post/0

But even upcoming HDMI 1.3 displays like the Sony 70XBR3 LCD which has x.v. color - will they be fully utilizing the 48-bit color capabilities of Deep Color?

No, the chips can't handle 48 bit yet.

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crellion

Discussion Starter · #6 · May 28, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by phtnhappy /forum/post/0

No, the chips can't handle 48 bit yet.

What chip are you refering to? The CCD?

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jwatte

· #7 · May 29, 2007

Quote:
All disc and broadcast sources (SD and HD) is 8 bit.

That's not strictly true. The encoding on disc or broadcast is a compressed signal. That signal is most commonly decoded and noise shaped to fit in a 8 bit dynamic range, but there is no real reason why you necessarily couldn't decode that same signal into more bits. However, you then start getting into questions such as what the bit depth of the source data was, and how much noise the compression is adding that may drench out anything below the 8th bit.

Compressors are just signal fitters -- they try to fit a given input signal to a given encoding scheme. With a higher quality input signal, you could conceivably find a better fit, and then recover "more" signal on the decoding end. In fact, it may be entirely possible that high-quality encoding already today uses higher bit depth source data (but here I'm just speculating).

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HDMI_Org

· #8 · Jun 6, 2007

Feel free to give our website a try for an explanation of these different terms:
http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/index.aspx

The video's go into the most technical detail explaining about Deep Color and xv.Color. If this still doesn't help, please post another message or PM me, and I'll try to explain.

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dalmeida

· #9 · Jun 10, 2007

xvYCC allows the use of different color gamuts optimized for the material being presented. Its not sending more bits down the line like Deep Color, it just suggests a better color range for the display device to use.

Deep Color simply expands the resolution within the color ranges by sending more than 8-bits per color (or 24-bits per pixel). In the short term, HDMI chips appear to be upgrading to 12-bit Deep Color support (for 36-bits per pixel), but keep in mind that the video processors and panels may only use 10-bits of this data. Also, source material must be produced with more than 8-bits of color (or decoded into more bits after compression)

As for 48-bit Deep Color (16-bits per color), I honestly don't think you will see any displays or source material support this for a long while. The first part of the system to upgrade is always the transport system (i.e. HDMI) which is now only upgrading to 36-bits per pixel capabilities. Once the rest of the chips inside the TVs actually make use of this extra info and once there is more use of BR or HDDVD content with the extra data, then you might start to see vendors flirt around with deeper color, but the cost/reward ratio simply does make sense today.

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