[KBz]

WinDVD 4 boasts software gamma and color controls. My questions, though, are more general than any specific piece of software.


Is software based color mangaement a new thing? Or has this been implemented before and abondoned?


I assume this processing takes place before being sent to the video card?


Other than cpu cycles, what disadvantages are there to this approach?


Zoomplayer lets me adjust gamma for the overlay, and I had always assumed it was an interface to my radeon gamma stuff. Is that correct?


Finally, if there are other threads dealing specifically with this topic that I have not found (or bad on me -- the info exists in a faq), any links would be of great help.


Thanks.

 

[dwk123]

I'm no expert as far as dvd/htpc goes, but I have played with correction and gamma in Photoshop. Software gamma and color correction in 8-bit space tends to run into resolution and banding problems. Gamma is a non-linear mapping from input to output space, and if both of these are 8-bit spaces, there will inherently be either many-to-one relationships, or else resolution limits, which will cause banding (many-to-one) or decreased resolution (clipping) in the output..

The radeon has a 10 bit output space despite only supporting an 8-bit input space. This should allow the hardware gamma correction to outperform software. If/when 12 or 16 bit color is supported directly by the cards and OS, it won't make much difference.